On Wednesday, May 10th the leaders of the golf industry will come together in St. Augustine, FL for the 2017 National Golf Foundation Symposium. It’s a 1-day program where golf’s business titans review the most recent industry statistics, then speakers offer opinions and ideas on trends for the future and ways to grow the game.
Dear NGF Titans: a solution for future growth exists. It’s a fun, revolutionary concept that ticks all the boxes to resolve golf’s ills, but follows the game’s rules and keeps its core.
Check out PinShotGolf.com.
The NGF’s past symposiums — and nearly every editorial or speech about the state of the game — have revolved around the same litany of issues for at least two decades:
Golf is too slow.
Golf is too expensive.
Golf is too difficult to access.
Golf is too stuffy.
Golf is too hard to learn.
Golf takes too long to play.
Golf isn’t cool.
Golf is too ‘old people’.
Golf has died in the media.
Golf hasn’t kept up with the modern world.
On many points, these criticisms are accurate. Too many developers built too many courses that forced the game to be slow, expensive, time-consuming, difficult, stuffy. For too long, the industry catered to mature adults with time and money on their hands because that’s where the business was. But to survive long-term, golf needs a new focus.
Many of today’s industry thinkers have offered solutions to individual items on this list of golf’s problems. Many of those ideas have merit and have started to work. But no concept has tied all of these ideas together with a solution that can turn the tide on both the fun and business sides of the game.
Until now.
And that solution is posted online for anyone who wants to read it at PinShotGolf.com.
To the members of the golf industry, the golf media, hard-core golfers, golf fans: please read the concept outlined at PinShotGolf.com. Consider the idea and its arguments. Noodle it out. Break it down. Tear it up.
Provide feedback on where the idea makes sense or where it might be improved. Point out any holes in the plan. Comment on Facebook and Twitter using the hashtag #PinShotGolf to create a discussion.
Then help change the tenor of next year’s NGF Symposium by forwarding this website address to any of those titans of the golf industry you may know personally.
Because it will take those titans to get this new concept rolling and put growth back into the future of golf…