Great Time To Learn Golf. Not.

Filed in archive Golf Business on November 22, 2008

Courtesy: nytimes.com

I want to write further about the global economic financial situation and its impact on the game of golf. I do so because the current situation is unprecedented.

It is the worst global scenario in 80 years and we just don't know where it's going to bottom out. Deflation, depression, runaway inflation? Arguments can be made for all of them.

In my last post, I argued that golf resorts now being built are in for very tough times. They are essentially nearing completion at a point in time where a Perfect Storm of negative pressures exists.

Tight credit, consumer spending that is falling so fast that retailers around the world are stunned, export-driven economies like China and Japan that are imploding, banks that are still not out of the woods (Citigroup plans to lay off 50 thousand employees early next year; they've already dumped more than 25 thousand around the world).

And at least one car company in Detroit that likely won't see next spring.

In the midst of this firestorm, Golf 20/20, an organization dedicated to bringing new players into the recreational game, launched its program on Armistice Day. How ironic, given that the world's finances are akin to a battlefield strewn with bodies.

The program is called Golf Get Ready and, unfortunately, it's funded by the private sector.

Golf 20/20 plans to raise money by selling sponsorships to golf and golf-related companies. The goal is to raise 3 million dollars and begin rolling out a 3-year program as early as next year at participating golf courses around America.

It's laudable but it's almost doomed to be stopped dead in its tracks before it starts.

No matter that it has incentive payments to entice golf courses to participate in the program by covering some of their start-up costs; it's the fact that it's selling packages of lessons for $99 US to beginner golfers.

Golf 20/20 has given up trying to get kids to play the game by teaching golf in phys-ed classes in schools. It's now targeting America's adults.

But pitching to adult consumers in the U.S. is a nightmare right now. 1 in 6 American homeowners is in a negative equity situation where the size of the mortgage exceeds the value of the property. If that adult works in the financial community, forget it. He or she has probably been laid off.

And you want them to pay out a hundred bucks for golf lessons and then hope they spend more hundreds on equipment and greens fees?

Let's say these adults are still employed and are still willing to make mortgage payments to avoid foreclosure. What about their investment portfolios? Blown out of the water.

That will sure make them want to take up golf. To relax, you know.

Golf 20/20 has my support. But their timing is absolutely lousy. And they knew it, coming in.