My thanks to Geoff Shackelford's fine blog for this post. It's in response to the New York Times article describing a general falling trend in the numbers of Americans playing golf.

It seems Greg Nathan, the vice-president of the National Golf Foundation took issue with what he called "a number of factual errors" in the Times story.



Nathan's lengthy explanation of where the New York Times went wrong and what the actual picture of the health of the industry looks like is a dandy bit of bafflegab that reminds me of Mark Twain's famous line that "there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics".

Through the clever use of numbers, Nathan reveals that recreational golf is really alive and well - it's just stagnant, showing no growth at all. Which was essentially the gist of the Times piece. It's all in how you define the problem, I guess.

Here's a sample of the mind-boggle from the NGF's response:

Regarding attrition, the writer stated that "about three million golfers quit playing each year and slightly fewer than that have been picking it up." The NGF never discussed this topic with the writer. In a study we did a few years ago, we estimated that about three million golfers come into the game each year. Of these, half, or 1.5 million, are retained for at least one year and the other half try it, and then decide golf is not for them. Meanwhile, 1.5 million previously existing golfers leave the game for three main reasons:

Mortality/Infirmity - some of the infirm return to play another day
Hiatus takers - they return later
Quitters - they don't return

Thus, there is a net gain of roughly 1.5 million new and a loss of 1.5 million existing golfers per year - resulting in little or no growth.

So, what I don't understand (admittedly, I get confused by too many numbers) is this: if 3 million new golfers try the game and half toss in the towel after a year, that's a net gain of 1.5 million. But 1.5 million "previous golfers" leave the game each year, too. Doesn't that add up to a loss of 3 million golfers a year then? Where's the problem with the Times story?

Fun with numbers.

But in the end, the numbers don't lie (sorry, Mr. Twain). There is a decided lack of growth in recreational golf. And I define growth as new golfers taking up the game and staying with it.

The hidden and most troubling issue for the National Golf Foundation is the aging population. More and more of us will be entering the "mortality/infirmity" category than ever in the next 10 years.

And we won't be coming back - at least not in this life.