No one would say this considering the millions who follow the Ryder Cup or the Augusta Masters matches on television, or the fact that one and a half million people filled out the application to attend the recent British Open live in Saint Andrews (five times more than the tickets available).
But the world of golf is in crisis, and not only on a sporting level, due to the schism caused by the appearance of a rival league sponsored by the Saudis, but also economically: the number of amateur players and members who pay the corresponding fee for belonging to a club has been falling for two decades, with no signs on the horizon that it will rebound.
The 1990s saw a boom in golf fans, fueled by the popularity of Tiger Woods (before his marital infidelities, car accidents, injuries, and under-par performances). But since then the sport has been going downhill, with the small interval of the pandemic, when people did not go to the office, they had more time and they appreciated the possibility of playing sports outdoors, in a safe atmosphere. Of the 882,000 club members in 2004, only 647,000 remain, the vast majority of whom are retired white men of a certain age.
Attempts to attract young people and women have not been very fruitful. The former consider that doing eighteen holes (plus travel) consumes them too much time, and they prefer more "fast" sports (and they also find that making a birdie or an eagle in reality is much more difficult than in video games). they are used to). And the latter find that the atmosphere is quite sexist (there are still "men only" clubs that deny them access).
It also doesn't help that the facilities have often become outdated due to members' resistance to change, the difficulty of agreeing to spend money (they are often managed by committees) and the tendency to put complicated decisions on hold. Instead of arguing about changing the changing rooms or the bar, they prefer to discuss whether you can enter the restaurant in jeans and sneakers.
Investment funds, therefore, plan like vultures on golf clubs in trouble due to lack of members who pay the fee, and buy them either to completely renovate them and give them a more "family" air, or, in other cases, , to tear them down and, where the eighteen holes were, build a hotel or apartments.
In addition to all this, numerous public clubs, owned by local councils, have closed in the last fifteen years due to the austerity policies of successive British Conservative governments, which have drastically cut the funds of municipal authorities. And these, faced with the dilemma of whether to reduce assistance to poor families, delay garbage collection or close a library or a sports facility, opt for the latter as the lesser evil.
An additional problem is the changes in work habits and the increased demands on workers, who feel stronger as a result of the pandemic. The lack of labor also affects golf, and the gardeners in charge of keeping the greens green and immaculate are demanding better wages and more decent conditions, or they go with the music elsewhere, which is what is happening.
Some institutions have chosen to target the luxury market, such as the Wentworth club, acquired for €150 million by a Chinese investment company, which forced all existing members to re-register, after paying €120,000 for the privilege. to play for the next fifty years, plus an individual annual fee of 12,000 euros, or 20,000 for the whole family. Quantities that are not available to everyone. Something similar has been done by the Stoke Park club (scene for a famous scene between James Bond and Goldfinger in the 007 movie), acquired by an Indian tycoon.
Not even the clubs owned by Donald Trump in Scotland escape the crisis, which in a decade have not yet earned a penny.
