Five Bold Ideas for 2024 to Expand Golf in the US and Globally

Golf Newsletter #4

Ideas for Expanding Golf in the US and Globally

Golf has had a great expansion since 2020. More golf courses are being built and renovated, more indoor golf facilities (simulators) are popping up, and more off-course locations like TopGolf, DriveShack, BigShots Golf, and X Golf America are opening. Now is the time for the game of golf to expand boldly in 2024. Here are five ideas to promote this expansion whose time has come. These are not new ideas. What is new is all five of these ideas can be put together in one package for every locality in America.

1. Golf In Schools

I have taught golf in Jose Rios’s class at a Brooklyn Public Middle School. He has a simple computer, a net, a mat, and a putting green and very, very interested students. Schools have the technology, can buy mats and nets and artificial putting greens, used golf clubs, and SNAG plastic golf clubs can be purchased or donated. One teacher or local golf enthusiast can attend a School Board meeting or a PTA meeting to propose this idea. Over 40 years ago in a foreign country, I watched public school students disembarking from a train with skis and poles, and they were learning how to snow ski on a public school-arranged and supervised trip. We can do this for golf. I have brought students on a field trip from Brooklyn Public Schools to Marine Park Golf Course in Brooklyn for a ½ day “Golf Field Trip” that students loved Golf in Schools can be at all levels of PreK-12, Community Colleges, and Universities.

2. Build New Golf Facilities Next to Sports Arenas and Stadiums

The public (taxpayer) helps fund new Stadiums, and from 2024 into the foreseeable future, there will be a boom in the construction of professional, college, and high school/middle school sports facilities. A modern golf complex can be added to this construction, taking as little as twelve extra acres for Top Golf-type facilities, seven acres for a full driving range, and golf simulators and synthetic putting greens surrounded by real sand in sand traps and a short game practice facility can be built underground. These facilities can become a sports, entertainment, and youth/adult services type of location on the site of future stadiums. Grass parking lots can be used for actual golf holes, like Brookside Golf Club at the Rose Bowl. Local PGA Sections should lead this project in conjunction with golf industry members working with local officials and Sports team owners to add this type of new golf facility for our people. This project would create great jobs for PGA professionals and serve a huge unmet need for affordable and entertaining golf facilities in both or cities and suburbs.

3. Expand The Scholarship-Based PGA Jr. League Program, First Tee, Girls Golf Programs, and Similar Golf Programs Expanding Access to Golf for Populations Who Are Underserved

Through a nonprofit organization, The Brooklyn Golf Alliance, a few years back I started the largest PGA Jr. League that was 100% scholarship-based. Every community with a PGA professional can do this. There are other great US and international-based golf training programs for teachers, including the USGTF and the United States Golf Teaching Federation. And there are millions of golfers who can put together a solid group of volunteers who play golf and would love to have a golf training program that is free and paid for by donations. Such programs can teach not only putting and chipping and full game but also teach golf history, etiquette, sports psychology, and how to feel comfortable on and be able to navigate a golf course or golf simulator setting. Public and private golf courses with driving ranges, chipping, and putting greens, which may also have simulators, are perfect locations for this. Indoor golf facilities with simulators and indoor putting greens also work well.

These programs can be year-round in the south or in the spring or summer. The golf students who have never played golf before would start out on the practice facilities or in the simulator and could be allowed to play several holes (all shortened) under careful supervision after they started hitting the ball consistently.

In your local area, be a leader and raise money to make golf learning free for low-income kids and charge reasonable rates for this same type of program for kids whose families can afford to pay a fee to be introduced in an instruction-based way to the game of golf.

4. Use A Golf Simulator and Introduce Your Local Golf Simulator(s) to Your Friends and New Golfers

Most cities have golf simulators that show you on a screen where the golf ball would go on a golf driving range or simulated golf course background. This is as good of a way to learn how to play golf and hit a golf ball as an airplane simulator is to learning how to fly a plane. Yes, one eventually needs to learn how to play golf on a golf course, but the golf simulator has forty-five advantages for learning and teaching golf over actual golf-playing conditions. See my article on this here.

Golf Galaxy, DicksSporting Goods, Five Iron Golf, GolfZon, City Swings, Golf Pro Delivered, and so many other companies have golf simulators set up, and you can rent them for as short of time as one-half hour. You can have parties there hitting golf balls, even dining in a casual atmosphere while one hits golf balls.  Or, a golfer can “grind,” working hard to improve on every shot by looking at and studying the valuable data and information on every shot you hit. In addition, many facilities with golf simulators video your golf swing on every shot.  Even if you are hitting golf shots by yourself, taking videos of your golf swing can be done easily on any smartphone today.

You can take lessons at hundreds of golf facilities now in the US.  The economic value of the golf simulator market is expected to reach over one billion dollars in 2030.

The price of these simulators, the software that runs them and the ancillary screens, projectors, nets, mats, and related equipment is coming down rapidly, so churches, mosques, temples, lodges and synagogues, community centers, public golf courses, country clubs, office and apartment buildings, recreational centers, college campuses, schools, and even public buildings where government services are offered could have golf simulators. Each simulator requires a person on call to help maintain and manage it, and much of this maintenance and management can be done remotely.  I even recommend the creation of a “Golf Simulator Association of America,” and anyone interested in starting this organization can contact me at herb@herbrubenstein.com.

5. Become a Golf Mentor

You may not have heard this suggestion before. I have a PGA Mentor, Brad Worthington, PGA. I have had golf coaches. I have golf instructors. I have introduced hundreds and hundreds of people to the game of golf. If you play golf at any level, you can take some time and introduce someone else to the game of golf. This game is difficult and complex, with rules even geniuses find hard to understand and apply fairly. But the game of golf is fun and brings great joy to people’s lives. Be an ambassador for the game, and bring someone under your wing, maybe for one season or longer, and teach them a little about the game, play golf with them, and become their Golf Mentor. You and your “golf mentee” will find the time spent rewarding, and you can help make a positive difference in another person’s life. Reach out to those groups that have been excluded from the game and are now in underserved populations, including girls and women, minorities, millennials, low-income people, immigrants, and people whose families do not have cars.

Conclusion

Golf is the game for everyone, and we can expand it significantly and permanently starting in 2024. Now is the time, or as NCAA Division 3 Men’s Champion Brian Peccie said during a tournament on the number ten tee that one of his teammates played the front nine in two under on the last day of a tournament:

Game On

No other words can describe 2024 in the golf world in the US and internationally. Let Brian’s words become your mantra for what you will do to expand the game of golf in 2024 and future years – Game On.

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