Times are a changin’ at Golf Canada
By Randy McDonald Golf is a game steeped in tradition. Its culture is slow to change. But change it must if it is to succeed in the coming decades. Gone are the days when private clubs had lengthy waiting lists with players eager to join. Today’s reality is this: golf clubs need to be more commercially viable, more family oriented, and more relaxed in the attitude towards things like dress codes. In other words: lighten up! Time, the state of the economy, and changing lifestyles are all having an impact on the finances of clubs. Many players are moving from the restrictions of a club membership to ‘Pay and Play’. The golf industry should welcome change. No doubt, last year…
Hardship. I think most of us know what the word means. For me it brings to mind the Franklin Expedition or the Donner Party, those living in squalor in Third World countries, Ken Green, the suffering in Haiti, and so on. But an editorial in the March issue of GOLF MAGAZINE left me questioning the meaning. So I looked it up. Follow up: Sure enough, I was right. Hardship is “severe suffering or privation.” So, can someone please tell me how this definition applies in this wording from the said editorial: “Teary withdrawals, rules controversies, confidence-killing injuries – Wie, 20, has endured more hardships than most people twice her age.” After reading it again, I thought for sure that the…
The mind wanders as you get into your elder years. I barely recall the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Follow up: I think there was a bombing and a great opening ceremony with Muhammad Ali, but that’s about it. Except a Nike ad that ran at the Games. It went something like this: “Silver is what they give to the first loser.” Then again, it might have gone something like this: “You don’t win silver, you lose gold.” The point is, the emboldened Nike ad emphasized winning at all costs. It wasn’t good enough to compete and finished second or third or 23rd. Just win baby. Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. Winning isn’t for the faint of heart, either….
John Keats could write some pretty powerful poesy. ‘To Autumn’ always strikes a chord with me. I’ve even committed one of its most striking lines to memory: “they think warm days will never cease.” ‘They’ could be some members of the golf industry. Follow up: They still think the game is in the ascendancy. They think this current economic slowdown is a mere blip, and soon, real soon, new courses will open and new products will glut the market and it will be 1999 all over again. Are they mistaken? Yes, sadly. Last month, I arrived for my second go-round at the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando. If this was a measure of the state of the golf industry, then…
Yes, it was Night of the Living Wireless Mobile Device Addicts at this year’s PGA Merchandise Show. Zombie-like attendees wandering aimlessly and texting incessantly, all but oblivious to the myriad exhibits that had supposedly drawn them there in the first place. Who were they calling, I wondered? A career change service? Their local supplier to cancel that order of $150 shirts, $200 slacks and $300 shoes? Or maybe the PGA Tour lost-and-found line to see if his Tigerness might arrive in time to save a sinking ship. Follow up: Whatever was consuming them, their detachment had a deeper meaning – people are losing interest in this game. As uneventful as the show was, it was a welcome sight on the…
It has been a unique experience writing a column for Pro Shop Magazine for over 13 years now. One of the challenges in writing for a magazine are the deadlines. Not that I was ever on time submitting my articles but one of the challenges was writing about something that was current at the time of distribution. (Deadlines are usually 6-8 wks before release) Follow up: I might as well share something else with you about my writing. My publisher/editor/owner put the handcuffs on me and restricted me to 1,250 to 1,350 words per article. So in my own inimitable way…I’d write over 2,000 words…knowing that he would slice and dice it down to size. I’ve been whining for years…
For years, I’ve listened to business gurus, neo-con fogies and those who don’t know what the hell they’re talking about, drone on about the “entitlement mentality” of Canadians. They hold their nose and choke on the phrase. They deplore our dependence on government. Follow up: Society is for freebooters – a survival of the fittest. As one neo-con conman once said: Canadians suffer a bad case of “homogovernmentitis.” The past few years have exposed the softness of that argument. The freebooters in the U.S. financial institutions nearly ruined the free world economy. Bald cupidity was given free rein. Do Canadians have an entitlement mentality? You’re damn right we do. And it’s way past time we started exercising it. First of…
So you think you have it tough, what with the economy, the markets, the environment, and so on. Imagine what weighs on a PGA tour player’s mind? What if he makes the Ryder Cup team and can’t use his brand of ball in the alternate shot? What if he makes only $800,000 this year and loses his card? What if he can’t handle one more swing thought or swing change? Is it time to hire an entourage to straighten things out? No wonder one player called it a hard way to make an easy living. Follow up: So, I have to ask, why make life harder for these guys? As if they don’t have enough on their minds, now they’ve…
Before I throw in the towel and yell “No Mas”, on the decision to bring golf to the Olympics, let me take one last shot at those bandwagon jumpers who love the idea and are ecstatic that Tiger was leading the pack as the ambassador for this cause. Follow up: As Scott Russell with CBC Sports says about golf in the Olympics, “that old Sesame Street tune sung by the Cookie Monster comes to mind. “One of these things is not like the other things. One of these things just doesn’t belong.” Cookie Monster might as well have been singing about golf vis-a-vis the Olympic Games. Although it’s a great game and a modern day obsession of those who can…
By most accounts, Andrew Carnegie was a nasty piece of work. Cold and driven, the little Scots émigré was the epitome of bald cupidity. During the gilded age of unfettered capitalism (1890s), he was the richest of the rich. Carnegie Steel (later U.S. Steel) piggybacked on a new process designed by Henry Bessemer which helped hyperextend its profits and vaporize its competitors. Follow up: Carnegie became a poster boy for the American Dream. That all ended in 1892 during a strike at his steel plant in Pennsylvania. Nine strikers were killed. The press vilified Carnegie, and Carnegie vilified himself. He quickly renounced his former life by saying: “The [steel] works are not worth one drop of human blood.” Like Dickens’…
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