While golf has "never been more popular on" TV, the
golf industry "isn't booming," according to James Sterba of
the WALL STREET JOURNAL, who writes that since the industry
"boomed" in the '80s, it has "managed to ride the biggest,
longest wave of economic prosperity in American history to
almost nowhere. And so far, Tigermania has created far more
spectators than golfers." Sterba cites statistics which
"show that the game's key indicators -- the number of
golfers and the amount they play -- have stagnated for a
decade." National Golf Foundation President Joseph Beditz
said that the "latest figures ... reveal another flat year"
in '99, as about 26 million U.S. golfers "played around" 530
million rounds of golf last year -- "not much more than" in
'98. Beditz added that while about three million people
"take up the game annually, ... nearly three million ...
also drop out." Beditz said golf's "tremendous exposure has
created the impression of a boom," but Sterba writes that TV
exposure hasn't translated into increased participation
because golf "is too expensive, too time-consuming, too
intimidating and too difficult, say dropouts." More Sterba:
"The other Tigermania -- the infusion of fresh, young,
diverse hoards of new golfers into the game -- has yet to
happen. Somewhere between watching their hero on TV and
becoming golfers, many of them stumble into a thicket of
intimidation, cost and access" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 4/13).
