Minnesota Golfer - Summer 2023 - 4

EDITOR'S
L E T T ER
State of the Game
A
ccording to Golf Datatech (GDT), a market
research firm, golf equipment sales were down
9 percent through the first quarter of 2023.
Parsons Extreme Golf (PXG), founded by GoDaddy's Bob
Parsons and a maker of high-end golf equipment, recently
announced it was laying off 10 percent of its employees
and reducing retail hours of its brick-and-mortar stores.
PXG's moves indicate weaker demand for new golf clubs.
On the brighter side, GDT
reports that sales of " consumables, "
such as balls and gloves,
are up by roughly the same measure,
meaning golfer demand
remains strong.
Coincidently, at the end of last
season, golf facilities in the West
North Central region, including
Minnesota, reported a decrease
in rounds of 5.8 percent, according
to GDT. This marks the first
downturn in year-over-year
rounds in the previous five
years. When queried during an
MGA survey, three facility operators
pointed to fewer playable weather days as the reason
for the decline in overall rounds.
All things being equal, weather is a vital factor in whether
Joe Bissen, a sports editor with the Minneapolis
" It appears that golf in
Minnesota, in terms of
supply and demand,
has achieved a state
of healthy equilibrium. "
Star Tribune, has made an avocation of rediscovering
lost courses. Through diligent research and a Philip
Marlowesque expenditure of shoe leather, he has produced
a map (see Google Maps) and written two books on the
subject (see " Fore! Gone. " and " More! Gone. Minnesota's
Lost Courses, " Five Star Publishing, St. Paul, Minn.). Bissen
has established that 238 golf courses have come and gone
in Minnesota since 1897. His
perspective of boom-bust cycles
is fairly nuanced: after WWII
and for the next five decades,
Minnesota experienced a sustained
era of growth with little
loss in the golf course supply.
In a 1998 economic impact
study, Minnesota had 426 golf
facilities and 25 driving ranges.
After 9/11 came " the second
greatest era of golf course closings, "
Bissen says, with 86 gone
since the millennia.
Practically no new courses
have come online since 2005
rounds are up or down, especially in seasonal states like
Minnesota. This April, rounds were down 7.8 percent, but
favorable weather in May points to a robust rebound in
golfer participation.
Is it too soon to make predictions about larger trends in
golfer participation?
The game in Minnesota is more than 125 years old, and
it has experienced at least three boom-bust cycles, after
WWI and WWII, and after the millennium. Following a
sustained period of growth in golfer participation for much
of the 1980s and 1990s, the golf industry in the U.S. saw a
decline in golfers from 30 million to 23.6 million after 9/11.
More recently-since 2016- " on-course " golfer participation
is up 7.5 percent to 25.6 million, according to NGF.
4
MINNESOTAGOLFER Summer 2023
(the Royal Golf Club in Lake Elmo opened in 2019, but it
is technically a redesign of the Tartan Park golf course),
so it appears that golf in Minnesota, in terms of supply
and demand, has achieved a state of healthy equilibrium.
I only wish that my longtime friend Michael Turnbull,
who died in 2022, and who had long addressed the topic
of golfer attrition, in word and deed, was here to relish the
fourth boom.
See you on the tee.
W.P. Ryan, Editor-in-Chief
mngolf.org
http://www.mngolf.org
Minnesota Golfer - Summer 2023

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