The Junior Golf "Dream" Has Arrived

Last Sunday was the Drive Chip & Putt Championship at Augusta National and it was the most important moment we've had in junior golf in a long time.

Leading up to it, I wasn't sure what to expect.  On one hand, the old version of DC&P never really got traction and I was suspicious of whether something like this would "grow the game" as the participants would already be part of the golfing population.  On the other hand, there was the "wow" factor of Augusta and the intrigue of an event for children as young as 7 that focused on specific skills as opposed to the ability to navigate a lengthy golf course.

It turns out that the event was spectacular and all the organizations behind it - Augusta National, the PGA of America and the USGA - deserve a standing ovation.  So does the Golf Channel for their masterful production job.

What struck me about DC&P during and after the championship was that its value is much bigger than the event itself.  It fills a void we've long struggled with in the world of junior golf.

The best companies and organizations in youth sports are masters at selling "the dream."  Children learn, practice and play in pursuit of the dream.  In baseball it's making the all star team.  In karate, it's the awesome prestige that comes with being a black belt.  In basketball and soccer, it's making the traveling club team. And so forth.

In golf, the "dream" starts with tournament play and ends on the PGA TOUR.

The challenge is that tournament play isn't available until the age of 12 for most tours.  Golf courses are too long and challenging for children younger than that to walk and play, especially the 10 and under crowd.  Golf doesn't have a dream for these players that is immediately achievable in the way that making an all star team or earning a black belt are.  And, we know that the time to capture a child into any activity is before the age of 10.

At TGA, we've replicated Karate and many other activities by having a multi-level program that culminates with a black level, but the "prestige" element of it is still a work in progress as prestige takes time to build.

The true value of what DC&P accomplishes is that it gives the thousands of junior golf organizations and instructors this missing "dream" that we can sell to our young players.

We're already talking at TGA about how we can promote the upcoming DC&P qualifiers to our families and incorporate preparatory activities/events into our programming model.  Incidentally, two of Sunday's winners have ties to TGA as former students.  It's a very real thing to be able to tell our current students that if they practice hard now during our spring session programs, they'll be ready for the DC&P qualifiers in June/July and they could be on TV next year.  It's a goal that is available, viable, immediate and awesome.  That's the best kind of dream there is.  We're going to sell it at TGA and I think every other junior golf organization/instructor should as well.

Thank you to golf's governing bodies for the impressive accomplishment of creating a "dream" that is inclusive of all junior players and available to the entire industry.  It is exactly what the junior golf ecosystem needed.

Two Sets of Rules Are Better Than 20 Million

Hi All,

It’s been a while, but I’ve been gone for good reason.  2013 is turning into a memorable year for me and TGA.  We’re in the throes of building the TGA Sports Foundation, YTD franchise startups are double any previous year, we’re undergoing a shift in corporate structure as well as organizational culture, and it’s all given me a lot to write about.  I just need to (and will) do a better job of allocating time for it.

There are several half written blogs saved on my computer from the past four months, things I found interesting and started writing about but never finished.  One involved anchoring and bifurcation, topics that came full circle this week.

Anchoring has never felt right to me, but there’s also no evidence (even according to the USGA) that it helps.  I understand on a philosophical level why they decided to make and uphold this rule change, but from a practical level it makes little sense to me for a governing body to allow something for decades and then decide to abolish it.  Seems like they need to sleep in the bed they made as opposed to negatively altering the most important part of the game for dozens of professionals and thousands (millions?) of amateurs.  There’s a reason the USGA wrote their ruling the way they did and have been hording hundreds of millions of dollars (while simultaneously eliminating their grants program), and I wish the magnitude of the legal battle they’re preparing for served as the writing on the wall about their wisdom (or lack thereof) with this decision.

More disappointing to me is the opportunity lost for the USGA to have strongly considered adopting two sets of rules – “bifurcation” – to prevent the anchoring ban from making the game of golf even harder for many amateurs. 

I’ve heard great arguments against bifurcation, but at the end of the day my belief is this – golf doesn’t have one set of rules, it has 20 million as most amateurs create (knowingly or unknowingly) their own versions.  Therefore, it makes sense to me to have one set of simplified amateur rules that the most casual of golfers can understand and follow.  Make it three pages max.  Allow anchoring.  Play all OB, lost ball and hazard penalties like lateral hazards.  Allow winter rules year-round.   Etc.  All of these things would make the game less difficult/frustrating and speed up pace-of-play, two of golf’s most painful ailments.  And they would make the rules less confusing and create more conformity.  Seems to me that steps like these would be the ones that are really "for the good of the game."

For the professionals, keep the existing rules unchanged and make them theirs.  Every other major sport – baseball, basketball, football, etc. – has separate sets of rules for amateurs and professionals, even up to the competitive college level, so what’s the big deal about doing the same with golf?

I think it’s going to be a fascinating several months/years as this plays out with the PGA of America being angry about the decision, the PGA Tour claiming it will consider adopting its own rules, equipment companies considering lawsuits and amateurs facing the decision between worsening their game or being possibly labeled a cheater.  Not a good situation, in my opinion, for the USGA to put everyone else, and themselves, in.  For those of us in the industry and all the golf entrepreneurs out there, it’s worth following closely as the outcomes will have a big impact on what threats and opportunities exist.

Thanks for your patience with my lack of blogging, hope you’re doing well and I look forward to having a much more engaging dialogue for the rest of 2013.  Happy entrepreneuring…

Best,

Steve

2013 Will Be A Great Year For The Golf Industry

I love New Year’s Day.  It’s a day in which most of us are reflecting on the past, thinking about the future, and doing so in a purely optimistic and hopeful way.  One of my goals for 2013 is to approach every day like that.

I didn’t write a New Year’s blog in 2012.  That’s because, while being optimistic and hopeful about most things, I wasn’t for the golf industry.  I thought early on that 2012 was going to be painful, and in many ways it was. 

More industry professionals lost jobs, saw decreases in pay and were forced to look elsewhere for career pursuits.  I know because they were calling me.  Unfortunately most didn’t have the capital to start their own business with TGA as they had been living paycheck to paycheck for years as golf professionals waiting for the industry to turn around.

The USGA didn’t help matters by telling pros and amateurs alike that they’re cheating if they anchor (i.e. use) a long putter, literally causing backaches for the ever-important baby boomer generation.

The PGA Tour further hurt matters by literally wiping away the dream for journeymen professionals of making it onto Tour with a few good weeks at Q School.

But, as in all years, good things happened too.  Year over year rounds were up 7.7% through August, hopefully not the sole result of weather being more golf-friendly this year than last.  And there's new leadership at the PGA of America, with Peter Bevacqua as the newly-appointed CEO and Darrell Crall filling the newly-created COO position, both of whom come from business and development backgrounds.  These are positive steps forward.

But there was a bigger thing that happened in 2012, a bright spot that was/is very bright, that fuels my optimism and hope for 2013.  That is the early sign of a significant and critically important cultural and philosophical shift within the industry.  It’s difficult to describe this paradigm shift with concrete examples as it’s more of a feeling – little things picked up by open ears and eyes.  People being more open-minded to new ways of thinking and acting.  New ways to enjoy the game being thought of and tested.  People being less territorial and more collaborative.  I see it and hear it every day.  The number of golf entrepreneurs is growing.  The status quo is diminishing.  And I believe this is exactly what needs to happen for the industry to rebound, the game to grow and those of us within it to thrive with viable opportunities to build a career and generate wealth.

For this reason, I think 2013 is going to be a great year for golf as this feeling hopefully becomes cemented in strategies, decisions and actions – and we’re investing in that belief at TGA.  We’ve doubled our staff and increased overhead.  We’ve identified and are pursuing new revenue streams.  We are trying to execute an aggressive growth strategy.  And because I believe so much in these things, I recently increased my equity position in the company.

I hope 2013 is a year of innovation, collaboration and entrepreneurship for the golf industry and I wish you all the best in it.

The PGA Tees it Back While Telling Us to Tee it Forward

Adam Schupak had an interesting tweet recently that I’ve been thinking about.  It said:

Adam Schupak ‏‪@GolfSchupak

‪@JoshuaJTGA True but a mixed msg to say avg golfer should play fwd while pushing the pros back. If pros at 7700, whose going to play 6500?

There was intriguing dialogue back and forth about this concept between industry vets I know well and good points were made on both sides.  But the more I thought about it, the more I agreed with Schupak’s stance.

When you’re a kid shooting hoops in the backyard, what does everyone dream about?  Scoring 60 and hitting the game-winning shot in Game 7 of the NBA Finals, of course.  Or, at least that’s the scenario that played out in my mind almost every afternoon for years.

Fast-forward to adulthood and the same concept applies.  When you’re on the putting green lining up 8 footers, what do you imagine?  Is this the putt to win the U.S. Open or to shoot 88 instead of 89 on the local muni?

Kiawah's 9th Hole, a 494 Par 4

Tee It Forward is a great program and one that I want to succeed.  I bet we’ve all had too many bad experiences being behind a player or group that was playing inappropriate tees and holding everyone up.  A recent NGF study determined that the average round of golf takes 4 hours 17 minutes and 30% of golfers think that this is too long.  This is important considering most golfers cite golf’s time commitment as one of the two main limiting factors in how much they play (the other being cost).  Therefore, speeding up and maintaining a healthy pace of play is critical to the industry.

People want to play the courses the pros play.  The want to play under the same circumstances as the pros to gauge how far away they are from being as good as them.  It’s the kid in us that still likes to dream and play make-believe every once in awhile.  And telling folks to tee it forward while the pros are teeing it back eliminates the opportunity to do so.  Which is why people don’t play from their appropriate tees as it is.

Of course, the PGA of America has an obligation to the players and fans to provide a tough and fair test of golf, as does the PGA Tour and USGA.  However, I agree with Schupak that they’re sending a mixed message by using a 7,676 yard course for their national championship while promoting Tee It Forward during commercial breaks.

Next year the PGA Championship is at Oak Hill in NY.  Wouldn’t it be neat if they kept it at the length currently listed on the PGA’s website of 7,134 yards, or even shortened it to under 7,000, to align with their campaign?  That would send a powerful message, especially if they used other means besides length to challenge the players.  Otherwise, as long as the pros keep teeing it back, I believe the PGA will have a hard time convincing the weekend warrior to tee it forward.

The USGA's Impact on Golf - 2011 & Beyond

I’m in Colorado for a few days and I find myself thinking about the USGA.

The organization has been a hot source of news lately. 

On a personal level as the COO of a junior golf company, I was disappointed to learn that their foundation (based in Colorado Springs) was ceasing its grant program in 2011.  The USGA had previously given over $67 million to development programs across the U.S. since 1997.

Then, on Christmas Eve last year, David Fay announced that he was abruptly retiring at the end of 2010 after 21 years as the Executive Director.  Mr. Fay did some great things for golf during his tenure – including bringing the U.S. Open to municipal courses and recently helping to reinstate golf in the Olympics after a 100+ year absence.

The incoming ED, whenever hired, will have big shoes to fill and will likely leave a large footprint on the game.  In my mind, there are three immediate and significant issues he/she will face:

Equipment – most equipment manufacturers have maxed out their products within the USGA’s limits.  The 460cc driver is the most prevalent example.  There is little room left for innovation.  Thus, as the focus shifts from R&D to marketing, will the USGA consider loosening its rules or creating separate guidelines for equipment played by amateur players?

Handicap system – rounds, players, etc. are all down and have been for years.  From personal experience as well as talking to others, the main issue is time.  5-7 hours for golf (including travel, warm-up, etc.) is too long in today’s world.  Will the USGA and its affiliates sponsor a 9-12 hole format (or some other expedited golf set-up) and create supporting handicap systems?

Rules – with the recent examples at Kapalua and Abu Dhabi of fans calling in rule violations on PGA Tour players, a real question arises about how stringent the USGA should be about enforcing its rules.  I’ve heard recommendations from colleagues about the need for a separation between tournament rules, recreational rules, street-golf rules, junior rules, etc.  Will the USGA consider a tiered rules system that accommodates the different levels/aspirations of its players?

As an entrepreneur affected by the USGA’s decisions, I am anxious to see how these issues unfold.  They will play a large role on how entrepreneurs look for opportunities within the industry for years to come. I look forward to expanding on these ideas and hearing your thoughts in future blogs. 

Until then, happy entrepreneuring…