In fact, in a 2005 survey conducted by former USGA technical director Frank Thomas, more than 80 percent of respondents said they like golf because it presents a "personal challenge."
The biggest deterrents to keep playing the game, according to that same survey, are family obligations and the expense of the game. Golf needs to address those more desperately than kvetch about the anchored stroke.
Equipment needs to be cheaper. The age of the $400 modern driver must end. Entry-level equipment not only needs to exist (which it does), but it needs to be hyped as much as the latest and greatest technology. If TaylorMade offers the Cadillac of clubs with its R1 driver and RBZ irons, it could unveil a Chevrolet equivalent -- durable, reliable and modestly priced.
However, most equipment manufacturers cannot do that on their own. They need full vertical supply-chain management to be able to keep costs down every step of the way, paving the path for good, value-priced clubs, according to Bridgestone Golf vice-president Dan Murphy. The likes of a Dick's Sporting Goods, as well as their golf-shop arm Golf Galaxy, could do just that with their ownership of several name-brand golf lines.
Families need to be welcomed onto the course. The joke is that golf is an escape from the chaos that is raising a modern family, but it should be the opposite. Golf courses are great spaces for kids to get exercise, spend time with their parents and learn a skill they can enjoy for the rest of their lives.
Some facilities are taking the right steps by creating tee boxes for kids, often found in the middle of the fairway. Go a step further and create a block of family foursomes. Take those twilight hours in the evenings and turn them over to families that want to golf together. It won't hurt the balance sheet. In fact, in the long term, it might help it as children develop an appetite to play the game on their own.
These are strategies to grow the game that are not easy. With almost 20,000 facilities in the United States, universal adoption would be nearly impossible.
Maybe that's why making equipment that supposedly makes the game easier is seen as a panacea. A 460cc driver in every bag and a sleeve of four-piece golf balls in every hand! For a person who doesn't play golf, that sentence read like Inuit.
Ultimately, golf has been using the foot wedge to kick the can down the road for decades. It has talked a great game in earnest, realizing its issues, but failing to put together a cohesive plan that can help improve participation in the sport.
Even then, however, that does not solve the problem of incidents like the one involving Garcia. Remarks like his put the sport under a bright, hot spotlight for the wrong reasons, with the public moving on before golf has a chance to appropriately distance itself.
And Garcia's case is not an isolated one.
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