"Apps May Kill Golf As We Know It"

Roger Groves thinks smart phone apps will eventually kill the game. I'm not sure I'm buying it, but he certainly makes an interesting case that they could, at some point, add to golf's slow play woes.

The way I play, 18 holes is long enough. Apps that prolong it and then remind me of my failures are App-torturous and should be illegal. Yet we would have to reverse the profit motive in one of America’s most lucrative and ascendant for-profit industries to stop the intrusion of Apps and STU phones on the course. There is probably no handicap that can equalize my chances of avoiding these consequences.

As of early December, 2011, we crossed the threshold of having over one million Apps. The techno golf era is stalking the fairways. Nothing I see is sending it back to the clubhouse until every player is solicited with Apps for the swing, the strategy, the shot, the statistics, the co-golfer comparisons, and other score-dropping calculations from your STU phone. Don’t expect the golf courses to ban STU phones. If billion-dollar football and basketball industries cannot resist the advertising revenues, why would a struggling golf course industry? Will you resist? See you at the “How to Correct your Slice” App.

And on that note, Golf Digest announced two new partnerships, including a GolfLogix app tie-in that Groves will hate and a GolfNow app with course ranking info.