WSJ: "More Debate Over the Need for Alt-Golf"

John Paul Newport uses his Saturday column to summarize and consider what he heard about all of the grow the game talk at the recent PGA Show, and mentions some of the alternatives (like Top Golf, photo below). 

On the possibility that golf is forever a niche sport with a small, wealthy, dedicated participation base unsuited to Wall Street's expectations...

David Fay, the former executive director of the U.S. Golf Association, dared to suggest as much from the stage Wednesday at the State of the Industry Forum. "The industry got bamboozled," he said.

In his view, the hype surrounding the build-out of golf courses in the 1990s through the mid-2000s, coupled with Tiger Woods's ascendance, spurred false hope. "I've always been skeptical that the number of golfers people talked about was real," he told me after the forum.

Mark King, who is spearheading the Hack Golf crowdsourcing push, offered this:

At a media breakfast Wednesday, Mark King, TaylorMade's chief executive, characterized one panel he served on as "the most wasteful hour of useless conversation ever." Leadership stalls, he said, "when you get the same guys looking at the same problem through the same lens year after year."

Thankfully, none of the other panelists thought the same thing of him!

As for Mark King's 15-inch cup concept, it's hard not to think (once again) how so many of golf's problems, cost concerns and expense would be solved by slower greens. Just think how much time of your life has been spent on greens, all because they are too fast.

The first will be King's personal hobbyhorse: 15-inch cups. The company has already signed up a dozen courses to host tournaments with the gigantic holes. The object is to speed up putting and reduce the frustration for beginners. Players will also be able to use a set of four super-forgiving, and super-illegal, clubs that the company has manufactured in limited quantity, and balls nearly twice the normal size. "If it works, it works. If it doesn't, we'll move on to something else," King said.