Golf to the Fore

Biz news has been pretty heavy lately, so let’s take a breather and focus on a picturesque weekend feature.

According to numerous event calendars, August is National Golf Month. I realize these industry "holidays" are phony and manufactured, but they come in pretty handy sometimes as a news peg for a worthwhile but rather orphaned story idea.

The ubiquitous sport of golf is a likely pick that generates a lot of spending in most areas and is flush with novel spin-off possibilities. According to the National Golf Foundation, it’s a $75 billion-a-year industry in the United States – and that sounds low to me given the NGF claims that more than 28 million players a year hit nearly the nation’s nearly 16,000 golf courses.

Your state’s travel and tourism department likely can come up with an estimate of golf’s impact on the local economy. Besides the NGF, the industry-sponsored Golf 20/20 site focuses on the sport’s financial impact and offers myriad studies and reports as well as a directory of state-level affiliates. Golf Digest magazine online provides up-to-date industry news and trends.

Talk with local vendors about how they’re coping with this year’s grim economy, or to ferret out small business and career features. Pro shops, instructors, equipment dealers and manufacturers, golf course design and landscaping specialists, municipal golf course managers and vendors of supplies from food to fertilizer are just a handful of the ideas that come to mind.

If you like trend stories, find out whether courses in your area are keeping pace with competitors providing catering and banquet services for weddings and other non-golf events. Are they doing double duty, switching to cross-country ski routes in winter to maximize their seasons?

Another competitive angle: Many country clubs and courses are cutting dues, offering incentives to lure junior members and otherwise responding to their clientele’s financial straits. What are the hot discounts and promotions in your area, and are they working?
Play Golf America, a sort of information coalition sponsored by various leagues, also highlights corporate golf – surely that’s big business. It also features resources for golfers with disabilities – an area I haven’t seen explored yet. Even blind individuals play golf and there are trainers who specialize in helping handicapped people learn the game. The site includes a zip-code search function for many of its channels, so you can find local experts and providers easily.

If you’re covering the work-life beat, how about reviewing the notion of golf as a career? The Professional Golf Management program developed in conjunction with the PGA of America and offered at 20 universities nationwide touts 100 percent job placement. Doing what, they don’t quite say.

Or, take a look at golf as a career-builder in your business community. I’ve often felt at a disadvantage because not playing the game costs me a number of professional networking opportunities each year; you might talk with career coaches, management experts and the like about whether strolling the links with the boss really does help boost one up the corporate ladder. This 2008 survey www.CIO.com, the site for IT executives, says golf is over-rated as a way to chum up with business colleagues, but I’m not sure I buy it – especially for sales people and others who trade heavily on relationships.

Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make financial news and trends relevant to your audience.