by bill b
"They've got the money, time and inclination, so why aren't they flocking to golf?"
You guys in the industry seem to consistently miss the point ... it's economics --both cost and time. We boomers are voting with our pocketbooks and our time management planners, and you guys don't get it.
The golf course industry has a "Field of Dreams" complex: if we build it they WILL come. Every year the industry blaunches more highly touted "upscale" (read expesnive, overpriced,unwalkable) courses often layed out through development or resort property (read long green-to-tee travel times between holes)open.
And in today's society where "time is money" with everyone plugged in virtually 24/7, who wants to plod around a golf course for 4-1/2 to 5-1/2 hours and even longer?
Pure and simple: there are many courses that I'd like to play, but won't because they are too expensive and others that I won't play because unless you are one of the first to tee off, the round will be excruciatingly long with more waiting than playing - often due to the GPS gizmos and the ever present golf cart.
In England where the golf "trolley" is almost unheard of there is a public course with a sign posted on the 1st tee: "Please enjoy your round on our course in three hours ... so that you may return later in the day for a second round."

by alan
Up where I live in the Quebec province of Canada, we can still walk the links . A good 4 miles walk sure makes you feel thirsty. It,s a blessing to drink that cold beer at the 19th hole knowing that we deserve it. Golf is more fun walking the links, it's ZEN
Playing the game in the us ( Florida & North carolina)is a comemrcial thing. Pay, hurry up and drive the buggy.

by Mike
When the cost of a round approaches one hundred dollars to play at something other than a cow pasture, a few hours at the gym becomes more attractive and less time consuming.

by Steve
You have hit a birdie with this one... Walk and carry the clubs, or at least walk and pull the cart. If you want to drive a cart get a go-cart. The pleasure of walking a course at your leisure is worth charging more for.
54 and a boomer.

by jbdjr
I've been walking for years.
I boycott courses that require carts.
It may limit my selection, but my golf
is much more enjoyable. GPS is for NASA!
Look at new courses like Bandon Dunes.
They get it.

by Bill
Hmmm . . . I prefaced my comments with the proviso that they apply to the point Nessmith made about exercise. The reality is, carts eliminate exercise from the game and walking is not an option during most of the hours available to play at most courses across America. But let's not go off the deep end. There are, in fact, millions of boomers playing. Seems to me there may be more boomers than any other demographic on the course. Take the boomers out of golf and not a course in America avoids bankruptcy. The point is, people between, say, 40 and 60 years of age who are looking for exercise will have trouble finding it on the golf course. The carts rule, and that's too bad. I agree with DL about SOME instructors keeping the important knowledge to themselves while they take up your expensive lessons with countless tips that confuse more than enlighten. However, golf is a tough game. If anyone has two tips that within 90 seconds can give me a swing that will soon have me shooting in the 70s, I need to have that information. Please stick it to the PGA and post that information here, post haste.

by Wyomick
Hey DL, it does have something to do with pace of play. I'm a 58 year old geeser and carry a 4.0 and was in the 1st group off (all with likewise abilities) in the 2nd day of the club championship for our men's club; in carts, no GPS allowed. On #11, behind the clubhouse, little Lord Falteroy the pro comes screaming out on the fairway in his cart, assistant in tow, yelling: HEY, THIS AIN'T THE US OPEN; YOU GUYS ARE AT 2:21 HOURS ON YOUR ROUND; YOUR GONNA BACK THE WHOLE COURSE UP ALL DAY! We're the men's club who pays a tiddy sum to be so, and individual tourney fees too, and it is the club championship, but machs nix. If management isn't willing to give us a break on this event, it's not likely to get better for joe public walking geesers. I suspect there are lots of stories like this. Problem is, in 3 years of playing at this course, I've yet to see a "player assistant" ask someone to step up play, not once, walking or riding.

by DL
It has very little to do with carts or the pace of play.
The reason boomers don't golf--it's too difficult to play. How many people would ride bicycles if they had a wreck ever quarter mile? How many bowlers would there be if every other shot was a gutter ball?
Golf instruction for the masses--i.e. the PGA of America--needs an enema. There's no reason in the world a highly efficient golf swing can't be taught in a matter of minutes. There are 2 year olds (Tiger Woods) who have near perfect swings. There are teenage LPGA pros weighing less than 125 pounds who've had world class golf swings all their lives.
The golf swing is a very simple motion. Two parts, that can be explained in 90 seconds or less. Yet the PGA of America keeps students coming back for a lifetime of lessons. One lesson, two max, should suffice for any beginner to have the tools to easily shoot in the 70s or 80s within a few months. That's "the secret". That's why boomers don't golf--they don't wont to take up a sport they're going to suck at for the rest of their lives. And those who know aren't sharing.

by Bill
Within the context of exercise that Nessmith frames his column, if boomers are not golfing in representative numbers, notwithstanding their average wealth, the golf cart factor does, in my opinion, have something to do with it.
We know we need exercise, and exercise is not available on most courses, most of the time. And we're busy guys. No time for the gym AND golf. It's one or the other. I have belonged to the gym. Not my personal cup of tea. Thought it was fun for the first, oh, three visits. And don't even talk to me about the rusting exercise-machine that for years has sat unused on the back porch.
I took up golf 5 years ago for health reasons. I walk the course, with the bag on my back, and that is my only source of exercise. I walk nine holes three times a week on average, but often one or two of those rounds are 18 holes. I ride the cart only when I have to for a tournament or when playing with nonwalkers. Even then I often grab my bag off the cart and take off walking. I have lost 55 pounds and am in better shape and health than I have been in twenty years. For those who disparage walking a golf course as a form of exercise, claiming it's nothing but a gentle walk interrupted every minute or two, you couldn't be more wrong. You hump those clubs for five miles and you have had some serious exercise. (See 55 pounds, above.) And I know from experience that using a pull- or push-cart is almost as good a form of exercise. Conversely, riding the cart is virtually no exercise, so what's the point for guys like me?
Most golf walkers will tell you they are aware of a sort of snobbism on the part of cart-riding golfers. It seems to have something to do with an attitude of, "Why in the world is that guy walking? Why would anyone walk a golf course? How does he carry a beer?" The common sight of golfers, including 22-year-old fit ones, racing around the course in a cart has made me a reverse snob, as I wonder where in the world the golf culture went wrong.
Cart racers seemingly care only about getting to the ball as soon as possible. Oh, and don't you just love the super-cute trick of slamming on the brakes whenever possible -- downhill grades are the best -- in order to scrape as much rubber off the tires as possible and announce to the world that the really fun guys are in the vicinity. The pleasant experience of actually enjoying some of the prettiest scenery in the area is apparently lost on these folks. The walker's technique of eyeballing his ball, its lie and the line to the pin, and of planning shot strategy and club selection for a minute or so during the walkup, is not a part of the cart racers' lives. Too bad, I've learned it's an important part of game strategy.
My local course is a good one for walking, with a few modest hills, two fairly stout ones, and plenty of pleasing scenery. The recommended play time is 4 hours, 20 minutes. My walking buddies and I play a round in about three-and-a-half hours, if not held up. I wouldn't want to play it in less time -- it's too pleasant an excursion to rush.

by Steve Schmitt
We don't need to encourage Boomers or anyone else to take up the game. It's hard enough now to get a tee time without more golfers vying for the available slots. The "pace-of-play police" that you mentioned are a joke at most courses. The concept of actually making people get their little bodies moving after hitting a shot never occured to most marshalls--nor to most of the dummies who want to stand around and chit-chat before and after hitting their shots. They certainly need to stand around and think about what they just did for a few minutes before they decide to head to their next shots. That is the main reason that dolts who play in four hours think they are racing around the course.
They used to be called "TV Golfers". Maybe you should sponsor a contest to come up with a new name for the folks who have zero consideration for anyone but themselves on the golf course. If a course marshall should submit the winning entry, maybe you could give him/her a cattle prod for a prize.

by JML
This author has fallen for the myth that middle aged people are in the last stage of their lives. It's middle aged people. If the average life span in the US of A is 78 then:
First age is from 1 through 26
Middle age is from 27 through 52
Third age is from 53 till we croak
This puts about half of the baby boomers past middle age already.
I am one of those and I walk forty or fifty rounds a year.
If you are living in a place the courses make you use a cart maybe you are living in the wrong place?

by Nick
Hold-on there. I own two health and fitness clubs with a large number of older members (several hundred) --some in their late 80s -- even their 90s. In fact, we cater to this older crowd. Alot of them can kick your butt. As for hip replacements, knee replacements, injuries, etc. -- Let me tell you, far more people end-up with these problems as a result of years of inactivity and lack of exercise than from injury due to exercise. Injuries are usually the result of improper technique or lack of supervision and proper training. That happens with young as well as old. In fact, we virtually NEVER have an injury in the clubs. Doctors are constantly sending us their older patients to GET EXERCISE after these surguries and to improve other ailments like diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure.
Golf is good for stretching, but the human body -- even an older human body -- needs aerobic and weight-based exercise.
Slowness of play is not the problem -- it's always taken 4-5 hours to play a round. Everything has to be rush, rush, rush. Learn to relax and enjoy the game and the scenery.

by Hoyt Decker
For the record, here is the article Nessmith is talking about:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/sports/16boomers.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Headline: "Baby Boomers Stay Active, and So Do Their Doctors"
Published April 16.
Check it out at nytimes.com

by Nick Aramino
Thank you, Hoyt. I'll read it. It just aggravates me that they skew the truth. OF COURSE more people are going to have injuries if they're kick boxing for crying outloud. But 90 percent of our older members have joined to correct or improve a medical problem they developed, at least in part, due to LACK OF EXERCISE. Bottom line is -- far more people are healthier as a result of exercise than are injured from it.

by JayFrederick
Amen to those sweat-soaked folks in the lycra jungle. Get them on the course. Most courses will, with a little encouragement, find a way to walk the course or at the least, set aside days (like the club I belong to) in which certain days are designated as "walk only". It has an uncluttered pace, a chance to see the course and moreover, the time spent dodging the avalanche of carts is avoided.
I can ride and play my course in about 3.5 hours. I can walk and play my course in about 3.75 hours. Do the math.
Of course, by all means, wear your IPOD, carry your cellphone, activate your pager and then bug the hell out of your playing partners.
Slow play is still the worst offense that a course can allow....cellphones are a close second.