The game of golf has been around for more than half a millennia, undergoing countless changes since its inception. New technologies, heightened environmental awareness and other variables all play a significant part in the sport’s evolution.
The Metropolitan Golf Association in New York invited a group of writers to take a look at the next 25 years and predict the industry’s future—or, in other words, their best guesses. The predictions below are excerpts and highlights from MGA’s “Golf in 2040” special section in the August/September 2014 issue of The Met Golfer.
- By 2040, the USGA will have splintered into two divisions—one public, one private—to deal with the different interests of the two audiences. The game’s various organizations also will have created a new entity to govern the professionals, since they stopped playing anything resembling our golf years ago.
- Not one course built between 1945 and 1994 will remain on the Golf Magazine “Top 100 Courses in the World.”
- You can cut the color green from the golf spectrum. Brown will be the norm, with almost no effect on how we play. Genetically altered turf, grasses that require little to no water and plastic tee boxes are all possibilities in 2040.
- Watch for rows of “faux trees” that can be unrolled at the architect’s whim, like a window shade or accordion doors. Or maybe like underground missiles, trees will be raised and lowered to make a course harder for club championship, easier for the junior clinic. Not enough light getting to the sixth green? Lower the trees for a few hours.
- A golf course somewhere—and I don’t mean one that goes to extremes to appear natural—will be designated a national park, charging admission so visitors can learn more about best practices of agronomy and environmental science, how and why they work.
- Golfers in 2040 will have personal drones, about the size of a golf ball, that will automatically give yardages, order lunch at the turn, and keep track of scoring and pace of play. A golfer in New York will be able to play a match against someone playing in Hawaii, under an elaborate scoring system. Some clubs will be so inundated by technology that they will ban it outright to preserve face-to-face interaction. These same drones will monitor your pace of play, and assist in moving your group along.
- Technological gains for balls and clubs will not be as dramatic in 2040 as they were decades before due to regulation and the equipment’s physical limitations. New materials for shafts will create lighter clubs though, and there will be more growth in golf club aesthetics.
- The Met will see no net loss in the total number of golf courses between now and 2040, but other regions across the country will experience a decline.
- Due to equipment limitations, there will be more focus on instruction and data collecting on a golfer’s performance. More readily available information on shot dynamics will encourage retailers to help players reduce their scores instead of advertise equipment. Come 2040, golf will still be a game of the archer, not the arrow.
- Trump Pebble Beach.
The Metropolitan Golf Association’s purpose is to foster sportsmanship, conduct tournaments, provide handicaps and promote the best interests of the game. For more information on MGA, please visit www.mgagolf.org.