The perfect swing?

“Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose.” - Winston Churchill

I must admit myself as a golf illiterate, having been routinely bamboozled by the birdies, putts,flops, bogeys, eagles, albatross and vultures ( what is it about the birds?). All I know about the sport is that you have got to put the ball into the hole with the help of a stick in the minimum number of attempts. I am also aware that a certain Tiger Woods has been running around with the dough for quite some time now.


United States scores over rest of the world with nearly half of the world's total 32,000 golf courses. But according to this article, golfing has seen a decline over the past several years in the US. The number of people who play the sport has declined from 30 million to 26 million since 2000. The golf boosters (number of people who play 25 times or more a year) declined from 6.9 million in 2005 to 4.6 million in 2000.

This is a part of the broader decline in the outdoor sports like tennis,swimming and hiking among others. The reasons vary from the ravaging hurricanes to family commitments to popular electronic games to the long duration of the game and related etiquette rules (like not using their cell phones on course).

So the game about which Wodehouse famously wrote, "Golf, like the measles, should be caught young, for, if postponed to riper years, the results may be serious." in danger of losing its charm?