The Year That Changed Everything

In this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year, many golfers find themselves feeling a tremendous sense of guilt. You know what I mean. In the worst of times, for the lucky ones it’s been the best of times.

-  JERRY TARDE

We’ve all talked about the quality hours and days we’ve spent with our families. Hanging out with our kids— specially grown kids who have moved back home—we took long walks, we cooked meals, we conversed like friends, we watched Netflix, we did board games, and we even played golf together. Boy, did we play golf!

Nationally, the game nose-dived at the outset of the COVID-19 shutdown March through May but has rebounded dramatically. The research firm Golf Datatech is still forecasting a 6-percent increase in rounds played in 2020. Similarly, retail sales for golf equipment sunk in the first half but grew by 30 percent in the late summer and is likely to finish the year flat—a remarkable recovery in a tough economy.

And those numbers seem under-reported based on our personal experiences. Golf at the local level appeared to boom. My club in Connecticut is up 30 percent in rounds played this season as tee times were booked solid, more families played together, and there was a casualness on the course—leaving the flagsticks in, walking and carrying fewer clubs, not raking the bunkers, playing faster—than simply exuded a big dollop of fun.