Revolution looming

The game of golf will be revolutionised by the start of the next decade, according to new research.

Global investor in golf HSBC has commissioned the work to mark the 141st Open Championship.

The global banking company teamed up with leading consumer research agency The Futures Company to produce Golf’s 2020 Vision, a detailed look at the future of the sport over the next eight years.

It was based on interviews with a host of leading industry experts and players such as Royal Golf Club course designer Colin Montgomerie and leading professionals such as Padraig Harrington, Gary Player and Annika Sorenstam.

Back-to-back Open champion Padraig Harrington said: “You only have to look at the European Tour’s schedule and see how many tournaments are now being hosted by Asia, whether in the Middle East or Far East.”

Top players past and present are united in their belief that regional golfers will make up one third of the world’s Top 10 by 2020 with golf legend Player seeing ‘several of the world’s Top 10 coming from Asia’ and former World No 3 Paul Casey predicting the Top 10 will be ‘an equal split of Asian, European and US players’.

Key findings of the report include:
* Low cost urban courses will fuel the growth of golf in inner cities and emerging markets.
* New digital ‘smart clubs’, which memorise your grip and swing will allow players to analyse their own performance. 
* Six and nine hole formats of the game will complement the 18-hole tradition.
* Carbon positive golf courses will start to appear.
* Family friendly facilities will be developed for a new golfing demographic as men and women spend more leisure time together.

The research, which interviewed experts from the world of golf, media, gaming and the environment, revealed that the region’s success will be fuelled by economic growth and the rise of the middle classes which has seen consumers turning to leisure activities and children playing the game from an early age.

In China, for example, golf is perceived as a game that teaches children important personal values.

Free golf training is offered to kindergartners and some parents are now prepared to spend up to 300,000 yuan (BD16,500) a year on lessons for their children.

As players of different ages and genders mix to enjoy the sport, there will be family rooms not bars, holes set up for younger players and certified women-friendly facilities.

The traditional card and pencil will be replaced by automatic scoring and lost balls will be a thing of the past thanks to sensory chips.

The app will become a virtual caddy as smartphone and tablet software helps golfers make the right choices.

Gamers will become golfers and social gaming environments and family friendly golf video games will encourage people to move into the sport, not the other way around.

Increasing time pressures, and shortage of space in cities, mean that six and nine hole formats will emerge to complement the 18-hole tradition and golf will become a ‘quicker’ game.

Already courses are being designed with options to play six holes rather than eighteen, and France’s winning Ryder Cup 2018 bid, with its commitment to build hundreds of short urban courses, indicate the significance of this.

Improved simulator technology will also increase opportunities for short virtual games in the heart of the city.

Ryder Cup winning captain Colin Montgomerie said: “Concepts such as a short form of the sport could become more common place.

“Some people don’t feel they have the time to play a full 18 holes and golf may need to seriously develop its own version of Twenty20 cricket in order to keep pace.
“This could certainly help more youngsters take up the sport, which is obviously vital.

“It could be a flagship event being hosted at night under floodlights, similar to what Formula One has achieved out in Singapore.”

Golf courses will continue to provide the backbone of high profile tourism investment in many parts of world.

Golf tourism is growing quickly in Asia and the Middle East, which currently has the world’s most profitable courses and new courses are being developed as part of national tourism strategies in countries as far apart as Bahrain, Vietnam and Cuba.

Sustainability will also become increasingly important and sustainable course management will be a cost saving not a cost.

Golf will become a centre of expertise in water management, conservation, and biodiversity and the first carbon positive courses will open by 2020.