Golf is boring. At least, that's the view of the majority of the people that breathe air.
I can't say I'm one of them, but I'm at least aware that golf's authorities can do more to try and promote the game and make it more palatable to a wider audience.
The game takes five hours to play, and watching the best players in the world take several minutes over the ball doesn't inspire people to take up the game.
The new European Tour chief executive Keith Pelley is trying to promote the sport by implementing a new format of competition. Taking inspiration from the success of Twenty20 cricket, Pelley wants to bring in new six-hole tournaments on the professional circuit.
The move, says Pelley, is all about appealing to millenials:
You look at some of the new formats that have been created - when you look at adventure golf, or the brand Top Golf, and there's one 15 minutes from where I live in Virginia Water. It's really geared towards millennials, so the way that people are participating in the game is completely different.
Let's be honest - and scientific data proves this - attention spans are decreasing as opposed to increasing and it's completely different when the choice people have to consume content now is so different than it was 35-40 years ago.
So you have to change, people's time is so precious that golf - I think every golf course being built needs to be six holes, six holes, six holes - so that people can go at the beginning before they go to work.
Pelley says the more digestable format would appeal to new fans, and added that if golf was being invented nowadays, the number of holes would be six or 12, instead of the 18 hole marathon.
The new change will start happening in 2017, with a bigger roll-out in 2018. It might just work.
[Irish Examiner]
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Photo by Diarmuid Greene/Sportsfile
