Where have all the golfers gone?

That the Bermuda Golf Association chose to cancel this year’s Mixed Championship is disappointing but not really surprising. 

After all, the interest demonstrated by golfers in Bermuda continues to wane with each passing event. 

Frankly, unless there is a shift in this trend, more events are likely to get cancelled.

Over the years, the competitive spirit and drive of golfers in Bermuda has diminished considerably.  It used to be that entry lists would fill up quickly, whether it was a monthly medal or a multi-day event.  Not so today, with each event today attracting less and less of the target audience.

Major golf events played so far this year include the Bermuda Open, The Bermuda Amateur Match Play Championship, the Bermuda Senior Amateur Championship and the Bermuda Amateur Stroke Play Championship.  Except for the Stroke Play Championship, all events were seriously undersubscribed, with the better size field in that event being the result of some hard work on the part of Scott Roy. 

I managed to play in two of the four, one being the Senior Amateur and the other the Stroke Play, after receiving pressure from Mr. Roy. 

In years gone by, I could not wait for our national events to come along, and my name would have been one of the first to hit the entry list. 

Not so today, but why is that?

Part of the decline, I think, is a genuine lack of interest by local golfers. 

When I enter an event, I do so with a particular goal in mind. 

Sometimes the goal is to win and sometimes the goal is simply to see how well I can do. 

The key for me is to have a goal that I want to chase and try to achieve. 

I find that I am less goal-oriented today, with regard to Bermuda events, as their relevance has waned.

Perhaps golf in Bermuda has become just a little too boring, and just a little too costly, in a way similar to that of retail sales in Bermuda.

Retail in Bermuda has suffered for a number of years. Variety is lacking, affordability is lacking and any pleasantness that used to be present has all but disappeared. 

As a consequence, many people in Bermuda do much of their retail shopping abroad where variety, affordability and a pleasant shopping experience are all available.

The same is true for golf.  There are so many tournaments available in the big wide world of golf and they are being played on good golf courses with great practice facilities. 

The courses are usually challenging and interesting, the fields are larger and the quality of player is better. What’s not to like about that? 

Support for Bermuda’s golf events is likely to continue to shrink unless we can create more relevant and less costly events. Of course, that’s much easier said than done.  What’s worse, once the decline has started, it is difficult to turn it around.