For years, the golf industry has repeated one goal: grow the game. Courses, equipment companies, and professional tours have tried to attract women, younger players, and people who may have once seen golf as expensive or unwelcoming. But since the COVID-19 pandemic, golf has risen significantly in popularity, and another phrase has begun circulating among longtime players: “shrink the game.”
The phrase, usually said as a joke or a complaint, does not mean people want golf to literally disappear. It means that some experienced, longtime golfers miss the way things were before the pandemic. When tee times were easier to find, the pace of play was faster, and a weekend round did not need to be booked far in advance. Golf once felt like an easy escape from the crowds, but now, in their opinion, it is another trip right into the masses.
The clearest issue is the pace of play. At busy public courses, tee times are only scheduled a couple of minutes apart. When one group falls behind, either because a player is struggling on a hole or because they are just simply not moving fast enough and wasting time, the delay can spread through the entire course, turning a four-hour round into a five or six-hour one. In a recent survey conducted by Golfshake, 74 percent of respondents said slow play was their biggest frustration with golf. For people balancing jobs, school, or family responsibilities, an extra-long golf round can make it hard to fit into a day.
Cost is another argument to shrink the game. As more players want to play, demand rises, and with it so do green fees. A golfer may now have to pay more for the same course as before the pandemic, while also now receiving a slower, more crowded round. This has created a contradiction in the sport: golf may be growing in popularity, but regular players can feel pushed out because of the high costs and the inconvenience that growth brings.
Course behavior has added even more tension. Critics of the new golf culture often complain about loud music, carts driven carelessly, trash left behind, and players who fail to repair divots or ball marks. Another problem is that groups often do not let faster players through. All of these actions can damage the course and negatively affect everyone’s experience.
At Belmont Hill, the “shrink the game” conversation has a local connection. Golf is not a minor activity at the school, with the varsity team among the most successful. But over the past couple of years, there has been a dramatic increase in recreational participation among students, coinciding with the rapid, widespread golf boom across the board.
Golf does not have to be silent or overly formal; students can joke around with friends, making the round social, but that freedom also comes with responsibilities to respect the course and the game, which BH students have excelled at balancing. David Robinson, Form VI, said that it is a real balancing act: “As a recreational golfer, I like to think of my time on the course as the golden rule: Treat the course and the sport the way I would like to be treated, don’t hold up play and don’t destroy the course.”
However, the debate about shrinking the game can quickly turn into gatekeeping. Not every casual golfer is disrespectful, and not every experienced golfer follows the rules to a tee. The phrase shrink the game captures real frustration, but it also raises a larger question: can golf grow even more without sacrificing what makes the game unique? The answer to this question may depend on the expectations of the courses. Better beginner education, more time between tee times, faster play enforcement, and respect for the course could help golf continue to grow while protecting the patented experience of being out on the links.
