KEY POINTS:
Encouraging words and actions are coming from the head office of New Zealand Golf. New CEO Bill McGowan and a couple of his managers took some of the golf media out to show us their strategic plan for the next three years.
Bill wondered aloud if the sport
had ever had such a plan. I think there was one about 20 years ago when the late Grant Clements produced his scheme to win the Eisenhower Trophy - and was successful. Clements was recognised as a genius among sports administrators and golf became a trendsetter in how a sport can plan to succeed.
That was only about achieving a specific outcome. This time it's about all the really big issues affecting golf membership, finance and administration as well as elite and high performance results.
The objectives are noble but obvious: for New Zealanders to achieve international success, for club membership and participation to increase, to ensure high profile events continue, that the governance suits the modern day environment and that NZG is financially viable.
This is nothing less than should be expected from a sport which claims to have around 15 per cent of the population playing at least once a year. Actually achieving the outcomes is going to make some people quite uncomfortable.
The best aspect of the whole concept is that the dog might now actually wag the tail. In other words, head office will lead the way in improving the game.
Golf is a sport based on clubs. They own the property and attract the players and, for more than 100 years, most have been more than content to make their own decisions and follow their own path with precious little support, interference or assistance from head office. Club golfers pay for both provincial and national administrative bodies through their levies but get virtually nothing in return.
But most golf clubs in New Zealand are struggling to make ends meet. Most have a stagnant or decreasing membership. How clubs reverse that trend is a debate to which head office has never really contributed. Now, after research, McGowan and his staff want to help clubs grow by offering ideas on added-value subscriptions.
Head office will take a road show around the country talking to provincial and club officials, setting out their plans for the game and offering help to make them all better golf organisations.
Along the way some of those organisations will disappear, and not before time. Some district associations can expect amalgamation, the unwieldy structure of 42 elected national councillors meeting four times a year is certain to disappear.
Head office might even subtly suggest some clubs are not viable and would be better off merging with a neighbour.
At a playing level, there are plans to make national tournaments more relevant by holding them on more demanding courses and having different management for the events considered not much more than social golf.
The high performance programme will include help to young professionals for up to the first five years of their career. More importantly, some young players will be advised not to become professionals because they won't be good enough.
The strategic plan is well overdue. Golf has to change to survive.
But I can already hear the howls of protest from those who see themselves being disadvantaged.
The changes have to be well managed, but unless they happen, golf will continue to lose relevance and resonance in this country.
