TaylorMade’s New Faster-Play Initiative

You Say You Want a Revolution?

True to form, at last week’s annual PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando there was a lot of buzz about the future of the game. Among the more interesting revelations: an ambitious plan to grow golf from TaylorMade CEO Mark King.

King’s initiative promises to make the game faster and more fun, both well-documented problem areas that tend to push recreational players into other pastimes or outright discourage people from taking up the game in the first place.

King’s first “big idea”—which really isn’t all that new—is to make the cup bigger. King, however, is talking serious girth: a 15-inch-diameter crater versus the traditional 4.25-inch hole. Lots of people have suggested doubling the cup size, but increasing its area from 14.2 square inches to 176.7 square inches? Wow.

“It saves time, it saves strokes,” King said about the bigger cup. “It makes golf more fun for a lot of people.”

At a recent test event at Pine Needles Golf Club in Southern Pines, N.C., King’s assertion was carded in a big way. Eighteen holes cut with the 15-inch holes helped slash average playing times for an every-putt-holed foursome to three hours and 10 minutes. Plus, an average of 11 strokes were trimmed from players’ normal average scores.

Both stats were expected, yet it does offer a potent solution for one of the game’s most loathed practices: painfully slow play on the green, where it’s de rigueur for players to take excessive time lining up multiple putts.

King announced last week that about a dozen golf courses will immediately start installing the larger cups, and he has received additional interest from other courses and golf-course management companies.

“We have to recognize the fact that we, the industry, have not been able to fix the massive exodus of consumers from our game,” he said. “Traditionalists are resisting concepts that will elicit real change, so it is time that the people have a voice and can share their ideas to reverse this trend.”

King is putting $5 million seed money where his mouth is. In addition to suggesting new equipment could be designed to help facilitate this new concept, he is asking golfers everywhere to chime in and suggest new ways to speed up the game.

Ideas—good, bad and indifferent—already are appearing on King’s blog, www.hackgolf.org.

Faster rounds AND better scores? Sounds like an ace.

RELATED LINKS

USGA’s Pace of Play Initiative

Solid Fast Play Tips from the USGA

Pacific Women’s Golf Association Plays Faster

Chris Duthie is a contributor to Colorado AvidGolfer, the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it. It publishes eight issues annually and proudly delivers daily content via www.coloradoavidgolfer.com.

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