PGA Tour: It's Time to Jump Head First into the Asian Market

There’s no question that the center of the golf world is rapidly moving East.

The number of core American golfers (those playing eight rounds or more per year) has fallen between three and 4.5 percent every year since 2006.

More than 800 golf courses have closed in the United States since 2000.

Over the past two years alone, 249 golf courses have closed in America vs. just 91 new openings.

While golf has been on the decline in America, the exact opposite has been occurring in Far East.

In 2005, there were an estimated 500,000 core golfers in China.  By 2010 that number had jumped to more than three million, and industry experts are predicting that the number of golfers in China will exceed 20 million by the year 2020, which is still only 2% of their population.

The number of golf courses being built in China has increased by 30% annually since 2004 and analysts are predicting that China will need to develop 2,000 courses in the next 10 years just to meet demand.  And as we all know, where there is demand in the golf industry, there are thousands of struggling developers and architects all too eager to meet that demand.

South Korea has been dominating the LPGA Tour in recent years, and the number of core golfers in South Korea now equals the number of core golfers in America.  This despite a population of 48.5 million in South Korea vs. 307 million in America.

With the market rapidly shifting East, it came as no surprise to golf insiders that Acushnet Co. (owners of Titleist and FootJoy) was recently purchased by Fila Korea for $1.2 billion.

In fact, it would have been a major surprise if an Asian company didn’t gobble up Acushnet Co. last May.

The center of the golfing universe has also started shifting away from America on the professional level.

In 1986, American golfers made up 60 percent of the Top 100 players in the World Golf Rankings. By the end of 2010, Americans made up only 32 percent of the Top 100.

Although our American patriotism causes us to cringe at the thought of anything leaving our shores, Golf has never been solely an “American” game.  Golf is and always has been a global game, and what we are experiencing now is simply a shift in focus towards an area of the globe where the game is growing more rapidly than any other.

As might be expected, everyone within the golf industry seems to be adjusting to this shift quit well.  Well, just about everyone.

Acushnet Co. was acquired by Fila Korea, and their American Operations will remain fully intact for the foreseeable future.

Golf course architects and developers have focused virtually all of their attention on the Asia Pacific Market.

The European Tour began moving into Asia more than two decades ago.

The Masters now offers an invitation to the winner of the Asian Amateur.

And even many of America’s top professional are playing in Asia more often these days in an attempt to grow their brand in golf’s fastest growing market.

Yet the PGA Tour continues to make a halfhearted attempt to truly enter the Asian golf market.

Yes, the Tour started the CIMB Asia Pacific Classic in Malaysia last year.  However, it’s a “non-official” event, meaning that the win is not counted as a PGA Tour victory, no exemptions are awarded and money earned does not count towards the PGA Tour’s official money list.

The CIMB is essentially a $6.1 million exhibition match organized by the PGA Tour.

And then we have the WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai, which is another “unofficial” PGA Tour event, although it does offer the winner a three-year exemption and a trip to the Hyundai Tournament of Champions in Hawaii.

The CIMB Asia Pacific Classic is one thing, but the HSBC event is a World Golf Championship for crying out loud.  The only “official” PGA Tour events with stronger fields are the other three WGCs and the four majors.

South Africa has just signed a five-year deal to host a $10 Million World Golf Championship event with the venue and date still to be determined.  Although the PGA Tour has not made any formal announcement regarding the new WGC set to begin in South Africa, it’s unlikely that it will receive any more recognition than the Shanghai event.

The PGA Tour’s top brass continually talk about how golf is a global game and how they are making an effort to expand around the world.  However, despite the center of the golf world making an obvious shift towards the East, the PGA Tour is still reluctant to dip more than just their toes into the Asian Market.

Obviously no one knows exactly what the future will hold, but 10, 15, 20 years from now the PGA Tour may very well look back and view their early reluctance to expand into the Asian market as a colossal mistake.

The golf market is shifting East, and if the PGA Tour does not align themselves with that shift they will eventually be left in the dust.

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