The saviors of golf...in a photo caption?

    An article about golf lessons in the Hartford (CT) Courant this morning contained a photo and caption that innocently but profoundly revealed how promoters of the game of golf can enhance its fragile popularity.  
    As we have all read, rounds of golf are down nationally, more golf courses have closed than have opened in recent years and young wage earners are not flocking to the game, despite Tiger Woods and the popularity of junior golf.  The Courant article by reporter Bill Weir is his personal account of first lessons at a local golf school.  Weir's piece is an interesting reminder, especially for those who may have taken up the game in their post adolescent years, that golf is nowhere near as easy as Tiger makes it look.  But in referencing how his "near perfect drive from 150 yards [that landed] about 8 feet from the hole" made him understand "the intense relationship people have with the game," Weir provides some guidance about how to market the game to new golfers.  
    Promoting golf with 24x7 hero worship of Tiger is not, by itself, going to save the game (although it will bring out more idiots yelling, "GO IN THE HOLE!!!" on 170-yard approach shots).  Campaigns like the PGA Tour's "These Guys are Good" do not encourage people to take up the game as much as it encourages us to watch golf tournaments on TV or attend them in person.  The key to golf's future popularity is not how potential golfers relate to those who play the game but rather how they can relate to the game itself.
    The caption in one of the photos that accompanies the article provides the best evidence that golf may have an eager market of millions of new golfers over the coming years.  In the photo, four would-be golfers are practicing their putting on the green at Miners Hills Golf Course in Middletown, CT, as part of their regimen of lessons.  Two of the four are Ranjeeth Patla and Xiaohai Liu, and whether they are first generation Americans or second (I don't know the answer) matters less than does the ageless reminder that, like my great grandfather in the 19th Century, immigrants to our nation want to assimilate socially while retaining their own cultural identities.  And what more perfectly social American pastime than golf to help them accomplish that?
    Those conjuring ways to increase the popularity of golf should take note.  A few multi-lingual billboards and newspaper ads, more promotion of players from the European and Asian golf tours and more creative exploration of what golf can do for both body and soul may ultimately prove that rumors of the death of golf are greatly exaggerated.
    You can read Bill Weir's article at courant.com.