The problem with India's golf boom

by Bob Vasilak

I have seen the future of golf in India, and it scares the heck out of me.

I saw it in the form of a horror story called "Going Greens: India's Golf Boom" that was published in February by Global Post. You should read it for yourself. Do it in a clean, well-ventilated place.

The story starts all bright and sunny. Over the past five years, it says, "new courses have mushroomed all over the country," which is a good thing. Even better, it says, more new courses are in planning or under construction. Ashit Luthra, the chairman of the Indian Golf Union, gives a prediction: "We are just short of 200 courses, and we expect that we will put up in the next decade more than 100 courses."

So far, nothing to fear.

But things soon started to get weird.

I read that "India's skyrocketing residential real estate market has played a big part in the boom." I read that golf, "aided by corporate support and a rising middle class," is "fast becoming big business in India."

Then I read something that took my breath away. It came from Luthra, who says that golf "is becoming a corporate sport."

A corporate sport? Big business?

Are these supposed to be virtues? Is this good for golf?

Only if you're running around with dollar signs in your eyes.

Yes, golf is hot in India, just as it is in any nation with a lot of people, a lot of money, and a functioning economy. But remember, nearly a half-billion Indians live in abject poverty. If you do the math, the way the World Bank did, you find that one-third of all the really poor people in the entire world live in India.

That's really scary.

But let's not dwell on the slumdogs. Let's focus on the millionaires.

Heck, that's what India's golf industry is doing!

"Virtually every major real estate developer in India is turning to golf," says Global Post, "as a way of marketing their properties to an elite."

In other words, big companies are using golf to sell real estate to rich people.

No surprise there. It happened in the United States, and it's happening now in India and China. It'll happen in Russia and Middle East, once their economies revive. Maybe it'll happen everywhere.

But I have the sense that the golf industry in India doesn't fully realize what it's gotten itself into. Does it know that the development model it's supporting has completely flopped in the United States?

The people who are supposed to be tending to India's nascent golf industry are now officially taking direction from corporate big-wigs -- home builders, hotel operators, resort developers -- who have absolutely no stake in the future of golf.

I know it feels right. Corporate bosses are smart people. They're persuasive. They instill confidence. They have the appearance of success.

You have opinions. They have marketing studies to support their opinions.

Unfortunately, these people are bad for golf. All they really care about is selling houses and time-share condos, about filling hotel rooms and restaurants and water parks. As long as golf helps them do these things, they're the game's biggest supporters.

But when the home buyers disappear and the vacationers turn their fickle attention to other destinations, they'll abandon golf. Their shareholders will demand it. It's the first rule of Big Business.

If you want a golf boom that will inevitably go bust, you turn it over to Corporate India. You give it to the bottom-liners who are in the business of making money, not making great golf courses or making golf affordable or bringing new players into the game or worrying about the sport's future.

And before you know it, you discover that the only golf courses worth building are the ones designed by guys like Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, and Greg Norman, because you need to put a "brand name" on your product.

You discover that your nation needs a lot of "championship-standard" courses, because they command the highest greens fees and attract the richest players.

You discover that your city needs to build not just one or two golf courses but five or even 10, so you can attract legions of free-spending tourists who desire to play several different courses during their week-long holidays.

And in a few years, you realize that you've priced your "rising middle class" out of the market and created a nation of golf snobs. You realize that you don't have any home-grown golfers, because you never extended a hand to youngsters and beginners. You realize that you have a game that's expensive and, even worse, exclusive.

Then, when it's too late, you realize that you don't really have much of a golf industry at all.

And finally, you realize that you've missed a golden opportunity.

Just as we did in the United States.