Golfers have long sought to explain exactly what it is about hitting a small ball around a field with a long stick that proves quite so compelling, why it arouses such strong passions. As far back as 1916, the notoriously sober and high-minded New York Tribune tried to explain what all the fuss was about.
"Golf," thundered the newspaper that once claimed Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as its European correspondents, "is, in part, a game; but only in part. It is also in part a religion, a fever, a vice, a mirage, a frenzy, a fear, an abscess, a joy, a thrill, a pest, a disease, an uplift, a brooding, a melancholy, a dream of yesterday, and a hope for tomorrow."
Nearly a century on, with the game enjoying near-total global sporting dominance, a new accolade must be added to this list: golf is also big, big business.
Last weekend, the old and the new golfing worlds squared up to do battle at the Valhalla Golf Club for the 37th Ryder Cup. In one of the game's many sublime contradictions, perhaps the most keenly contested event in golf's modern sporting calendar, was fought out for nothing more than national pride and the honour of holding aloft the trophy.
The Americans staved off a fourth successive defeat at the hands of a foe they once vanquished with embarrassing regularity in an event that became a potent symbol of American sporting power in the post-war world. But the serial failures of recent years have left some wondering why it is that the American team, despite boasting two of the world's top three richest sportsmen among its number – Woods and Phil Mickelson – seemed to have lost their grip.
One suggestion is that without the allure of a multimillion dollar purse, the incentive is simply not there. Considering the depth of national pride, that seems an unlikely explanation. Yet few would argue that to understand what modern golf is really about, it is necessary to appreciate the sheer scale of what one economist has already labelled Golfonomics.
The game in the United States remains an economic behemoth that dwarfs its Old World rival. According to the most recent valuation, golf grosses an annual $76 billion (Dh279bn) for the US economy, which means it outstrips both the film and the recorded music industries as well as all other major spectator sports – baseball, basketball and American football – combined.
About two million people are employed directly in the game, working at one of the 16,000 18-hole courses, one of the 1,900 driving ranges, one of the 1,392 mini-golf courses, or in related industries. Each year, Americans reach into their pockets to spend $6.2bn on a golf-related product, whether it be a $45,000 set of personalised gold and platinum-plated Honma clubs, or just to buy a new set of Titleist Pro V1 golf balls. They fork out $860m on golf magazines and $65m on books telling them how to improve their game.
The game's overall contribution to the larger economy, when the "multiplier effect" of wages in related industries (including those beyond the traditional 'golf cluster' of tourism, real estate and media) are included, is of an altogether different magnitude – weighing in at an estimated $195bn (Dh716bn) a year, a sum greater than the gross domestic product of a small European country such as the Czech Republic.
But the first study of its kind, released last week by the KPMG Golf Advisory Practice, suggests that Europe is narrowing the gap in economic terms. "While our report shows that golf in the region is still smaller than America, the game is booming here, especially golf tourism and real estate," the report's author, Andrea Sartori, said. "You can look at it from many different angles, but ultimately one finding stands out – that one person in every thousand in Europe is employed in the golf economy," he said.
While still only one-third the total scale of the US market, golf in the European zone – which now includes Africa and the Middle East as well – is now worth $42bn each year, powered in part by the phenomenal growth in the value of the golf real estate market, which has seen revenue from on-course homes now outstripping that brought in by conventional green and membership fees by five to one. In 2006, a total of 18,000 new golf villas, apartments and houses were completed, and they enjoyed a 30 per cent premium compared to homes with no direct access to the first tee, even amid the credit crunch. In addition, 160 new courses and 100 major expansion programmes were finished.
Overall, the number of European courses and players, still overwhelmingly drawn from high-income brackets, has doubled since 1985.
According to Guy Kinnings, European managing director of golf for leading sports management company IMG, the game is defying the current mood of economic gloom.
"The figures that are competed for, and the figures that are involved within the golf business, have grown hugely and certainly golf itself is probably as strong as it has ever been as a global property," he said.
In 1988, Curtis Strange of the US became the first golfer to win $1m in a season. In 2007, 158 players did that – such is golf's trickle-down effect from the very top players. Their wealth reflects the growing value of the sport. The reasons, Kinnings says, are various – but helping it merrily along is the much-vaunted "Tiger factor".
The phenomenal success of the 32-year-old one-man brand has brought unprecedented new interest in the game and helped to shake off the old image of middle-aged men in plus fours clinching deals at the 19th hole.
So pervasive is Tiger's appeal that in the US, the television ratings for Padraig Harrington's recent victory in the PGA Championship were 55 per cent down on the previous year, when Woods won it.
Shaun McGuckian is the editor of GolfPunk magazine, a publication that quickly identified the game's changing demographic, with its penchant for "bunker babes" and features on playing golf in war zones. He believes golf has successfully transformed itself over the past 15 years, turning from an atrophied extension of the old-boy network into a game that has begun to think and act like a multinational business.
"What has changed is the cost – that is the bottom line," McGuckian said. "What you had in the early 1990s was an expensive sport. Starting from scratch, there were membership fees at a club, and a signing-on fee, whatever that was for. Then you needed your kit, which isn't cheap, and then lessons to get up to a certain standard. This could all easily add up to £3,000 (Dh20,500). Now, we are looking at a much more competitive market where the cost of getting started is much, much lower."
Another key to golf's success has been opening the sport to women.
But it has borne fruit. This year's Women's British Open at Sunningdale enjoyed prime-time television coverage and attracted 144 players from around the world, looking for a share of the £1m prize fund. Not that there is any shortage of famous female role models currently working on their handicaps – not least Hawaiian-born Michelle Wie, who has blazed a trail by playing alongside men in professional tournaments. Halle Berry is a devotee, as are Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Alba.
Looking good on the course has, of course, become as important as perfecting your swing. Young men can now model themselves on Justin Timberlake, himself a keen golfer, while sporting Puma military-style golf caps, skinny ties and the latest in trendy golf shoes and accessories. "It has been really important to the young people who have taken up the game not to look like a camel on the golf course," McGuckian said.
But, as Europe expands, so the rest of the world is catching up fast. China, naturally enough, is leading the charge. Golf was officially scorned under Mao as bourgeois folly, but the Great Leader's successors – and, more importantly, the burgeoning middle classes they have created – have taken to the game with typical zeal. There are plans to build hundreds – possibly thousands – of golf courses in China over the next five years.
And here rests the other central plank of the game's phenomenal expansion. It is estimated that there are up to 20 million global golf tourists currently lugging their clubs through airport check-ins around the world. Some destinations have transformed themselves off the back of the game. Take Myrtle Beach in South Carolina; this sleepy former railroad town sees its permanent population of 30,000 souls swollen each year by 13.8 million visitors lured there by the 100-odd golf courses. But, in the global dash to scoop up the $1.3 trillion of sports tourism dollars, nowhere can match what's going on in the oil-rich kingdoms of the Gulf. Here in Dubai golf is generating profits at three to four times the rate in Europe and the United States. Tiger Woods is building his first course here for a reported $40m fee, a figure that shrewdly includes a share of the return on the 197 palaces, mansions and villas surrounding the $1bn project.
Woods is not the first major player to design courses in the emirate. There are already courses designed by Colin Montgomerie and Ernie Els, while Greg Norman, Sergio Garcia and Vijay Singh are all working on courses scheduled to open within the next 12-24 months, and so is Pete Dye, one of the most influential of golf course architects. (The Independent)
The numbers
$76bn: Gross annual value of golf in the US each year
158: Number of male pro golfers to win $1m or more in 2007
$769m: Tiger Woods's estimated earnings in 10 years to 2007