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Goodbye Golf? The Sport Struggles To Redefine Itself

Bali Hai Golf Course
Dan Perry/Flickr

Bali Hai Golf Course

Like many businesses, golf took a hit during the recession – and it’s never quite recovered.

Golf’s popularity is down nationally, and the same is true in Southern Nevada.

On one hand, the popularity of Topgolf driving range gives hope that the club sport might rebound. But on the other, courses around town are being sold to make room for housing developments. At least two projects are currently underway.

Jackie Valley is a reporter at the Las Vegas Sun. Her July 25 story for Vegas INC explores the state of golf in Southern Nevada, and what its future holds.

Valley said during the Tiger Woods era there was a resurgence of golf, but now that people are attached to the fast pace of their smartphones anything that might be slow, like golf, may not hold people's attention.

"I think it is a hard sell for the millennial generation because playing nine holes could take an hour and a half. Eighteen holes you're looking at three or four hours," she said.

That is where a venue like Topgolf comes in. 

"I think what is really compelling about that set up is the fact that it is different," she said, "They've likened it to bowling. You can go with a group of friends. You're not out in the sweltering heat. It is more fast paced. There's a bar. You can get drinks."

Valley said golf course owners are hoping people who enjoy Topgolf will decide to go out on the links for a full-length game.

While some courses are going away - like Badlands Golf Club, which is being developed into homes - others are reopening. The Club at Sunrise was damaged in floods a few years ago, but the homeowners along the course wanted to keep it open and Clark County agreed, Valley said.

"I certainly wouldn't say that all hope was lost for the golf industry," she said. " The recession obviously battered the courses out here and visitor volume. But when speaking to a variety of golf-course owners, or just people involved in the industry out here, they're not being completely negative."

The new wave in the industry could be club houses that provide more amenities that attract the whole family.

"They're hoping it's no longer just a guys' day out to play at the course that the families come and the kids are exposed to it," Valley said, "so that maybe later on they'll catch the golf bug."

Jackie Valley, reporter, Las Vegas Sun

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Kristy Totten is a producer at KNPR's State of Nevada. Previously she was a staff writer at Las Vegas Weekly, and has covered technology, education and economic development for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. She's a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism.