Golf Industry

In USA golf appeals more to the wealthy. When televised tournaments arrived, it increased public awareness, rising household incomes and rise in the number of public golf courses.

Technological innovations in golf club design made the game a little bit easier to play. Companies like Callaway, Ping and Taylor- Made golf gave golfers skill levels that added distance and accuracy and increased sales to grow to 2.9 billion by 2007

The industry was in the midst of the worst crisis in 2009. Equipment industry revenues begun to decline as the growth in the number of golfers stalled and rules were put in place to limit innovations which made companies rely on price to increase volume.

Americans began saving discretionary income instead of spending. Golf equip. sales went down by 5.7% in 2008 about 25.6 million people played golf atleast once a year as opposed to 27.6 million in 1998.

After tiger woods, many were inspired to get better at golf but realized that it is an extremely demanding task. Few adults had leisure time to master all elements of the game.

Gold equipment manuf. Developed innovations to help make the game easier to play for recreational golfers. For instance, the size of the driver was increased to reduce the adverse effect of off center hits, wedges were more defined grooves to help improve accuracy.

There was a lot of disagreement between the USGA and Golf club manufacturers. For example, usga developed a coefficient of restitution measurement and limitation in 1998 that would defend against any spring like effect that a high tech driver clubface might deliver. COR was calculated by firing a golf ball at a drivr out of a cannon like machine at 109 mph. the speed the ball returned could not exceed 83 percent of its initial speed. USGA called the ratio of incoming to outgoing velocity thr coefficient of restitution. Golf club manufacturers did not agree with the spring like effect that could be produced bya metal