Golf Legend Greg Norman: Younger Generations Need to Step Up
Golf legend Greg Norman says it’s time for Generation X and millennials to step up when it comes to boosting the $70 billion golf industry.
“The baby boomers have been carrying the game of golf for a long, long period of time and the baby boomers [are] now dropping out. We do need to have the Gen X’s and millennials stepping up to the plate,” he told the FOX Business Network’s Stuart Varney.
Even though there are a lot of initiatives being put forward to try and attract younger generations, Norman said scheduling has impacted the star players.
“There is no question, the Ricky Fowler’s, the Mcllroy’s, the Jordan Spieth’s of the world are the tip of the spear on that and stimulating the use of the game to come back in. But to the players right now, the schedule [has been] so compacted with the Olympics and PGA moving so close to the British Open, it’s actually taken a bit of a toll on the players.” he said.
The World Golf Hall of Famer also discussed how shortening the game would be good for golf’s bottom line.
“We’ve made a few suggestions around the world where we try to reduce the investment cost of return on time when you play the game of golf, get it down from 18 holes to 12 holes and the developer gets a really good ROI on his investment because you don’t have to build that extra 6 holes and the ongoing maintenance costs is reduced as well.”
Norman, whose nickname is the Great White Shark, weighed in on the presidential election.
“From a pure business perspective… I like where Donald can take the country, no questions from entrepreneurialism to growing small businesses… I don’t like some of the foreign policies that he says but then again you look at the other side with Hillary, the disapproval rating [is] so high according to the polls, it’s tough to get over that hurdle of making sure that’s ok once she’s in the White House --can we really trust her?” he said.