Letter: Lower costs to lure young golfers

Staggering declines in the number of people playing golf or even taking it up these days suggest we have hit that point where discretionary income is far less and a new generation sees golf as a game of the past.

A product of expensive country clubs taking too much time when all that is needed to do business is right on their cellphone, when meetings can be conducted electronically and a program for exercise is found right in a gym or on a stair stepper and treadmill and there is no need to squander a day to do it. Cost of living hikes, suppressed salaries and wages, Zika worries, lack of retirement funds, skin cancer - it was not hard to see this coming.

In 10 years we have seen several million drop off from the game, some cities opting for more green spaces or park areas over maintenance of a golf course fewer are using. Some 8 million people have dropped from the game when Tiger Woods at his peak was luring many in.

It will survive as a game even if it doesn't have quite the same numbers it did in the past. The cost is the major issue for many young people to even take it up. Conquer that issue and golf needn't worry.

Cort Stapleton

Cedar Rapids