Mcilroy: Golf Needs To ‘speed Up’

World number one Rory McIlroy has called for a faster version of golf in a bid to attract young players to the sport – a common topic of the last few years, but what can the sport learn from other examples over the past few years?

‘Everything’s so instant now and everyone doesn’t have as much time as they used to,’ the Open and US PGA 2014 champion told BBC Radio 4. ‘So you maybe try some way of speeding the game up.’

‘The viewership in golf is up but the participation is down. People enjoy watching the game but gone are the days that you could spend five or six hours on a golf course.’

According to Sport England figures, the number of 16-25-year-olds playing the game regularly almost halved between 2009/10 and 2012/13 – representing a problem for the sport that it cannot afford to ignore.

McIlroy famously appeared on television to chip golf balls into a washing machine at the age of nine, and now wants young people to follow his example and take up the sport early in life – but how can a game that can last for up to five hours a round appeal to a younger crowd?

Firstly, take a look at cricket and rugby who successfully implemented the Twenty20 and Sevens format, respectively, into their global schedule of competitions at both club and international level.

Twenty20, conceived in 2003 by the ECB with the aim of creating a faster and more marketable version of cricket, has spread remarkably quickly around the globe, with the first World Twenty20 Cup held just four years after its creation.

To date, over a dozen domestic competitions take place all around the world, from big-name money-spinners such as the Big Bash League in Australia and the Caribbean Premier League in West Indies to emerging markets such as the Scotiabank National T20 Championship in Canada and is widely regarded as the future of the sport in many regions. 

Meanwhile, rugby sevens (although initially conceived as early as 1883 in Scotland) hit the mass consumer market in 1999 with the launch of the World Sevens Series, which also opened the sport – at the time, still getting to grips with the professional game – to a wider audience.

Now officially known as the HSBC Sevens World Series, the 2014/15 season consists of nine tournaments in eight countries around the world, visiting five of the six populated continents.

But can this format work in golf?

A quick form of the sport known as ‘Speed Golf’ was played back as far back as the 70s, involving both the number of strokes played and time taken counting towards your final score. 

Players run between shots and often carry no more than 3 or 4 clubs. Rounds can take less than one hour to complete, with additional rules in place to speed up play (the flag remains in the hole when putting, for example). 

Is it a long-term solution for the professional game – the inaugural Speed Golf World Championships took place in 2012 in Oregon with 15 professionals running for a $50,000 prize purse – perhaps not. But could a bite-sized version, such as Twenty20 and rugby sevens, hit the circuit one day? Watch this space…