The population of white Americans has officially begun to shrink, a fact that has vast implications for the future of the golf business. During the year ending on July 1, 2012, in what the New York Times calls “a benchmark that heralds profound demographic change,” more white Americans died than were born. What’s more, the population decline among whites won’t be reversed, because these days the majority of U.S. children are being born to Hispanic, black and Asian mothers.
As a result of all this, the Times concludes, “white Americans will become a minority nationwide within about three decades.” The handwriting is therefore on the wall: Our ever-smaller industry’s bread-and-butter demographic won’t be able to carry us for very much longer. If our industry expects to thrive in the years to come, we have only two choices: We can make a diligent effort to attract the minorities we’ve heretofore shunned (as well as women and children), or we can begin to import white people from nations with a penchant for golf. The sensible choice seems obvious.