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Back when James Bond golfed, new courses were being planned all over the world. Same happened with Tiger Woods' rise in the 1990s. Now, its the stalwart golf destinations like those in the Rondout Valley that are not only surviving but thriving as the leisure sport starts to change. Courtesy photo
Not Our Daddies' Sport Any Longer?
Rondout Valley Golf Courses Doing Well

REGIONAL – A lot has been written lately about the decline of golf, leading some to predict doom for the leisurely sport. But on our local level, and especially in the Rondout Valley, things didn't boom so much, and they didn't decline so much in consequence. The only course we've lost in recent times was the eighteen holes at the Nevele, which went away when the resort closed for good... and that didn't have much to do with golf's rise and fall.

There are still five courses in our area. Two are eighteen hole courses, the Rondout Golf Club in Accord and the course at the Hudson Valley Resort, and then three nine hole courses: the Stone Dock club in High Falls, the Shawangunk Country Club in Wawarsing, known as "the Gunk," and the Mohonk Mountain House's nine hole course, with its undulating fairways high up up on the Shawangunk Ridge.

John DeForest of the Rondout club has seen boom times and leaner times since.

"It did go up in the nineties; we had a lot more people then and they played more often," he recalled in a recent interview. "It leveled off these last few years but it's a very different business now. In the last few years eight clubs in the Hudson Valley sold for under $2 million. Orange County sold for $2 million, Osiris for $1.6 million, Dutchess went for $2 million and Catskill for $800,000. There's simply less disposable income today. We used to see a ton of people up from Jersey. They used to come up here to play; you knew it was a nice drive and our prices were lower. But they're not coming anymore. And then there's the internet, which has affected pricing in golf and has really driven it into the gutter."

To survive, golf is evolving. The game itself remains the same, but instead of taking five leisurely hours to play eighteen holes, golfers are choosing to play nine holes, and get it done in less than 3 hours.

Why all the hurry? Because the pressures on our time today are different. Whereas previous generations had plenty of dads who played golf instead of going home for dinner, and came back for another round on Saturday, today's fathers spend more time with their kids.

DeForest sighs: "Ah, the cave men... we don't have them anymore. The guys who left the family to the mother and took off after work."

Indeed, today's dads are more likely to be driving sons to travel baseball games or daughters to lacrosse or soccer tournaments than to be out with their drivers and putters at the weekends.

Not all local golf professionals see it quite the same way as DeForest. Geoff Walsh at the Gunk is more upbeat about things.

"We're actually in a good place — the club is doing well, we're having a good year," he said. "I'm quite positive about where we're at and our future."

The Gunk's nine holes are also a bit unusual for the hilly topography they cover. It's a challenge, but it's one that local golfers enjoy. The same goes for our other local courses... indeed the Rondout, which was a nine and then expanded to eighteen, regularly receives praise for its layout and level of difficulty.

Golf is changing, too. DeForest notes that the old rules about clothing are going by the board. "Yes, they're lightening up on the dress codes," he noted. "Golf had those rules — you had to wear shirts with collars. Now, we're more relaxed. Some places still don't allow cargo shorts, but that's changing. Golf is a fun thing, it's for enjoyment."

And as new golf courses are designed, both fun and the demands of time and families are being factored in. At the Montreign Casino in Sullivan County they are reconstructing the famous "Monster" course, which was originally created for the Concord Hotel back in the days of the Borscht Belt. Then, the Monster ran out to 7,652 yards. The new Monster will be just as big, but will offer several, maybe five, sets of tees, with different lengths for different players. And instead of taking all day to play, it will be a lot easier to get around, with options to shorten the time required for a round.

Also in the works is the proposed new Nevele sports park, which will include a new eighteen hole course running over the same footprint as the old one, which actually had twenty-seven holes.

The golf boom sparked by Tiger Woods in the 1990s drove golf's participation in the U.S. up to a record level of 30.6 million in 2003; the subsequent bust took it down to 24.7 million in 2014. Long term, the outlook is cloudy as younger people show less interest in any of it.

Over the past twenty years a thirty percent decline has been recorded among 18-34 year olds. However, golf remains a part of summer seasons, and for those with a yearning for the greens, there are plenty of options still available in Ulster County.



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