Evening Star Newspaper, November 23, 1930, Page 81

- -~ Music Art PART 7. The Sundiy Stat Magasine WASHINGTON, D. C, NOVEMBER 23, 1930. Features Books 24 PAGES. A Billion A4 Year For Golf . That’s the Cost of Their Putts and Slices to America’s 3,000,000 Golfers, Not Cou_n,tin g the Players on Our 50,000 Miniature Courses—But This Is Not W asted Money; It Provides Wages for Thousands of Workers as Well as Exercise for Those Swinging the Clubs. NGUS MACDIVOT comes from a small town in Pennsylvania. He remem- bers that one day when he was a very small boy he was idling down a country road kicking up the dust with his bare toes. Suddenly his languid progress was arrested by the sight of two cows. The cows were gazing over a fence at a strange figure. Little Angus joined them. He saw a man standing in a pasture, The man held an upraised stick and he with fierce intensity a small white object on the ground. “Xill it, Mister!” shouted little Angus. Instead of appreciating this encourage- ment the man turned and in a tone of suppressed fury cried: “Never do that again! Never! You must make no noise when a golfer is addressivg the ball. The worst thing % you could do. The rudest.” Grown to man’'s estate with comfort- able riches, Mr. J. Angus MacDivot often laughs at the incident over his cold glass of Scotch-and in the locker room. It had been his privilege to observe one of Amer- ica’s first golfers. Now that he is one of «~ our three million golf bugs he can look - back upon this pioneer of the cow pasture with a proper appreciation of his sig- nificance. -n 1890 the game of golf was practie cally unknown in the United States. Those daring travelers who had been in England brought back tales of silly for- eigners who seemed to derive a deep delight from hitting a ball with a stick and following it up to smite it again. The announcement was accepted as final proof that the mother country had gone effeminate and the first players who dared public opinion in this country were greeted with appropriate ridicule. DAY golf is played—or played at— by so many thousands that it has ereated a major industry in this country, More people play golf than any other game. Golf is a bigger busines: than that of men’s clothing. It rums close to the value of bread and other bakery products. Angus MacDivot and his multiples have built in the United States over f.ooo golf clubs and some 5,800 courses, These last include 228 municipal and public links and private courses where any one can play for the payment of a fee. Of the 3,000,000 players, about 1,750,000 belong to clubs. The remaining 1,250,000 are the less fortunate fanatics who have to stand in line at municipal links or play when they get a chance at courses con- trolled by private capital. America has invested about $1,300,000,- 000 in golf courses. Other figures on the golf balance sheet are so long that they look like transcontinental freight ‘trains, Boon after the war a group o’ statisti- clans who also were golf bugs thought it would be interesting to make a complete survey of the Nation's golf resources, They burrowed into the statistics only to emerge some months later with fright- ened.looks on their pale faces. “Well,” said their waiting associates, ;E«:};? big is the country’s golf indus- “We didn't finish our work,” said one delver, “We got far enough to discover that the figure was incredible. It scared us so we decided to 80 no further and to make no report to the public. The Bolsheviki are on the rampage, you know. If we told how much money goes lnwcol“.ntmseolmtryltwouldbemeflecfln lrg;ment against the American economic system.” There is almost as big a laugh in that now as there is in the thought of the pathetic devotee of the '90s playing in the cow pasture. Golf has become so universal in the United States that it is no longer the rich man's game; penniless radicals struggling with its intricacies as ardently as burly bankers. You may be frightened by golf statistics, but if you are the sort of person who can be stag- gered by figures prepare to be staggered: An expert estimates that $600 a year is an average expenditure for a member of a club. That includes dues, meals, lockers, green fees, clothes, supplies, an occasional bottle of rye from the club’s bootlegger, etc. At this rate the clubs of the country are responsible for the expenditure of $1,050,000,000 every year. That does not take into consideration the mil- lion and a quarter persons who dig their divots on public and commercial courses., Estimating their expenditures at the mild figure of $50 & year, we have another annual outpouring of $62,500,000 —P. & A. Photo When a champion comes home. New York’s welcome to Bobby Jones, when the peer of golfdom returned from his triumphs in England. By Frederick Tisdale. Together they roll up for the golf industry the grand (even gorgeous) total of $1,112,500,- 000 You have there the present actuality, Take a deep breath and gaze into the future a bit. “The popularity of golf is growing so rapidly,” says the superintendent of parks in a golf-mad Ohio city, “that from 10 to 15 million indi- viduals will take up the game in the next 15 years. This will make necessary the building of many thousand new clubs and the purchase of about 3,000,000 acres of land.” WI must have something as a comparison for such figures or they don't mean a thing. Consider, then, the Commonwealth of Delaware, Turn the entire State into golf courses. Then take a second slice out of the national acreage of the same extent. Convert that also into fairways and hazards. If you can get a picture of this area twice as large as Delaware turned into golf courses you have a fairly accurate idea of what it would mean to devote three more million acres to this ancient and honorable pastime. While statisticians were wondering whether the golf saturation point were not being ap- proached along came developments which opened possibilities for uncountable hordes of new devotees. In the reverse order of im- portance they are the roadside driving ranges, where one can hit “a bucket of balls fer 50 cents”; and the miniature golf courses. Casual indulgence at either form is likely to infect one with a permanent case of golf fever. An amazed Department of Commerce figures that there are 50,000 miniature courses in the United States, Los Angeles alone has 3,000. The investment, exclusive of real estate, is put at from $150,000,000 to $200,000,000. About 140,000 persons are employed on these courses, Ninety per cent of them are leased lots—which have been reclaimed from tin cans and dog fennel. Average cast of installation runs from $1,500 to $3,500. Through a curious sequence of events the miniature courses have bscome a by-product of the cotton industry. To Thomas Fairbairn, golfer and cotton grower of Durango, Mexico, must go the credit——or blame. Exiled by his s A g business from countries with growing greens, Mr. Fairbairn experimented on his ranch. He tried real grass and the sun burned it to a crisp. He tried sand and the wild winds blew it away. One day his despondent feet noted the resile fency of hard-trodden cottonseed hulls near his gin. He essayed the surface with a ball and putter. The result brought tears of happiness to his eyes; it was almost like the real thing. Being a Scot and therefore canny, Mr. Fairbairn patented the idea. Along came the amusing Tom Thumb idea, and while other surfaces have been tried, the rolled and treated cottonseed hulls remained the most satisfactory. Royale ties are said to have netted Mr. Fairbairn a considerable fortune. There is some argument as to the ine ception of the first miniature course, bug Garnet Carter, a Chattanooga real estate man, Is credited with the fatherhood of the present craze. The first course was laid out on the top of Lookout Mountain three and' a half years ago. The idea spread rapidly through the South. Last Winter Florida was all broken out with them. Returning Northerners brought a . demand for the liliputian courses. Aue stralia, Hawaii, England took up the idea. France’s first Tom Thumb course has just been installed in Paris’ fashionable Etoile district. Every one is asking whether the fad will die out or become an established sport. Chances are that it will last. Al- ready there is a National Association of Miniature Golf Courses, which has a tournament in preparation. Operators of courses about New York are scheming to keep customers coming during the Win- ter. Some are planning to cover their courses with canvas. Others will try clearing away the snow and making it another Winter sport. Cold weather is sure to boost ess for the indoor miniature courses. Plans are now being made for turning excess theaters into indoor Tom Thumbs. Vest pocket editions already have been installed in astonishing locations. Los Angeles has one in a theater lobby. New York and Chicago have courses atop ho- tels. Indoor, outdoor, or rooftop, these small courses are sure to add to the membership of real clubs and to increase the already amazing figures of American golfdom. AN‘ old-time economist might gasp and moan over the tremendous amounts spent on this game. If he didn't look at them clesely he might consider\all this money wasted. A common sense view of the matter will prove that this golden flood acts as a nourisher and a bless= ing to other industries. Says the presie dent of a large Westchester club: “The money spent on golf is not eaten up or-destroyed. It buys materials and labor. Consider all the different lines of manufacturing that are given a broader market. Balls are an outlet for the rub- ber industry. Leather goes into shoes and bags. A midiron furnishes a market for more steel, lumber and leather. Plus- fours are cut on a generous scale; that means money for the wool grower, the spinner, the tailor. Look at the care= taker out there on the fairway. He is cutting the grass with a power mower. Don't think his labor is wasted. The manufacturer of the machine gave work and called for steel, His wages will be distributed through many channels for food, &>thing and the like.” Thereafter he launched off into a discourse on golf as a style creator—showed how it had affected the clothes worn by women and men. It had brought in knee breeches and may do away with long trousers altogether. You do not think of caddies as important units of buying power. But our courses employ some 350,000 of these bag toters and ball hunt- ers. If they made but an average of $15 every year that would mean a combined annual ine come of $5,250,000. The money leaves their pockets for candy, cigarettes and such. It makes a lot of demands on some one’s product, Golfers spend more than $11,000,000 a year for clubs. Estimates of the annual sale of golf balls run as high as 60,000,000 at a cost of some $20,000,000. A recent golf phenomenon is the growth of the repainting business. One manufacturer declares that more than 1,200,000 repainted balls are sold yearly and that the figure is mounting by leaps. Nobody begrudges the experts the wealth tha$ oomes with their prowess. Walter Hagen has received $3,000 a year and Gene Sarazen's salury cravés that figure, Hegen and Joe Kirkwood t) get $500 each °