While I was in South Africa I watched a program that featured the efforts South Africa was making to build golf courses in the country. The program noted that such efforts were important because the kind of people who played golf tended to spend a significant amount of money both at the golf course and in the surrounding community. As result, the program emphasized the idea that building golf courses represented an important aspect of building the South African economy.
I was intrigued by this phenomenon and did some research, which showed that there have been studies regarding the impact golf has on particular economies. Certainly golf tournaments, like other major sports events, have a tremendous impact on a country’s economy. Depending on the nature of the tournament, the amount of money that players, spectators, media and organizers spend during a tournament could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. In addition, even outside of tournaments, golf courses attract significant resources both in terms of money spent in connection with the course itself and in terms of money spent at the local businesses surrounding the course. Studies suggest that the money associated with golf courses could also represent hundreds of millions of dollars a year. The studies also indicate that golf courses may generate thousands of jobs for the local communities. From this perspective, it makes a lot of sense to include the construction of golf courses as part of a broader plan to enhance a country’s economy.
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1. Posted by Geoff on August 19, 2006 @ 15:34 | Permalink
I suppose the cause-and-effect aspects of this issue are obvious. Do economies grow because of golf courses? Or do economies that have grown / are on the path of high groth acquire golf courses? Certainly, one could say, "Look at Japan, it's crazy about golf." But to attribute Toyota's success to golf would be a stretch. Are there any attempts in these studies to figure out which comes first, the chicken, or the golf ball?
Can you post the names of the authors, or links to the papers, for the studies you mention? Thanks!
2. Posted by Kate Litvak on August 20, 2006 @ 23:12 | Permalink
I don't know about Africa, but for the US, a study after study demonstrated that public subsidies to stadiums of professional teams do no good to local economies.
3. Posted by Lisa Fairfax on September 12, 2006 @ 9:35 | Permalink
Geoff, you can run a Google search and find a bunch of studies related to the impact of golf. Here are a couple of cites:
www.vprgs.umd.edu/igs/publications/golf.pdf
www.rmgcsa.org/news072704.pdf
www.scprt.com/files/Research/SCGolfEconomy.pdf
www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2006/01/24101923
www.golf2020.com/economicresearch.asp
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