The Friends And Family Plan: Part One

      Who do you have for your cable and telephone provider?  We have AT&T for our cell phones--mobile for those of you in The UK--and Comcast for our cable. At any rate, this is not a commercial for AT&T.  What I want to point out though is that they offer a plan where you get family and friends together and get a reduced rate and more data on your phone program.  They call it--I don't know if they still do--The Friends and Family Plan.  Why can't we do something like that when it comes to golf?
       There has been a lot of talk in social and other media about why the game is not growing as much and as fast as it should be. I'm not going to go into all the reasons given but it seems that one strong reason is the time it take to play a round.  Since it take so long to play a round of golf, other things in life have to suffer. At least that is the interpretation of that fact.  I have to agree.
        Four to six hours is a lot of time out of one's life to devote to an activity.  With all that we pack into our busy lives that is a big chunk of time. Careers take a big chunk of time as well as family time and other things. It used to be that after a hard week at work a man needed the time away, and for many that was the time at the golf course. The time spent at work has not changed, in fact work time probably has increased and women have excellent careers in many fields as well.  Time with family has to be utilized to the maximum.
        We have to get the kids to baseball or softball practice.  What about soccer practice?  How about the school play?  Oh and don't forget the parent teacher conference. With all these demands on time, something has to give. You turn to your scheduling calendar and look at it.  What can we cut out in order to spend more time at home and with family?  Yep, you guessed it.  That four to six hours spent enjoying the game of golf.
      There is a problem here.  First, as a golfer--male or female--you don't want to give up the game but you want to spend more quality time as a family.  Secondly, as a golf course facility you don't want to loose players. That do you do?  I will have some ideas in the next post.  By the way, if you have a suggestion, please share them.  If you are a golf facility, what have you done to get families back playing.  If you are a family, how have you carved out time in your busy schedule to play?  I would like to share some of these ideas here.

Let's go play some golf!