Golf doesn’t have a popularity problem. It has a participation problem.

Tour professionals are playing for more money than ever. Golf Channel keeps breaking its own year-to-year viewer records. Beginning this year, Fox is paying $100 million per year to televise the U.S. Open and other USGA championships.

Sure, the ratings for regular tour events without Tiger Woods remain flat, but the demographic still seems like a prized one for advertisers.

The playing side of golf? Another story. The sport is hemorrhaging players at an alarming rate. The National Golf Foundation has reported that 5 million people, out of a total of 30 million, quit golf in the last 10 years. Core golfers – those who play at least eight rounds per year – were reduced by 25 percent.

It was about this time last year that then-TaylorMade CEO Mark King and then-PGA of America President Ted Bishop stood in front of a gathering at the PGA Show and introduced the Hack Golf initiative, the centerpieces of which were a 15-inch cup and a website created by TaylorMade to generate ideas to grow golf again.

via 10 ways to make golf better | UTSanDiego.com.