By every possible measure, golf is enormously popular. During the past 50 years, the number of golfers in the United States increased sevenfold as the game was transformed from an expensive diversion of the rich into a mass-market pastime. Nonetheless, golf has now reached a crossroads. A McKinsey study for the National Golf Foundation has determined that unless the game is marketed more aggressively, both the owners of golf courses and the manufacturers of golf equipment and clothing face slower growth. In short, the industry risks becoming as mature as its archetypal customer.

McKinsey found that the better part of the industry’s revenue growth since the halcyon days of the mid-1980s has come from higher prices and greater spending by golfers on equipment, fees, and apparel; the number of players and the time they devote to the game had largely stopped rising as long ago as 1991 (Exhibit 1). The study notes as well that though the number of golf rounds played will probably grow by 1.5 percent every year for the next 12, courses will actually become less crowded because so many new ones are being built (Exhibit 2).

In the past, the golf industry did little to...