The New Testament of Golf

It's no secret that golf, as an industry, is lagging. Rounds played in the U.S. have been declining slowly for nearly a decade. More courses are closing than opening. More players have flowed out of the game than flowed in, says the National Golf Foundation. There may be many reasons for this, including the down economy and sociological changes, but some in the golf industry have begun to wonder aloud whether the rules of the game are really the problem.

Kyle T. Webster

Their aim is not to replace USGA golf, but to provide an alternative, with the expectation that many Flogton players would eventually migrate to the regular game, the way tee-ballers grow into baseball.

The most radical vision for a New World Order in golf is the Flogton project being pushed by a group of Silicon Valley executives whose front man is Scott McNealy, the co-founder and former chief executive of Sun Microsystems. In their view, the U.S. Golf Association's sanctioned game is simply too difficult to attract and retain enough to keep the game growing.

In particular, the Flogtonites argue, golf needs better ways to appeal to videogame-enamored kids and to casual adult golfers who lack the time, inclination or athletic talent to master the game. "We've got the courses. The courses are beautiful and under-utilized. There need to be alternative golf formats that will bring more people out to play these courses," Mr. McNealy said last month when he unveiled the proposal.

In Flogton (that's "not golf" spelled backward), players could take their pick from several sets of rules to match their skill levels. The most restrictive format might follow strict USGA rules of play but allow souped-up balls and clubs. Mr. McNealy said this format would be popular with seniors or others who are happy with USGA golf but can't hit the ball as far as they used to, or would like to.

The least restrictive forms of play would set purists' teeth on edge: teeing up shots in the fairway, legalizing one mulligan per hole, allowing 6-foot "bumps" (no nearer the hole) to get relief from trees and other obstacles, and requiring the second shot from a bunker to be thrown. These games would be geared primarily toward kids or rank beginners. For each format, Flogton handicaps could be established. Different social mores would also be encouraged, from trash-talking during backswings to wearing cargo shorts.

But it wouldn't be "goofy golf," Mr. McNealy insisted. The rules for each format would be clearly established and enforced. "If you hit a bad shot, it will still be a bad shot that you have to take personal responsibility for. That's the core value of golf. No excuses allowed," he said.

Mr. McNealy is himself a three-handicapper. Some of Flogton's other backers are also low-handicappers, including John Donahoe, CEO of eBay Inc., and Bill Campbell, chairman and former CEO of Intuit.

Their aim is not to replace USGA golf, but to provide an alternative, with the expectation that many Flogton players would eventually migrate to the regular game, the way tee-ballers grow into baseball. For others, however, Flogton might be the only style of golf needed or desired. Courses could easily accommodate both styles of play, Mr. McNealy argued. Flogton play would be faster, which courses could cope with by designating certain times or nines for Flogton play. Flogton golfers could also play with USGA players, competing with them by cross-indexing handicaps.

"We know there will be resistance. A lot of old-line clubs will never allow Flogton play, and that's fine," Mr. McNealy said. But skiing traditionalists at first resisted snowboarding, he pointed out, "even though by now almost everybody acknowledges that snowboarding saved the industry."

How likely is Flogton to catch on? Not very, at least in its current out-of-the-box form. "If it were to work, it would be a conglomeration of a lot of ideas. It's not going to end up being exactly what Scott McNealy or anyone else thinks it's going to be right now," said Casey Alexander, a golf industry analyst for Gilford Securities who nevertheless supports the initiative, as a way to get people talking. Mr. McNealy characterizes Flogton as an "open source" enterprise and is counting on Web feedback, to help the game evolve.

One obvious response to the Flogton initiative is that most golfers already play non-USGA golf, some if not most of the time. What regular foursome doesn't invent a few of its own quirky rules to make things more interesting? All those scramble and Stableford formats used at outings and club tournaments are nonkosher. Who needs a new sanctioning organization to tell golfers how to have fun?

Another question is whether taking the technological limits off clubs and balls—a major part of the Flogton vision and a subject of keen interest to manufacturers—would actually help make golf more fun to play. The easiest, quickest improvement would be to the ball. Polara Golf will introduce an improved version of its nonconforming ball this spring that the company says will self-correct up to 90% of a slice or hook. That would seem to be every slicer's dream. But would it also deprive him of the deeper satisfaction, that comes from hitting the occasional perfect shot?

The AGA believes that technology could add 25% to the distance of an average golfer's drive and double the amount of backspin on wedge shots hit into greens. But if everybody has access to the same equipment, is the essential challenge of golf really any different than it was before, or the frustration of relative poor play any easier to abide? If alternative golf takes off, I guess we'll find out.