CYCLING’S DIGITAL BOOM: A PRESCIENT LESSON FOR GOLF?
Rewind to the summer of 2012 and Britain is basking in the warm glow of Olympic and Tour de France glory. A sweating mass of middle-age men in Lycra is growing at an alarming rate and marketing executives across the cycling industry are gushing over the success of their sport. “Cycling is the new golf” becomes a well-coined phrase.
Across the fence, the stats make grim reading. Golf is midway-through a decade-long decline as the popularity of cycling soars. And while the heroics of Chris Hoy, Victoria Pendleton and Bradley Wiggins are making national headlines, a more significant technological shift is quietly turbocharging the popularity of a hitherto fringe sport.
Sträva, verb, def: To strive..
Cycling co-exists in the physical and digital realm like no other sport, typified by the astonishing popularity of the mobile phone app, Strava.
Essentially a social network for cyclists and runners, the app allows users to share workouts using GPS data, and measure their real-world performance on any given stretch or ‘segment’ of road against millions of other users – from friends to Olympians. Launched in 2009, Strava now boasts 70 million users and was recently valued as a $1bn company.
Uploading rides and engaging with activities posted by others has become integral to the way cyclists experience their sport. Combined with an explosion of other digital innovations across the industry – from e-gaming to e-biking – Strava has provided a sense of community, purpose and motivation for cyclists, hooking those new to the sport for a decade and counting.
All of which is a prescient lesson for golf…
Golf’s Olympic Moment
Golf is facing an Olympic moment of its own. The pandemic has brought swathes of new, younger players to the game. This growth is being sustained by a digital revolution as players find community outside the traditional structures of club membership.
Not confined by the limits of pitch or time, and completely immersive by nature, golf lends itself to storytelling and engagement in an online world. Whether it’s the stratospheric rise of golf YouTubers, proliferation of players tracking their performance on purpose-built apps, or data changing the way we relate to the professional game – golf is thriving in a digital space.
Yet all too often progress grates against golf’s established practices. Alarm bells ring when clubs resolutely ban the use of mobile phones on the course, or the game’s governing bodies face blow-back for attempting to introduce a universal handicapping system, open to all, that could be the cornerstone of a whole new digital ecosystem (our very own Strava?).
As brilliant as cycling’s innovations have been, the influx of so many new participants to a sport that had never been bound by its traditions and hierarchies, provided fertile ground for change.
Golf must embrace a similar spirit of digital innovation. While policy prescriptions are ever-changing and too long to list here, ditching outdated communication practices and encouraging the use of new technology to enhance our experience of the game would be a welcome start.
Above all else, an industry-wide mindset shift is required to grasp this once-in-a-generation opportunity. If adopted, golf might just become the new cycling.
This article first featured in the content section of Gather, May 2021