A New Dawn Is Stoking

Traversing fairways and greens is about to take on a whole new meaning for recreational users in Canada, and the golf industry needs to start rolling with that budding reality. The pace of play will be marshalled best by strategic thinking that sparks up discussion now about how to cultivate the growth of the game with a new menu of products and services offerings that will tee up an abundant stash of cash for those who are ready to grip it and rip it! It is time to get off the couch and embrace the appetite of a new Age. No stone must be ignored and go unturned if the #1 recreational sport in Canada is to benefit optimally from the new buzz about the land that is certain to see eagles and birdies pursued ever-the-more-so with a spliff in hands.  

There is no shortage of irony apparent in the prognosis that the game of golf and by extension the Club industry in Canada, as well as increasingly across all of the Americas, stands poised to benefit from enhanced opportunities to increase food (read, munchies) and beverage sales through the eradication of the prohibition against a weed. Less than a hundred years ago Clubs embraced the opportunity to grow in popularity across North America as venues where their patrons could satisfy their interests and desires for contraband alcohol during its era of prohibition. Now the game and its industry stands posed yet again in contemporary times to sprout anew from the elimination of a prohibition on toking dried leaves. The stagnation in the appeal and growth of the game, as well as the Club industry, will only be capitalized on proactively if the conservative stewards of tired traditions and under-informed thinking shed the inclination to boggart on the budding cultural dynamic that is destined to alter far more than just the states of mind of its current users, as well as its potential patrons. 

A recent poll conducted by The Globe and Mail underscores the potential in the winds billowing on the horizon. It was reported that 1 in 5 Canadians already choose to partake in the herb for its medicinal benefits as well as for their recreational desires, and 3 of 10 Canadians will avail themselves of this choice as soon as cannabis is legalized and regulated for sale from coast to coast, to coast. Its utilization is already multigenerational as well as multi-cultural and this poll makes it clear its user-ship is poised for a significant growth spurt. A recent poll in the United States found that 59% of Americans support legalization and in Canada a Liberal majority Federal government was elected at least in part on a platform promise to legalize and regulate the sale of cannabis for recreational as well as medicinal use. The Ministerial Mandate letters of the Justice Minister and Public Safety Minister in the Federal Cabinet clearly instructs them in no uncertain terms to work with Federal departments and provincial governments and their respective bureaucracies toward the implementation of this agenda. Legislation has already passed through Parliament, with a legalization date of July 1^st, 2018, now emerging from the haze.  

It has been estimated that Federal revenues from the sale of legalized and regulated cannabis in Canada could be in the range of $5 billion annually. Even the most conservative estimates suggest the revenues generated will exceed $1 billion annually. Ignoring this reality and failing to proactively prepare for its increased legal prevalence throughout our Society in months and years to come is not just a recipe for allowing new opportunity to go up in smoke. It is also potentially hazardous to the ability of the industry's stewards to provide informed and proactive leadership that can serve to positively influence and manage its impact on the game and on the culture within the game, as well as within the communal cultures of individual Clubs throughout the country. This is no longer a matter to snicker about and dismiss as a fringe thing. The time is now for the golf industry's professional stewards and its volunteer Boards and memberships to begin a serious dialogue in respect to how best to prepare for, manage and capitalize on Mary-Jane's increasing prevalence on the daily tee sheet as well as the impact it will have on the policies and operating procedures that govern the players who participate in and employee cadres who provide their services to the game. 

There is little question, to my mind at least, that the industry's stewards floundered and failed to provide informed and timely leadership ahead of the current when it came to the changing trends in personal preferences for more casual golf attire and corresponding amendments to traditional Dress Code policies, as well as with the emergence and mushrooming use of cell phones and other equipment and technology advancements that have swept across the country and affected all courses and clubs in their wake over the past two decades. A lot of hours in policy debate and drafting in committees and Boards across the country occurred trying to catch up from behind the wave. No shortage of discontent festered in the interim void in proactive leadership that served to negatively impact the daily outings and experiences of patrons and Club members, not to mention the workplace environments of their management and employee cadres. Eventually the industry's leadership were forced to shed their entrenched affinity for grasping on to dying traditions and embrace the emerging realities and desires for change within their communities and the will of their majority of members and patrons. 

Will conservative-minded resisters of change and adaptation to new realities continue the trend of reactive leadership behind the wave this time as well? Time will tell. Let’s hope that wiser minds will prevail and the industry's stewards will prove to have learned their lessons from the experiences of the relatively recent past within the golf and Club industry in Canada. Let's hope that they choose instead this time around to stop snickering and put aside their snifters, wine glasses and beer steins long enough at least to be proactive in discussing and preparing for the Mary-Jane Tsunami that there is little doubt now will be landing on the shore this coming season. 

It's like dipping a pinky finger into the icing on a cake to ponder on what this could mean for dessert and liqueur sales alone. Less tongue-in-cheek, it is no joke that Clubhouse kitchens and dining rooms can potentially see increased benefits ahead in both cost reductions and improved sales from the planting and tending of herb gardens. Grounds Crews, with their agronomy and horticultural expertise, may well be able to become revenue generating Club departments, eclipsing the expense budgets of golf course maintenance and turf care management practices across the nation. Hemp fabrics and products may also serve to reduce costs and increase durability of golf fashions, along with many other products utilized on a daily bases at courses and in Clubs throughout the country. The impact on the golf and Club industry in years ahead is in an embryonic state now, but may well grow with weed into a green giant virtually overnight.  

It won't be long now before millions of Canadians will be rolling along in laughter on fairways and greens. Whether the golf and Club industry is ready to embrace that coming day and is proactively prepared for the benefits and challenges that change will bring, only time will tell. One thing is for certain, those who chose to ignore the smoke and pretend it is not already prevalent in use on courses and at Clubs throughout the country are in for a blunt awakening in months and years to come. The surest buzz-kill awaits those who bury their heads in the sand and cannot see the plant's growth in use and opportunities, nor are prepared through proactive strategic thinking to welcome and embrace it, as the new era in legal recreational use of cannabis dawns in Canada in 2018.