India’s Golf outlook for 2018 – 2019

The recently concluded India golf expo left visitors wanting more. The expo broke tradition by coming to Bangalore after a departure of more than 5 years. Needless to say that golfers in the city were excited for what was in store.

2 days of symposium with an expert panel providing participants insights into the sport from the construction, management and governance.

No expo will be complete without a selection of merchandise available for participants and visitors. Showcased were the latest and greatest from leading manufacturers such as Taylormade, Callaway and Footjoy.

2018-2019 is an important year for India. From a political point of view some key states are going to polls which will impact the general elections to be scheduled in 2019. From an economic perspective, India has been surviving on a consistent GDP growth of 7%. This is despite global pressure and increasing nationalist trade policies by important global markets.

Despite India’s noteworthy GDP, the economy has been hit by a few major shocks and the positive effects of these shocks are delayed. One major shock to the system came through demonetization, where over night currency notes were no longer legal tender. The next jolt came in the form of GST, the unification of indirect tax, though important made it very difficult for small manufactures and MSME’s to quickly adjust their processes to now conform to the new tax system. The constant altering of the tax rate by the GST council is a concern, however the in the long run this should ease doing business for large sections of the business community.  Unfortunately at present we are still at the beginning of this journey. Finally another reform that has had a tremendous impact on the economy is RERA. Real estate in India has been one of the main drivers of economic growth and forms the highest percentage of investment by Indians after gold. The net result is that real estate has a spectrum of businesses and developers to offer options at various price points. When RERA was announced for the industry, even though from a buyers perspective it is transformational, for an industry perspective it is over bearing, as it over night caused a major shift in the nature of the business. The net result has been a delay in the announcements of new projects by developers and prolonged slow down in the market.

In this scenario, the implications for golf are quite significant. In India, golf is an aspriational sport whose growth is fueled by increasing incomes and a burgeoning real estate climate. The physical development of the sport will always be constrained by market forces and political climate, however As stakeholders in the industry, we need to evolve golf to have a third fuel of growth. This is true more than ever this year as the country is in the run up the general elections of 2019.

Improving participation and encouraging beginners is one aspect the sport needs to address as part of this vision. The golf associations in India do their bit by encouraging junior development programs, however in private enterprise as well, this needs to be encouraged. One step in this direction would be more discussion on improving teaching methodology and golf coaching, seminars devoted to teaching professionals, where professionals can meet and share thoughts and ideas. In addition, golf also needs to penetrate into schools, in particular international schools where fees are higher and emphasis is placed on unique facilities on offer. This would help inculcate golf at the grass root level and work in tandem to what is organized at the associations.

In 2018-2019, as an industry we need to weather out this storm of stagnation and prepare ourselves for the turn around. On a world stage in January 2019,  the rules of golf are set of a massive game changing over haul. Perhaps this is the catalyst that the industry needs.

As stakeholders of this beautiful game it is our duty to weather out this passing storm and prepare ourselves for the growth. If we can make small strides in these areas, the industry will have strong platform, from which the next leap of growth can be made.