Evening star., 1935-01-06
CONL|N'S FIGURES
HELD TOO SMALL
Believed Between Two and
Three Million Dabble
in PaStime.
BY WALTER r. McCALLUM.

BY WALTER r. McCALLUM.
~ PTIM1STIC predictions to the
contrary, there are not more
J than $4,000 golfers in the
United States, if you can be-
lieve the figures gathered by E. c..
Conlin, one of the big shots in the
United States Rubber Co., an or
ganization which sells flock of the
golf balls pounded around by hope
full buffers.
Eddie Conlin is a big figure in
golf and golf ball manufacturing,
and his organization is interested in
knowing just how many golfers there
are in this country in order that they
may gauge their production to meet
peak demand.
His bright young men, scattered
through 40-odd key cities in the
United States have made careful esti-
mates for Conlin and despite the
optimistic outbursts of some folk who
claim there are 100000 golfers in
the United States, Conlin insists that
he cannot account for much more
than one-tenth that number.
Difficult to Calculate.
IT'S a hard matter to calculate
this matter of how many golfers
there are in the United States.
There are members of clubs, who
play two or three times week, and
there are non members who play the
public courses usually and the club
courses occasionally. all of whom must
be classed as potential buyers OF golf
balls.
Take me all. year in and year
out, and you will probably find there
are about 100000 persons in this
country who play golf occasionally or
habitually. Certainly there must be
somewhere in the neighborhood of
5000 to 10000 people around WASH
ington who play golf. figuring the
membership of Is clubs at an average
of 400, and the thousands who use
the public courses.
The United States Golf Associa-
ton has on its rolls today about $50
member clubs, which will average
somewhere near 300 members to the
club. This figures out around 100000
members in these clubs. But golf is
not played alone at the country
clubs Probably the bulk of golfers
do not have memberships at golf clubs
but use the public courses as their
Fairgrounds. But how to figure how
many of these there are? And how
many repeaters?
Crowd Public Courses.
FAT EITHER Rock Creek Park or
~ East Potomac Park it is not
uncommon on a good Sunday to
start 800 or 900 persons on round of
golf. Naturally some of these are re-
peaters. but probably 600 are playing
only the one round.
The same is true, with added en-
phasis, in cities like New York and
Chicago, where long lines await at
dawn at Mosholu. Van Cortland Park
and other public layouts in New York,
and Jackson Park, Marquette Park
and other fee courses in the Illinois
city.
Around Chicago alone. with its
100-odd clubs, and its multiplicity of
public courses and daily fee courses,
there must be 10000 men and
women who can be classed as golfers
because they play dozen rounds or
SO year.
Personally, we believe Eddie Conlin
Is all damp with his estimate of only
a little more than half million
golfers. How, otherwise, could one of
the great sporting concerns have sold
something over s2OOO.ooo worth of
their highest priced iron clubs in a
single year? And how could the little
fellows get along at all. Probably
there are somewhere between two and
three million folks in the United
States who dabble in golf.