Golf 2009

"Golf is a game of rotation and flexibility," said Kris Moe, the director of Kris Moe Golf Schools based in Sonoma, Calif. "Staying flexible during the off-season with stretching and repetitive motions, and strengthening your core, are the keys to getting ready to play in the spring."

For Nancy Woods of Duxbury, Mass., golf is much more than just a hobby. It's a family affair -- and she's not alone. Families are increasingly hitting the tees as a way to teach children the value of good sportsmanship, proper etiquette and self-discipline. With patience, perseverance and the importance of practice, kids can learn a lot from a day at the links, and cruising the course is a great way to get the whole family active and enjoying the outdoors.

Golf is more than simply chasing a small dimpled ball with a bunch of sticks around a manicured lawn with nine or 18 little holes in the ground. With the correct instruction, chasing that ball becomes a skilled pursuit and can be relaxing pastime, great for socializing or business networking. Learning about the game and how to play it can be rewarding both psychologically and financially, so an investment made in learning can be advantageous.

Is golf the most difficult sport to master? Ask Google and you'll get 192,000 affirmative answers to that question. But "never give up" appears to be the motto of the millions of Americans who play the game on a regular basis: In 2002, it was estimated that $23.4 billion was spent on equipment and fees, according to the National Golf Foundation. So what equipment does the erstwhile golfer need in the never-ending search for an improved game? Are there clubs made just for you, which give you the skills and confidence to score fewer strokes than your buddies?

It may be impossible to know who the first golfers were, but they surely had no idea what hitting that ball would set in motion. Many scholars say there are references to golf-like stick-and-ball games as far back as 14th century Netherlands, 11th century China and even ancient Rome. While there are no discernible duffers on the cave walls of Lascaux, the urge to whack a ball toward a target is perhaps as old as humanity.

Golf may be relaxing, but for the most part going to the greens means forking over a lot of your own. In the current economy, we want to save all the cash we can. "If you think about it, golf is a recreational activity, and it's one of the first things to go in somebody's budget when the purse strings get tight," said Jeffrey Wright, vice president of marketing for EZ Links (ezlinks.com), a site that sells discounted tee times to golfers. Today, though, golfers may be able to reap the benefits of difficult times in the industry, considering many courses were troubled long before the economy took a downturn.

There shouldn't be any problem in finding a place to golf. In 2007, there were 15,970 golf facilities in the U.S., 11,555 of which were open to the public.