It’s Thursday, Aug. 27, and things seem to be normal at Walden Lake Golf & Country Club. Plant City High School’s boys and girls golf teams are there, driving, chipping and putting away, as they always do. They’re scheduled to play Freedom High School, which in 2014 boasted one of the top girls teams in the Tampa Bay area.
But the Lady Patriots never show up.
Left without an opponent, the PCHS golfers are instructed to play anyway. Golf is an individualized sport, after all. But on the girls side, it’s just that there aren’t as many individuals as there used to be.
“We’ve run into that a little bit in the district, for some reason,” Plant City head coach Meg Jordan says. “Durant’s been the only one with a team. No Freedom. No Wharton. East Bay only has one girl.”
Add Tampa Bay Tech to the list of teams hurting for golfers, if not quite devoid of them, and it only builds upon the question that’s following the girls golf scene this year.
Where is everybody?
AROUND THE COUNTRY
On a broader scale, high school sports participation rates appear to be climbing.
According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, which conducts an annual study, high school sports participation consistently increased over 25 years, with the most recent available data ending at the 2013-14 school year. The organization says it has been doing this study since 1971.
As individual statistics for the 2014-15 school year are now available, one can take a deeper look into the numbers. Across the country, 72,582 girls were members of 9,824 high school girls golf teams last year compared to 148,823 male players throughout 13,528 schools.
In Florida, 2,292 girls in 407 schools participated, against 3,795 boys in 494 schools.
In the 2012-13 season, more schools fielded golf teams — 420 girls teams and 502 boys teams. There were also more players — 2,426 girls and 4,020 boys.
Although the numbers have fluctuated up and down over time, especially after the economic recession of 2008, the 2014-15 numbers are the lowest of the last five available seasons.
While the number of participating schools has increased over the past decade, rising from the 300s into the 400s, girls individual participation numbers have largely stagnated.
The decline of golf participation has been covered extensively in major media outlets, and many cite the repercussions of the 2008 recession as affecting factors. Higher equipment and outing costs, coupled with a shrinking number of golf courses, are often used as explanations.
FIGHTING THE PROBLEM
Jordan, who coaches the Raiders’ boys and girls teams, says that it’s “not unnatural” for schools to lack girls golf teams. Certainly, the available data suggests that.
But, on a larger scale, it hasn’t always been this visible from the Winter Strawberry Capital of the World. As both a program alumna and the team’s head coach for the last 13 seasons, Jordan would know better than most.
“This is the first time we’ve run into that,” she says. “Even the coaches are surprised. Kids say they’re gonna play, but then they don’t. It’s unfortunate.”
The only way to combat the decline in local participation, Jordan says, is for the coaches to recruit within their schools as much as possible.
Many girls opt for sports such as basketball, track and field, and volleyball, which have the highest participation rates. Jordan says it’s up to coaches to show many of these girls what kind of post-high school opportunities could open up for them through golf.
Recruiting can’t just be done throughout the season, or the school year: it’s what coaches are dealing with during most of the calendar year.
“You can’t be just thinking about the team you have now,” Jordan says. “You have to think of the team you’ll have down the road. We’ll be in a situation like this ourselves, next year, if we don’t get some people out here.”
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.
NUMBERS GAME
Participation numbers for girls golf, as well as every other high school sport, can be found on the National Federation of State High School Associations’ website. Sport-by-sport participation statistics can be accessed at nfhs.org/ParticipationStatics/ParticipationStatics.aspx/. Aggregated statistical reports, showing what the numbers have looked like for the United States as a whole, can be found in PDF format near the bottom of the page.