March 27--"Strapped for time?" asked the subject line of a promotional email that arrived last week. "Play Jackson Park."
First of all, yes. Like everyone, I'm strapped for time -- tugged in many directions by the demands of work, family and sleep, and enticed by the many alluring diversions of life in 21st century Chicago and on the various screens never more than 3 feet away from me.
Jackson Park -- the reference in the subject line is to the public golf course that winds through the South Side park of the same name -- is one of those alluring diversions. But one reason I haven't played much in recent years is that an 18-hole round takes three hours on a good day and (see previous paragraph).
The solution offered in the body of the email is the "Inside 5 Golf League," a weekly event starting April 4 in which participants will play just five holes -- the first three and the last two, if you know the course -- and figure to finish in a bit over an hour.
"It could work," said Pat Gallagher, author of the 2013 book "Golf Is Dying. Does Anybody Care?" "There's nothing sacred about the concept of 18 holes or nine holes," he said. "The innovations that can save the game are going to come from local ideas like this."
American golf courses continue to close faster than they open. The number of overall rounds played continues to drop -- by 1.7 percent in 2014 according to Golf Datatech, which tracks such things. The Economist recently reported that the number of Americans playing golf has dropped 18 percent since 2006, while the overall population has increased 6 percent.
"There are three main reasons," said Gallagher. "Golf's too expensive, it takes too much time and it's too hard."
Billy Casper Golf, the national management company that operates 20 area golf courses, including the Chicago and Cook County public courses, and is behind the "Inside 5 Golf League," has seen some evidence of this decline, said Jered Wieland, local vice president of operations.
The company tried to address the "too hard" problem last year by introducing a second, extra-large hole on every green at three local courses.
The gimmick, which has gained some popularity elsewhere, did not catch on and will not be revived for the 2015 season.
"Our regulars complained," said Wieland. "The second hole had a tendency to get in the way."
Casper had far more success last year with the introduction at four courses of "footgolf," a version of the game played by kicking a soccer ball along the fairways to holes placed in the rough, where they're less likely to interfere with conventional golf.
"It was a home run," said Wieland, throwing a metaphor from yet another sport into the mix. Casper is organizing leagues for the summer and seeking to expand the idea.
Five-hole golf, Casper's effort to address the "takes too much time" problem, is unusual but not unique.
Rockford has a five-hole course as does Oklahoma City. The Island Hills Golf Club in Centreville, Mich. offers a "five-hole loop" for $19 (the greens fee for 18 holes is $55), and players can also choose three, seven and 12-hole rounds depending on how much time they have).
Whether "Inside 5" catches on or not, the effort to lure overscheduled kids, overstimulated millennials and overextended boomers back to the grand, too-leisurely game will -- must -- continue.
Mo'Ne: Goodness, gracious
Now I really admire Mo'Ne Davis.
She pitched for Philadelphia in last summer's Little League World Series with such talent and poise -- first girl even to throw a shutout at that event -- that she made the cover of Sports Illustrated. She seemed like a charming kid with impressive focus.
Even though her team fell short, it wasn't a surprise when the Disney Channel earlier this month announced plans to make a movie about her called "Throw like Mo'."
And, sadly, it wasn't a surprise when some doofus -- Joey Casselberry, by name -- tried to knock her down a few pegs on Twitter by posting "Disney is making a movie about Mo'Ne Davis? What a joke. That slut got rocked by Nevada."
It was a stupid thing to write. Vile, even. Outrage followed, and Casselberry was kicked off the Bloomsburg University baseball team, where he played first base.
Casselberry apologized, posting, "I couldn't be more sorry...I please ask you to forgive me and truly understand that I am in no way shape or form a sexist and I am huge fan of Mo'Ne."
His joke -- I believe it was a joke -- was the kind of over-the-top, absurdly offensive thing that good friends might say in private to shock and amuse each another. And one of the predictable, ever-recurrent perils of Twitter is that it causes users to forget that they're not in private communicating only with good friends, but declaiming on what can become a massively public stage.
The concurrent peril is that readers tend to respond to ill-advised tweets as though they are well-considered pronouncements intended for the family coat of arms, not impulsive utterances that seemed witty at the time. Extreme umbrage inevitably results, and careers, reputations and relationships are left in tatters.
So how did Mo'Ne Davis respond? She emailed Bloomsburg and asked that Casselberry be reinstated. "It hurt on my part," she wrote. "But I know he's hurt even more. ... Why not give him a second chance?"
She told ESPN, "He didn't mean it in that type of way. ... Everyone makes mistakes."
Her grace, her empathy, her magnanimity, is even greater than her fastball.
Don't tell kids to "Throw Like Mo'," Tell them to "Grow Like Mo'."
Re: Tweets
Out of the sweet 16 semifinalists for tweet-of-the-week, readers chose "'Dad, you called me my brother's name.' 'I'm sorry *30 second pause* little dude,'" by @ericsshadow.
Check out all the semifinalists and post comments on this column at chicagotribune.com/zorn.
