Competitions should go over to crazy golf, it’d be more fun to watch then, not use water, and use less space too … imagine how crazy pro-level crazy golf courses could be!
Maintaining that much turf probably isn’t very environmentally friendly, either.
Maybe the better way forward is for other versions of the game to increase in popularity. Obviously there’s mini golf/putt putt, but there’s also stuff like Top Golf (digitized driving range with almost a bowling-like game options using those sensors), all sorts of indoor golf simulators. If VR/AR gets better, we might see some of these other types of games become more practical replacements or spinoffs from the traditional outdoor game.
Did you follow the F1 season in 2020 when they went to VR racing because of COVID? They ran into a number of (solvable) problems there, and ultimately switched back to real car racing sooner than they should have for that reason. The momentum behind the existing structure is just too great, and there’s too much money behind things staying the way that they are.
I imagine that golf would run into similar barriers.
I was envisioning something more like an alternative version of the sport that turns into its own thing for amateurs, rather than as a direct replacement for the top professional tiers.
Formula 1 exists, sure, but so does all sorts of other kinds of motorsport, with all sorts of different kinds of vehicles and budgets. Rather than migrate Formula 1 over to electric vehicles, for example, the FIA just created a separate Formula E series that doesn’t replace F1. Similarly, there are lots of non-FIA racing sports that have much, much smaller budgets, to make the sport more accessible to people, from go-karts to street legal cars to motorcycles to all sorts of other vehicles.
After all, a lot of us like to play sports recreationally with modified rules than what the very, very top tier professionals play. A 3-on-3 half court basketball game is still basketball, and basketball courts can be built that accommodate that without necessarily accommodating the full court necessary for the official professional rules.