Scientists estimate that in about five billion years, the sun will exhaust its supply of hydrogen, swell to “Red Giant” status, and begin its slow death – engulfing Earth and the inner planets in a wall of fire and ending life as we know it in our solar system.
That’s the bad news for those of us on Earth, including our more than 30,000 golf courses.
of good the news is that, as golf existential crises go, this one isn’t very urgent! Before we get to the bottom of the first question – what to do with the sun in five billion years? — We should have enough time to understand it others existential issues such as overseas investment by sovereign wealth funds, the threat posed by the slow march of profits into the distance and the struggle to keep an old, slow-moving sport relevant in an increasingly young and attention-deprived world.
But as it turns out, the sun still has some luster as a golf problem in 2025. It’s a big enough problem to encourage Jay Karen, chief executive of National Golf Course Owners Association of America (NGCOA), to speak before House Committee on Energy and Commerce on Thursday morning. And as Karen explained to Congress, the opportunity for American players is night and day.
As much as I’d like to keep making weird astronomy puns for the rest of this story, the actual gist here is actually quite relevant to the daily lives of American gamers: Daylight Savings Time, the annual tradition where (most of) America “falls back” and “forwards” an hour each year. DST plays a critical role in the health of the golf business – potentially a multi billion dollars role, if you believe the latest NGCOA assessments.
That’s how Karen and NGCOA ended up before Congress, and why they’re now on the front lines of the fight to make the daytime schedule full-time.
“Our data shows it would be at least a 1 percent increase in the overall golf industry, and that’s at a minimum,” Karen said at the House Committee hearing. “I would estimate that (the change to permanent daylight saving time would only add) 2-5 percent to the golf economy overnight.”
The story of the movement for permanent daylight saving time — and the potential profits of the golf industry — begins, like many American stories, on a battlefield in Europe.
The first US experiment with daylight savings time began in 1918 with The law of standard time, a law passed at the height of World War I intended to encourage energy conservation during the war effort. The legislation was controversial from the start. Farmers took to the streets to protest the loss of morning light and the spectacular inconvenience of being out of sync with the townspeople who bought their produce. The law was repealed shortly thereafter and re-enacted in the 1940s to aid the American effort in World War II.
In 1966, the national dispute reached a tenuous compromise under “Uniform Time Act.“The law installed America’s current half-DST, half-standard time approach — but the solution was a half-measure, and like many half-measures, it was hugely unpopular on both sides of the debate.
The clock debate quieted some in the 60s, but it never went away. In 1974, the US government tried permanent daylight saving time to save energy use. during the oil shortage. (Voters hated dark mornings, and the “again, out” system was reinstated.) In the 1980s and 1990s, a collection of consumer brands and citizen advocates formed “Coalition for Saving Daylightfighting for the return of permanent DST under the guise that it might bolster consumer spending. And in the early 2000s, the government extended DST by another four weeks, giving Daylight Savings Time the majority of the annual calendar.
But none of those moves moved the needle as much as the surprise effort that materialized in the U.S. Senate just three years ago, in March 2022, when lawmakers began debating a bill called the Sunshine Protection Act. The SPA, as it was called, was a simple text by congressional standards: It was only one page and several hundred words long. The goal was one: to restore DST as the permanent law of the land, and it fell on sympathetic ears with the winter-weary Senate chamber.
After a short debate, the SPSH was put to the vote. The draft law was unanimously approved, with no shortage of uproar on social networks. It was quickly sent to the House of Representatives for consideration and then to then-President Joe Biden’s desk for signature.
What happened behind closed doors in the days that followed that deal remains a mystery, but what emerged in public is a simple fact: The Sun Protection Act died on the House floor without ever receiving a vote. Some House members blamed “stalled momentum” for the inaction, while others said it simply wasn’t “a legislative priority.” Whatever the reason, the bill has sat on the floor of the House of Representatives without receiving a vote for more than three years, occasionally reappearing for further investigation by smaller “committees” of the US House of Representatives.
On Thursday, Karen was invited to testify before one such group – the Committee on Energy and Commerce – on the potential impact of permanent daylight saving time (or permanent standard time) on the golf industry. It didn’t take long for the head of the golf trade group to voice his opinion.
“Our data shows that permanent standard time would cost the industry, at a minimum, $1.6 billion annually,” Karen said. “That’s approximately $200,000 in lost revenue per golf course and 37 million lost rounds of golf.”
Karen said golf depends on what he calls “recreational time of day,” or when the sun overlaps with people’s ability to be outside. American players overwhelmingly prefer to be out in the afternoon and evening, which can generate 40 percent more revenue per course than in the morning.
“It basically unlocks an amazing amount of inventory for the golf industry,” Karen said. “And that’s just the golf industry, but it translates into good health for Americans as well.”
According to the NGCOA, course operators agree that the extra sun is good for business and golfers. The only concern, Karen said, was that a permanent shift to DST could affect the ability of some golf courses to provide enough time off for club staff and employees.
“A survey showed that around 64 per cent of our members support permanent daytime hours, while 83 per cent agree it would help their business,” said Karen. “Twenty-seven percent are for the status quo and only 7 percent support permanent standard time.”
In the eyes of NGCOA, there is only one solution: If America is to change its relationship with sunlight, a rollback (of the clocks) is needed.
“If we eliminate the time difference, we’re in favor of permanent daylight saving time,” Karen said.
At least for the next 4.9 billion years.
;)
