GONZAGA ESCAURIAZA, president of the Spanish Golf Federation, recognizes that the economic situation is causing a decrease in the number of federation licenses in our country.
“Unfortunately this crisis is also affecting the number of licenses,” acknowledges Gonzaga Escauriaza, president of the Spanish Golf Federation. “There are people,” he adds, “who are giving up their licenses, perhaps those who played little or those who have been getting older, who still had their licenses and have considered giving them up now so as not to have to continue paying. We are, like everyone else, suffering a situation that we hope will soon pass”. In spite of everything, he is moderately optimistic about the medium-term future of the health of our golf. No doubt influenced by the splendid day in Marbella when we spoke to him during the weekend of the Open de Andalucía Costa del Sol.
-In any case, the fact that people are signing up for so little money shows that golf is becoming more and more a popular sport, not only accessible to people who don’t care about their finances….
-We have more than three hundred and twenty thousand licenses, which means that golf is “very popular”, I would say. It depends on the autonomous communities, but this sport is among the third or fourth in Spain in number of members.
-How is this initiative to take golf to the fairways going?
-Good. A lot of people got interested, and it stirred up and pushed the clubs to do things; the territorial federations as well. Some city councils were interested in offering us land to do something. And all this, together with golf in schools, will hopefully give interesting results in the medium term.
-What do you see as the main problem in Spanish golf?
-Besides the blissful crisis, we have the same disadvantages that golf has in the rest of the world, which are the time it takes on average to practice this sport, and the money needed to make any facility. Although the fact that it takes almost five hours to play a round favors, on the other hand, the incorporation of more and more seniors, who have a lot of free time when they retire.
-Tournament sponsorship is becoming more and more difficult. What do you think about four European Tour tournaments being held in Andalusia?
-It is absolutely incredible. Andalusia has become the Mecca of golf in Spain. I think the investment in this sport is a wise decision that we must continue to maintain because the return is great.
-Perhaps we should consider making tournaments cheaper, not only here, but everywhere?
-This could be useful if Asia, which is where the money is, did not set the bar so high. If Asia were to enter the game, it would indeed be possible to have more affordable tournaments and, therefore, possibilities of making more. But in the East they are more upwards than downwards.
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