The thing with Golf is it only requires 1 player. You can compete against your best score on any given course. If you don't like a shot and there's nobody waiting behind you then just pull out another ball and take the shot again so you get it right (I recommend you still play your original, crappy shot you put into the bushes, though).

While you can do a lot of studying in Go by yourself, the act of playing the game is a 2-person affair. That means a lot depends on who is sitting across from you. They impact the course you play on with every move. If you had to always have an opponent and he could rearrange items on the course after each of your shots you'd have a lot fewer duffers in golf.

In that regard, one of the biggest barriers to entry for new Go players is the population of existing Go players.

- Marty Lund

Both of the last two go clubs I've attended often had more new-ish people than sets for them to play on, so it seems difficult to talk about decline in the classical sense. The association of WWII submariners is a declining organization - it has an institution, it has infrastructure, it has money, it has social capital, it's just running a little low on members. I don't think Go is like that.

Actually, I have some idea. I found golf to be just as deep as Go. I think this aspect is the same for Go and golf.
I also found out Go and golf are very similar in this aspect: most of the time of the golf pro is spent practicing by himself/herself, and not playing in tournaments.
So this part is also the same, not very different between Go and golf.

I don't think clubs are so important for Go. I saw a lecture one computer Go, so I went and looked up the game, and talked my friends into playing, none of which had known about the game previously. It was years before I even realized there were Go clubs or you could play online. Of course serious gamers are a little weird.

If there weren't clubs, I know I wouldn't be playing go.

Funny. If there weren't online servers, I would not be playing Go.

I know there are a few clubs in my area (probably more than I realize). I don't have time to go to any of them, so I don't realy have a feel for the state of Go in my area.

If there weren't online servers and clubs, I wouldn't be playing go...I'd say they're 50-50 for me.

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Occupy Babel!

Yes, that's right. Though things can be awfully deep yet awfully lacking in fun or interest (I find Dots and Boxes to be that way). But my comment was more stream of consciousness. Golf isn't one of my games, but I don't mean to trash it.

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Occupy Babel!

It's not mine, either; no problem.
And yes, there are tons of other disciplines just as deep and profound; we just take up what we enjoy.

If you look over 5 years and compare to 25 years, you will see different pictures!
Over the longer time frame, go has really spread at least 100 fold!

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Michael Dobbins; Dragon: mdobbins, KGS: mgd, AGA#: 4253,
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