Do you still play golf? Is it really dying?

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This was supposed to be a glowing moment for golf, the aristocratic pastime and business ritual that helped transform America into a quilt of green links and country clubs. Golf returns this summer as an Olympic sport for the first time in 112 years. Instead, the story of golf looks increasingly like a tale of surrender. Fifteen years after Nike’s star endorser Tiger Woods captivated the country and revitalized golf with a four-title “Tiger Slam,” the world’s biggest sporting-goods company said Wednesday it was closing its main golf division and waving the white flag, saying it can’t make money off golf.

Years of declining participation have damaged the sport’s future and mired its top businesses in sand traps. The number of U.S. golfers who played at least one round a year has dropped from 30 million in 2005 to 24 million last year, the lowest level since the mid-1990s, data from the National Golf Foundation show.

Even worse for the sport’s future: Participation by young golfers, ages 18 to 34, has plunged 30 percent over the past 20 years. An NGF survey found that 57 percent of American kids and teens thought negatively of the game; the top response was that it was “boring.” About 90 percent of the spending comes from a core group of about 20 million golfers, and “the people who are committed to the game, i.e. the avid golfers, they’re playing golf,” said Steve Mona, chief executive of the World Golf Foundation, a trade group for the sport.

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