Is golf stuck in the rough, or is it just a bad lie? That’s the quandary executives in the $70 billion golf industry must address this week as they gather at the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, Fla. seeking to get the much-maligned game back into growth mode.

2014’s gloomy golf headlines focused on fewer people playing less often and more courses closing than opening. At face value it sounds dire, but there are clearly business opportunities in a cyclical sport that just two years prior was flying high with some industry players carding sales records.

But forget the “good walk spoiled” quote often attributed (though disputed) to Mark Twain, as beneath those doomsday headlines last year a look at the game’s scorecard tees up another acerbic quote from Twain: “The reports of golf’s death have been greatly exaggerated.”

via Golf Industry Looks to Hit More Green in ‘15 | Fox Business.