Every year we here at GolfStinks conduct a series of polls to garner the average golfer’s opinion of specific golf-related topics. And, every year around this time, we provide the results of those polls from the previous year. In 2014, we conducted seven polls throughout the year and will highlight five of them below…

Let’s begin in September, when we asked when your golf season ends. Our theory was that before the cold weather could set in, many recreational golfers would be summoned away from the course due to the start of college and pro football. But, that doesn’t seem to be the case. In fact, only 6 percent of you end your golf season because of live football on TV. And to our surprise, many of you (24%) keep playing until it snows. But something has to explain why the course seems more empty after Labor Day? Perhaps we can blame our sample, as many that read golf blogs are probably a bit more dedicated to golf than those who don’t.

In April, Stinky Golfer Greg announced he wasn’t playing in his college alumni tournament after learning it was $400. This led him to ask what golfers typically pay to play in a local charity tournament. More than half (53%) of you said you pay between $100 and $200, which was not surprising to us – $175 seems to be the norm for these types of tournaments. It was surprising though that nearly the other half of you (47%) claimed to pay less than $100 per tournament – where are these tournaments so we can sign up! Not one of you said you would pay more than $200, which makes us wonder how Greg’s alma mater can get away with charging twice that amount. One theory is many who play in these expensive tournaments are infrequent golfers who play for business- or political-related purposes. Or in the case of a college alumni tourney, perhaps the school is purposely setting the price high to woo the wealthy who attend into donating additional funds to the university.

In July we held a double poll – first we wanted to know how often you play par 3 and/or executive golf courses. And then we wanted to know if you’d consider playing those types of “short” courses more frequently. Well, 41 percent of you admitted to playing par 3 and/or executive courses “sometimes” while 36 percent of you claimed to “rarely” or “never” play them. And, a somewhat surprising number of you (16%) play them “frequently” or “all the time.” When asked if you would consider playing them more frequently, 65 percent of you answered “yes.” Perhaps this reflects the slow play and/or economic concerns of today?

In June, we wanted to know between par 3’s; par 4’s; and par 5’s, which hole-type was your favorite. We figured many would like the scenic quaintness of a par 3, or the ability to grip-it-and-rip-it on a par 5. We saw par 4’s as rather ho-hum. But much to our surprise, 43 percent of you said par 4 holes are your favorite! Meanwhile, 29 percent of you voted for par 3’s while 19 percent went with par 5’s. There were 9 percent of you who said you liked them all equally (cop-outs).

Finally, in March, we asked what your favorite major tournament in golf was. Nearly half of you (49%) said The Masters. Perhaps it’s due to the legendary beauty of Augusta National, or the fact that we held this poll just a week or so before the actual tourney – either way, we weren’t surprised at the results (maybe y’all should read this post). For what it’s worth, the British Open was second with 26 percent of the votes; the U.S. Open third with 14 percent; while the PGA Championship placed last with 11 percent.

That’s it for 2014 – but don’t worry, we plan on asking a bunch more questions in 2015…stay tuned!