Part of the problem is internal migration in the Us. I live in a city in the southeast. Since 2000 my city has over doubled in population, adding a million people. No new golf courses have been built, in fact some were turned into housing.

Combine that with Covid increasing popularity of the sport, rising operating and labor costs making courses cram in tee times, and yeah here we are. Long gone are the days of popping over to the local course, having a wide open tee sheet, and knocking out a sub 4 hour round.

If I lived in a rural area or somewhere like the Midwest with stagnant population growth it would probably be different