Two observations that are good for golf. I hope.

1) I was waiting on line in Fairway, underneath the West Side Highway about 130th Street, and heard two 30-ish guys behind me talking about golf. About how dull the FedEx Cup is and about how Tiger gave a putting lesson to Sean O’Hair, an act of friendship that wouldn’t happen in most other sports.

2) Having drinks with Stephanie Wei, another blogger here on tumblr (Wei Under Par, check it out), and she said that many of her just-under-30 friends are playing golf. And loving it.

“Me-search,” perhaps, but I was reminded of what happened 25 years ago, when I first got into the game. Everyone was talking golf—asking my favorite courses, wanting to know what clubs to buy—and the corporate mantra was “you have to play golf because lots of deals are done out on the course.” A handicap index was almost as hot as an MBA and the standard uniform for “casual Friday” was Dockers and a golf shirt. Those were the good old days.

So are they back? Is this the beginning of a golf renaissance, or at least a resurgence? Again, I hope so. As I’ve written elsewhere, the historical precedents are in our favor. The ’10s might be the new ’50s, when we had a post-Depression generation aching for normality and status quo; a President who played golf (then: Ike; now: Obama); and a handful of established stars with a crop of young studs coming along (Snead and Hogan/Tiger and Phil; Arnie and Jack/Kim? Villegas? Moore? Who else?).

True, there are some downsides, notably this lovely economy, which is wreaking havoc on golf courses, real-estate developments, equipment companies, etc. The industry will have to contract before it can boom again.

I’d like to know if others are seeing “green shoots” out there, so please respond with your own observations of golf’s pending re-ignition. It’s a theme I’ll return to time and again, because if you play and love the game, it’s pretty important stuff.