A sport both urologists and proctologists can love.

While working on the X-Blog (below) about golf’s problems finding new players, I got to thinking about why the ranks of golfers haven’t swelled over the last decade. As I’ve often noted, we had the world’s most exciting athlete (or if not the most exciting, one of them), and until the last year or so, the economy was booming.

So what went wrong? I think I have the answer.

Poker.

Okay, not just poker, but games like it, starting with videogames. Games that keep people, many of them young adults, indoors and try to give the misperception that they are sports. (A poker player is on the cover of this week’s ESPN The Magazine. Cancel my subscription.)

Why is this a problem? Because golf used to attract the kind of person who now thrives on poker and Playstation: a little geeky, someone who doesn’t mind playing by him or herself, and who likes using his head, not just his body. (And, let’s face it, may have a body not ideally suited to running, throwing, and hitting.) Plus, there’s the allure of winning a fast buck.

However, I recently heard some encouraging news regarding golf’s growth, and it comes from exactly the kind of brainy (and not necessarily brawny) types we like.

Good friends have a son, 25-ish, in med school. When I saw him the other day he reported that many of his fellow fledgling physicians spend hours playing the latest Tiger Woods videogame while talking about taking up golf for real when they are done with their training and have more time and money.

So maybe the PGA of America should start working with America’s med schools offering a different sort of internship. Partner with teaching hospitals and give residents reduced rates on lessons and green fees. Trade tee times for appointments. Putters for procedures. Cleeks for catheters. First T-Cell program, anyone?

Then business schools, engineering schools, law schools… The future Judge Smailses of the world have to come from somewhere.

Exaggerating to prove a point? Perhaps. But maybe golf should be looking to a different pool of potential players, ones who are a little older and likely will have the wherewithal and the motivation to give the game a try in a few years.

Anyone have other suggestions on how to get to this group? Or other groups we should be reaching out to? (Please don’t suggest retirees: The way things are going, no one will ever be able to retire again.)