Remember when you'd have to get up at 4:00 A.M. to get a reasonable morning tee time at most golf courses? Well, those golf-crazed, sleep-depriving days are over. Golf as a leisure sport is fading in popularity, according to The NY Times. And golf isn't alone. Outdoor sports in general are attracting and retaining fewer active participants.

Why? Family obligations, indoor entertainment options (e.g., online & vid gaming, movies). And, in the case of the traditional mainstream sports (e.g., tennis, golf, baseball), the newer "extreme" sports (e.g., skate boarding) are simply more appealing to younger sports fans.

Golf, of course, takes forever to play. It's also expensive -- equipment, greens fees, private club memberships. And however many more golf courses there are now than a decade ago, you've still got to travel some distance to get there.

Finally -- let's be honest -- golf is tough as hell to play decently and sometimes sickeningly frustrating. Anybody who's spent some time on the golf course can't help but notice a lot of people who play (and we mean not just us) are simply miserable. They'll tell you later, yea, golf is great, we love it, etc. But watch them play -- they curse, yell, throw clubs (even beers) in rage. (Although most, we included, throw beer only as a last resort.) But too often golf is a self-flaggelating exercise in pain. And it just might be that finally some reasonably thoughtful (i.e., sensate) weekend hackers have decided...no more.