Riding off into the Sunset... for now.

My friends, I’ve made the very difficult decision to shut down Addicted2Golf at the end of this month.  It is not a decision that was taken lightly.  I’ve put in many hours of hard work into this site – growing traffic from a handful of visitors a week to eventually more than 4,000 per month.  Very respectable for a site that’s not supported by paid advertising or affiliation with a larger outlet.  So, you ask, why the change of heart?

Well, it boils down to a couple of very personal motivations.  First and foremost, I found that the time spent working on the site was impacting the amount of time I was spending with my wife and our two sons – ages 7 and 11.  I spent too many hours this past year doing the stuff that needed to be done to grow A2G when I should have been outside spending time with my family.  Or sleeping.  Or both.  After some introspection, I realized I will never get that time back with them.  We should have been playing more golf or hiking or doing other things they like to do with me.  But we weren’t and nothing is more important than that right now – especially for my boys at their young age.

Also, to be honest, I found the boundaries of a golf only site to be too limiting.  Like many people, I have varied personal interests and I’d love to share them with people but that isn’t really what A2G was about.  Ideally, I’d have multiple sites and maintain a social media presence like some prolific writers I know that do this sort of thing for a living, but that isn’t in the cards right now.  How do they find the time?  Hats off to you guys, but I digress.

I want to personally thank everyone that has invested their time to read and comment on the articles I’ve written.  And to the companies that submitted products for review.  I’ve been fortunate to meet many wonderful people over the past year and a half.  That has probably been the best aspect of running this site – the people.

We will talk to each other again in the future.  Over email or on message boards, Twitter, Facebook or even (gasp) in person.  Maybe I will eventually start another blog or write a book.  I will be out there folks… somewhere… if I’m not on a golf course or a dusty trail.  You can count on it.

Be good to each other.  Take care and be safe.