Pumpkin spice products on shelves

Pumpkin spice products have multiplied on American shelves while the country's golf courses have quietly closed. There is no correlation here that doesn't sound like a satire of suburban decline. The clubhouse is shorter. The latte menu, longer.

Two opposing trends with separate causes. The number of US golf courses has been falling for over a decade as fewer people take up the sport and developers find higher-value uses for the land, while pumpkin-spice product proliferation has grown as a calendar-driven marketing trend that retailers happily extend each year. One leisure activity contracting, one seasonal aisle expanding.

So the correlation is one swing fading and one syrup rising. The ground gave up first. The autumn aisle did not.