Baby boomers will spend their retirement money on golf and travel

He adds:

With ~15% of Boomers playing golf, there will be around ~7 million golfers moving toward retirementwhich will more than double the ~3 million golfers currently there. Furthermore, the positive correlation between age and rounds played, which has been a consistent trend over the past 20 years, means that golfers ages 65+ are playing 80%+ more rounds than golfers ages 50-64, playing 52 rounds per year on average. We estimate that Boomers will contribute at least 50M incremental rounds played as they enter retirement, taking into consideration that many Boomers are still feeling skittish about the economy and will be cautious in their spending post-retirement.

But since 74 percent of the boomers surveyed also said they plan to lower their discretionary spending after retiring, they'll have to trim their expenses elsewhere to afford all this golf and travel. Some 86 percent of respondents said the portion of their budget dedicated to eating out was slated to come under the knife.

"[T]hough full-service casual dining concepts have endured slower growth for years, the survey suggests potential additional sales risk," concludes Barish. "Casual dining already trades at a large discount to QSR [quick-service restaurants] and fast casual, but the group does trade above historical average and there could be some excessive optimism in some of the Street numbers."