What Would You Say Was the Cause of Death?

There's a scene in a certain episode of one of my favorite TV shows where one character asks another to say what he thinks the cause of death was for a bunch of apparent corpses. After the other character makes a few guesses, all wrong, the first character divulges that there was no cause of death, because they're not dead. I was reminded of this when I heard a European Tour announcer say, during the broadcast of the Turkish Open, that slow play is "killing the game, at all levels." Now, look, I know everyone seems to hate slow play with a fiery vengeance, but in order for that statement to be true it first needs to be true that the game is dying, or at least shows some sign of being done substantial injury. Is that true? I dunno. I'm not sure how you'd try to measure that. Maybe "number of golfers worldwide," though I don't know how good the data is there. Maybe the ratings for big tournaments? Maybe the number of applicants to the U.S. and British Opens, which I believe keep setting all-time highs each year? Nothing I've seen as an ardent fan and a player myself suggests that golf is losing the interest of the general public, and that's really just in the U.S., let alone Asian countries where the game is booming. People love to gripe about slow play, but I'd like to see some evidence that it has actually damaged the game, as opposed to just annoying people around the top echelon of the game and the subset of amateur players more likely to have business appointments forcing them to be in a hurry while on the course. It's not killing the game, in other words, because as best I can tell nothing is killing the game.