Questions lingered throughout the year when it came to rounds: Would demand dip? Would golf’s Covid dividends begin to wane? As 2022 winds down, here’s how national play is stacking up.

The peak-season, summer months of June, July and August are disproportionately important for the golf industry — a make-or-break period for most golf facilities. This summer, the industry climbed out of the hole that Mother Nature dug early in the year.

After a couple of great years for rounds, some might feel the pandemic ‘bloom’ might be off the rose, so to speak. NGF President & CEO Joe Beditz weighs in.

Rounds of golf in 2020 were almost unthinkably high – the industry erased 20 years of decline in about six months. Naturally, we all wondered how 2021 would go. Would demand maintain, or regress as people presumably fell back into old routines? Emphatically, it was the former.

Coming into the year, only the most optimistic thought the industry could beat 2020 rounds. Here’s how 2021 play shaped up.

The most frequently asked question since the beginning of the year was whether the elevated level of golf activity would maintain in 2021. Well, we’ve had our first real test – comparing peak season months in 2020 and 2021.