October rounds declined slightly on a national level, down about 2% year-over-year — a change that’s within the normal weather-related variance as precipitation levels for the month increased across the country.
Through 10 months, play for 2025 still remains slightly ahead (+1.1%) of the record-setting pace from last year. Only significant declines in the lower-volume months of November and December could prevent 2025 from being another record year — potentially the fourth in the past five years for the U.S. golf industry.
All eight geographic regions tracked in the monthly rounds report had higher precipitation totals than October 2024, with the biggest jumps in the Mid Atlantic (+250%), South Central (+250%), New England (+248%) and East North Central (+106%) regions. Average temperatures also dropped YOY in all eight regions.
Cooler, wetter weather contributed to drops in play in golf- and golfer-rich Northeast states like New Jersey (-12%), Pennsylvania (-10%), and New York (-5%), with similar impacts extending further down the East Coast in South Carolina (-10%), North Carolina (-5%), and Georgia (-4%), and into the Midwest with Illinois (-5%), Michigan (-4%) and Ohio (-4%).
The October rounds data marked the first decrease — of more than 1% — for this year since May. No decline has been more than 3% since the seasonal months of January and February.
NGF provides confidential, facility-level rounds data to Golf Datatech in helping compile the free, monthly play reports on behalf of the golf industry.
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