3-Minute Business Insights
Short Game
Golf’s overall participation base in the U.S. – combining on- and off-course players – rose 8% in 2020 to 36.9 million. This leaves us with three closely-sized and mutually-exclusive groups of Americans.
And it probably won’t be long before traditional, “green grass” participants are out-numbered. Perhaps as soon as this year.
A return to the friendly skies means more golf trips and destinations back in consideration. Core golfers, on average, are now expecting 1.8 golf trips in 2021 -- an increase of more than 60% over 2020.
Working remotely has provided greater schedule flexibility for many people over the past year. It's also had a significant impact on golf.
The latest monthly numbers show something the golf industry hasn't seen in a while -- a decline in play. How much of an impact did Mother Nature have in February?
There was a 31% decline in 18HEQ course closures in 2020, the largest drop on record. Could golf be approaching the end of its 15-year market correction?
The flood of new faces on U.S. golf courses in 2020 was noteworthy, even if some gains were offset. Who were these new people? And who wanted “in” last year?
After the coronavirus struck in 2020, spring shutdowns gave way to an unprecedented summer and fall in terms of play, golfer introductions and reintroductions, and robust, late-season spending.
October rounds played came in 32% higher than last year, according to Golf Datatech, raising the national year-to-date figure to +10.8%. Several multi-course operators we checked with recently told us that the surge in play continued in November, putting us on track for an annual increase of somewhere around 50 million rounds over 2019. Pretty amazing.
The September numbers are in and, percentage-wise, it was the largest year-over-year jump so far in 2020.
In 2009 and 2016, roughly a quarter of U.S. public golf courses admitted to being in bad shape, financially. Here's where things stand now, public and private.
