Golf Rounds Increase by Nearly 25 Million in 2021
We thought the drastic increase in golf rounds during the pandemic in 2020 would never be touched.
Well, apparently that is not the case.
According to the National Golf Foundation, golf rounds have increased by nearly 25 million in 2021.
“While ‘official’ year-end data won’t be available until late January, we can confidently say that 2021 total rounds will exceed last year’s, most likely by 4% to 5%. (See Figure 1) This amounts to somewhere between 20-25 million additional rounds nationwide. That’s a lot of green fees and golf balls,” writes the National Golf Foundation.
This comes despite bad weather in the New England region for the majority of the summer.
So how does NGF explain the continuing golf surge?
- Lots of golfers continue to have more schedule flexibility than prior to the pandemic, and so afternoon tee sheets are still being filled
- While the weather this year hasn’t been quite as ‘golf friendly’ as last year, it wasn’t too bad
- We’ve hung on to many of the new and returning golfers (public and private) from last year”
NGF adds, “But the main reason rounds are going to finish up: March and April crushed it relative to the previous year. Because half of all courses were closed during those months in 2020, and others had restrictions on play, this year’s comparable rounds were bound to be way, way higher … and they were.”
Will be interesting to see if golf can top itself in 2022.