National Golf Foundation’s Graffis Report shows a 14 percent year-over-year increase in rounds played despite March/April course shutdowns.
Total golf participation (on/off-course combined) was up 8 percent year-over-year to 36.9 million participants.
The report’s core findings also include a net gain of 500,000 on-course golfers, the largest lift in 17 years, up to 24.8M million. The study also found an increased number of interested green grass prospects, up 10 percent year-over-year.
NGF said surges in play got the most attention in 2020 with the average weather-related fluctuation of +/- 2 percent to -3 percent in a typical year, and only once in the past two decades was there a 5 percent year-over-year increase. The 14 percent jump means that, even with the loss of 20 million spring rounds played, the net gain over 2019 was approximately 60 million rounds, putting the golf industry around 500 million games played in total. Heightened demand was particularly evident from June through the end of the year, with approximately 75 million more rounds played than the same period in 2019.
Over the past five years, the overall golf consumer pool has risen 19 percent to 36.9 million, including 12.1 million Americans who only hit golf balls with golf clubs somewhere away from a golf course.
Meanwhile, the number of active, on-course golfers in the U.S. grew by half a million players in 2020, up to 24.8 million – the most significant year-over-year net increase since 2003, thanks to a record inflow of beginning and returning golfers (6.2 million, 27 percent higher than the prior-year).
The net gain could have been more significant, but 2020 was an extraordinary year. Last year 5.7 million people stepped away from the game, a 19 percent increase in outflow versus the year before. The incremental loss was marked by COVID-19 anxieties, financial hardship, parenting challenges, and the cancellation of charity and/or corporate events that drew on the occasional golfer. On the positive side, the recently-lapsed participants in 2020 show significantly more interest in returning to play than recently-lapsed in years past.
The report also found Americans who did not play in the past year but suggested that they were “very interested” rose to 17 million in 2020, a 10 percent increase from 2019 and up more than 40 percent since 2015. As interest continues to grow, there has been a concomitant rise in the number of beginners, which, in 2021, hit an all-time high, according to NGF.
On the supply side, the number of golf course closures dropped -31 percent compared to the prior year. NGF recorded a total of 193 18-hole equivalent closures in 2020, about 1.3 percent of the total supply. Demand for land to develop into residential and commercial real estate projects fueled the golf supply correction. Simultaneously, fewer than 8 percent of the nation’s 14,000+ facilities reported that they were in poor financial shape, down from 25 percent in 2016. NGF said last year’s downswing in closures and improvements in facility financial health could signal the beginning of the end of golf’s ongoing demand/supply correction, which has lingered for 15 years.
The full report, named after Herb and Joe Graffis, founders of NGF 85 years ago as the first U.S. golf business research, education and trade organization, can be accessed here.
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