Rounds played were up 3 percent through the first 11 months of 2023.
By the looks of things, 2023 will have been another banner year for golf when Jim Koppenhaver and Stuart Lindsay give their annual State of the Industry report on Jan. 25 from the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando.
Rounds played for the year were up 3.6 percent through the first 11 months of 2023 according to the November edition of the Golf Datatech Monthly Rounds Played Report. That figure includes a 4 percent increase in play on daily fee facilities. Rounds played in November were up 8 percent compared with the same month in 2022.
For the month, rounds were up by 2 percent or more in 37 states. Play was down in Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont. Play was roughly flat in both Alabama and Illinois.
The biggest gains for the year, according to Golf Datatech, have been in New Mexico, where play was up 18 percent through the first 11 months of 2023, Delaware and Maryland (up 11 percent) and Ohio, where play was up 10 percent through November, despite the dip in play for the month.
According to the annual report by Koppenhaver of Pellucid Corp. and Lindsay of Edgehill Golf Advisors, rounds played were up by 14 percent in 2020 and 5 percent in 2021. Although rounds were down slightly in 2022 (about 2 percent), they were up 2 percent vs. the weather while also gaining more than 300,000 additional players.
Along with that growth has been a downward trend in the age of those taking up the game - a good sign for long-term growth. According to Koppenhaver and Lindsay, 80 percent of new golfers entering the game since Covid are under age 45 and half are under 35, with the average age of a new golfer being 36. The median age of female golfers, who comprise a little more than a quarter of all players, is down from 48 in 2015 to 37.
According to Koppenhaver's Pellucid Corp. golf playable hours, a function of the number of hours in a day in which golf can be played, accounting for daylight hours and conditions such as temperature, wind and precipitation, was up by 42 percent in December. How that affected year-end data will be revealed on Jan. 25.