Busting golf’s myths: These statistics refute ill-informed views about the game

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It’s time for some myth-busting. The game has made massive inroads in improving sustainability and diversity, and more doubters need to know the facts.

Dave Aznavorian has worked on the USGA’s behalf in Washington, D.C., on several editions of National Golf Day, a May event in which a consortium of industry representatives joins forces to help bolster the game’s standing with Congress. Aznavorian, the USGA’s senior director of transformational initiatives, admits that there are times when the group finds the going tough in its education efforts on behalf of the game with members of the House and Senate.

“Think about it — when you drive on the Beltway around D.C., you see several golf courses bearing the words ‘Country Club,’ with gates, walls or fences around them,” Aznavorian said. “D.C. isn’t alone in that regard; many private clubs are situated close to major metropolitan areas. For thousands of people who drive past those clubs on their daily commute, that helps form a perception that golf is a game for the few and not the many, that it’s more private than public.”

If you’re reading this, you are most likely a golfer, and you are also most likely proud to identify yourself as one and to be an advocate for the game. Its adherents are well aware that the “game for a lifetime” has a knack for parceling out life lessons even as it provides meaningful interactions with players of varied backgrounds, all engaged in a common pursuit that yields health benefits.

There’s much more to golf, of course, including its long association with charitable endeavors and its role in providing critical open spaces where natural habitat and wildlife can thrive. The game is on a certified roll the past few years, spurred in part by its popularity as a pandemic-friendly pursuit — remember how perfectly its individual nature and those open spaces lent themselves to the requirements of social distancing (provided, of course, that we rode solo in our carts)?

Still, golf continues to have its fair share of detractors. If you love the game, it helps to have information at hand when you hear the occasional disparaging comment from someone who is either ill-informed or holds long debunked views about golf.

Here are several facts that will arm golfers with the latest information and help dispel some common myths:

73 percent of the USA’s nearly 16,000 courses are public

To Aznavorian’s point, many outside of golf believe the game is made up mostly of private clubs that they consider insular or unwelcoming. Those initial, and often uninformed, perceptions are shattered by the data provided by the National Golf Foundation (NGF): nearly three-quarters of the 15,963 courses in the U.S. are open to the public.

Not only do the vast majority of courses in the country welcome all players, the average cost to play an 18-hole round is $43, according to NGF editorial director Erik Matuszewski.

“That national average will fluctuate by region,” Matuszewski said. “The cost of play hadn’t increased measurably for years — it was lagging behind inflation. Fees have risen slightly thanks to the incredible momentum we’ve seen. However, golf is still very reasonably priced compared to other activities that take four to five hours.”

That time in nature can yield lots of residual benefits as well.

“What’s great about golf — perhaps unlike any other activity — is that you can literally walk up to the first tee of a public course and get paired with, say, a 52-year-old woman, a 37-year-old man and a high schooler, and just go play,” Aznavorian said. “You start out on the first tee not knowing each other at all. But by the end of the round, you might know a lot more about each other; that inevitably makes your way of looking at the world a little different. I can’t think of any other place where that happens.”

The 2,900 municipally owned courses in the U.S. are on average 22 percent less expensive than other daily-fee courses. How important are they to the game’s ecosystem? More than 70 percent of current “core golfers” (defined by the NGF as those who play at least eight times a year) can trace some of their earliest golf experiences to municipal courses.

Courses use less than 1% of the water drawn on a daily basis in the U.S.

According to a 2018 report from the U.S. Geological Survey, approximately 322 billion gallons of water are withdrawn daily in the U.S. Golf course irrigation accounts for about 1.5 billion gallons of that total, or one-half of 1 percent, per the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA).

That fraction of daily water usage by golf courses surprises many people who view golf’s use of water as indiscriminate and wasteful. In reality, the industry has gone to extraordinary lengths to decrease its water usage over the past several decades. The motivations are many, from the drive to be stewards of the land they oversee, to the need to reduce costs associated with procuring water, and in some regions, to adhere to usage restrictions.

The USGA is an acknowledged leader in those efforts, having invested more than $50 million since 1983 in turfgrass research and resource management through the Mike Davis Program for Advancing Golf Course Management. Along with its support in developing drought-tolerant grasses that require less water and chemicals, the USGA offers course management tools that help to deliver water and other resources more efficiently, while also consulting with course operators to help them trim costs by reducing the amount of maintained turf.

The days of lush, “wall-to-wall” greenery on golf courses ended long ago. In fact, golf courses in the U.S. reduced their water usage by nearly 20 percent between 2005 and 2020, thanks to various conservation strategies.

In 2023, Anthem Country Club in Henderson, Nev., received a water conservation award from the city for its efforts in realizing annual water savings of 59 million gallons, a result of measures that included an upgrade of its irrigation system, installation of 49 acres of drought-tolerant turfgrass, and the removal of 15 acres of out-of-play turf.

“We realize that courses face a spectrum of cost and implementation challenges in conserving water,” said Cole Thompson, the director of Green Section research for the USGA. “If you want to save water, we think you can. Based on what your goals are and how much money you can invest, let us show you what we think are your best options.” 

Golf courses take up less than one tenth of 1% of total U.S. land

Speaking of land usage, golf’s footprint is far smaller than most would imagine. The United States comprises 2.3 billion acres of land, of which nearly three-quarters (around 1.68 billion acres) are classified as agricultural land and forest. The rest is made up of parks, wildlife areas, wetlands, tundra, unproductive woodlands and urban land. Golf courses are highly visible, seemingly large swaths of acreage, but they represent 0.1 percent of all U.S. land area, per a 2023 GCSAA study.

Their area may be relatively small, but golf courses’ benefits can be mighty when you factor in aspects such as providing habitat for wildlife and plants, cooling and air purification of adjacent urban areas, stormwater management and other environmental pluses. Courses continue to work to lessen their environmental impact through the use of recycled water for irrigation, increased use of electric-powered equipment, and other means.

“That’s the thing about sustainability — it’s aspirational,” said Chris Hartwiger, the USGA’s director of agronomy. “I don’t think we can ever say, ‘We’re there.’ There’s always a new frontier.”

Golf gives back $4.6 billion annually to communities and charitable causes

According to the NGF, there’s not a sport in America with as significant a charitable impact as golf. About 80 percent of golf courses and clubs in the U.S. hosted at least one event that benefited a charity in 2023, and in many cases, the course operators or the club hierarchy donated blocks of tee times or discounted their typical green fees.

You might think that the PGA Tour and LPGA Tour, which make substantial contributions in the communities where they conduct events, lead the way with regard to charitable giving in golf. The tours do an outstanding job, but local and regional fundraising events – more than 120,000 hosted annually — bring in the lion’s share of funding for charitable causes. Not only that, golf’s impact dwarfs that of the combined charitable footprint of the four major pro sports entities — the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB.

The USGA formalized a U.S. Open community giveback program in 2022 that delivers funding for priorities that live on far beyond championship week.

“Charity is at the heart of the U.S. golf industry,” said Mike Whan, CEO of the USGA. “Golf is a key driver for charitable giving and has long taken the lead in hosting events that improve millions of lives through causes that are mostly unrelated to golf.”

This impact is not waning — in fact, the total giving for 2023 was up about 18 percent compared to a previous study in 2016.

Since 2019, fueled by programs such as LPGA*USGA Girls Golf; Drive, Chip & Putt; and Youth on Course that help remove financial barriers to the game for youngsters, the number of golfers ages 6 to 17 has risen by 40 percent. All of these programs benefit from donations and fund-raising efforts, as well as annual grants from the USGA.

In 2024, Youth on Course enabled nearly 250,000 youngsters to play more than 1 million rounds for $5 or less on more than 2,000 participating courses. Access to the game is one thing — how about attaining the highest levels with the help of that initial foot in the door?

Both the 2023 U.S. Junior Amateur champion (Bryan Kim) and the U.S. Girls’ Junior champion (Kiara Romero) got their start in the game as Youth on Course participants, along with 2022 Girls’ Junior champion Yana Wilson and current professional golfers Cameron Champ (a three-time PGA Tour winner) and Yealimi Noh (who won the 2018 U.S. Girls’ Junior). That’s far-reaching impact!

The fastest growing groups are youths, females and people of color

Golf is certainly in a boom phase. Participation numbers are up more than 50 percent in less than a decade, going from about 30 million in 2014 to more than 45 million in 2023, helped by various off-course options, such as driving ranges and simulators. And those figures are shattering the stereotype of the game as older, white and male.

“I think folks on the outside think about professional golf dominating the media and the landscape,” said the NGF’s Matuszewski. “But it’s such a small part of the overall picture. Golf is a $100 billion per year industry, and it’s mainly driven by the play, the purchases, the travel — everything that we do as recreational golfers.”

In 2024, for the fifth straight year, rounds played in the U.S. topped 500 million, and among seven demographic categories, the top three increases in on-course participation over the past five years are among youths (up 40 percent, to 3.5 million), people of color (up 27 percent, to 6.1 million) and females (up 25 percent, to 7 million). This is notable for several reasons.

“In the past five years, the average age of a golfer has come down by more than a full year,” said Matuszewski. “That’s significant when you’re talking about a sport with more than 26 million participants; the pace of change is generally very slow, almost glacial. Then you factor in that the lowered average age is bucking a built-in trend, the fact that baby boomers are pouring into golf as more than 10,000 of them turn 65 every day.“

The 18-34 age group leads the way in on-course golfers

The NGF breaks golfers into five age groups: 6-17 years old, 18-34, 35-49, 50-64, and 65 and older — and the 18-34 group leads the way at 6.3 million, another blow to the notion that the game tilts toward an older demographic. That 18-34 group makes up 23.7 percent of the whole, followed by 50-64-year-olds (22.9%), 65 and older (20.3%), 35-49-year-olds (19.9%), then 17 and under (13.2%).

Another exciting aspect of the younger on-course participant base is that there’s stronger representation among women. While about 34 percent of male golfers are under age 35, the proportion of female golfers soars to 45 percent under 35.

“The 18-34 demographic may not play the most, and they may not spend the most,” said Matuszewski, noting the challenges of school, joining the workforce, perhaps starting a family, and having less disposable income on average than older groups. “But they’re getting out there, engaging with friends and having a social experience on the course. Hopefully those are the players who are going to set up the base for the future.”

Rejoice! The positive vibes have already begun

Take that, pickleball! The court game may be the fastest-growing sport in the U.S., but it still falls short in sheer numbers to golf, which has added nearly 15 million participants in the past 10 years, per the NGF. As of 2023, golf has nearly double the number of players (26.6 million to 13.6 million).

Still, only one out of seven Americans plays golf — although that isn’t necessarily for lack of interest. According to the NGF, latent demand for the game is skyrocketing. Among the 85 percent of Americans who didn’t play golf on a course in the past year, 22.4 million say they are “very interested” in doing so. That figure is up by 45 percent since 2019.

Why? Possibly because the game is now seen by many non-golfers surveyed as “cool, engaging, hip and fun” (sure beats “staid, pretentious and insular,” doesn’t it?). When two-time U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau issues himself a multi-day challenge to hole out a wedge shot hit over the roof of his (glass) house onto a backyard green, and he garners more than 100 million views on TikTok, that’s a golf “happening.”

Entertaining social media posts can only bring the game so far, but the fact that more than 70 million Americans have shed their negative views on golf over the past decade (again, per the NGF), means that at least some of the game’s recent efforts are resonating.

Perhaps it’s also a hopeful sign that, when you encounter someone who isn’t yet sold on the intrinsic values of the game, they will be that much more inclined to listen to the facts of the matter.