Golf is growing fast: What is the reason for this?

The game of golf has been rapid­ly grow­ing through­out the last sev­er­al years. Peo­ple of all incomes and back­grounds are now enjoy­ing the game, that used to be seen as the game for old rich peo­ple. Why is the case? COVID-19 could have def­i­nite­ly made an impact because there was not much for peo­ple to do, but are there oth­er rea­sons? How do long term golfers feel about the growth of the game? Find out on this episode where I talk to expe­ri­enced and ama­teur golfers about the game’s sud­den growth. 

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Episode Tran­script:

[00:00:00] Robbie/Narration: A game that was seen as a bor­ing sport for old rich peo­ple has been tak­ing the nation by storm. Accord­ing to the Nation­al Golf Foun­da­tion, golf’s over­all reach in the Unit­ed States in 2023 was 123 mil­lion peo­ple. This is up 30 per­cent from 2016. To add on, 3. 4 mil­lion played golf for the first time in 2023, which is also an all time record.

Look­ing at spe­cif­ic demo­graph­ics, accord­ing to fair­way­iq. com, over the past four years, women golfers has increased 25%, and eth­nic minor­i­ty golfers has increased 43%. Golf is becom­ing cool. Golf is becom­ing pop­u­lar. But why now? And what has caused this?

I trav­eled to Cham­pi­onship Labs Golf Store in Hart­ford, Con­necti­cut to speak to employ­ee and Coastal Car­oli­na Golf alum Kyle Morde­cai to see if he has noticed an increase in pop­u­lar­i­ty and what he thinks may be caus­ing it.

[00:01:28] Kyle Morde­cai: Yeah, def­i­nite­ly has grown in the last cou­ple years, I’ve only been here for two years.

I’ve been in the golf indus­try for 10 or so years. I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen it grow. There’s def­i­nite­ly more foot traf­fic going in and out of cer­tain places, maybe not nec­es­sar­i­ly here but, we def­i­nite­ly have been busier with  every­thing. Golf cours­es are packed and there’s always peo­ple on the golf course, which is good to see. When I was grow­ing up as a golfer, I played col­lege golf, it was nev­er pop­u­lar. I always kind of got made fun of for being the golfer. And now all my friends are beg­ging me to go play golf with them. So that’s fun­ny to see.

 I just think that it’s any skill base you can real­ly find fun in being any skill in the game of golf. It’s good being out­side. Over that cou­ple of years with COVID, it was like the only thing you could do. So that def­i­nite­ly helped. I’ve def­i­nite­ly noticed a lit­tle bit of a dip now that the world sort of opened back up again, but still a ton of peo­ple are play­ing golf. It is just a fun game.

It’s sup­posed to be relax­ing. It’s pret­ty frus­trat­ing but you’re out­side and that I’ve always enjoyed. Being out­side, spend­ing time with my friends and fam­i­ly, it’s a good way to do that.

[00:02:55] Robbie/Narration: Kyle men­tioned COVID 19 mak­ing an impact on the popularity.

Accord­ing to Forbes, 60 per­cent of golfers said their play increased dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. This was because they had less ways to spend their leisure time. Golf cours­es remained open dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, so it was an easy way to get out­side and see peo­ple and stay active. As a high cal­iber golfer, I want­ed to know if he thought this growth was good for the game, or if all the begin­ners can get annoy­ing for more expe­ri­enced golfers as golf cours­es have become so crowd­ed nowadays.

[00:03:26] Kyle Morde­cai: Oh, you’re set­ting me up here. There’s def­i­nite­ly a gift and a curse there with it. I’m not going to gate­keep the game of golf cause you know, I love it. It is awe­some. It saved my life a few times. I love the fact that peo­ple are play­ing golf. But at the same time, get out of my way and let me play my golf round.

[00:03:50] Robbie/Narration: After talk­ing to some­one in the indus­try, I want­ed to get the per­spec­tive of a casu­al golfer like myself and many oth­ers to see if COVID or oth­er fac­tors got them into the sport. I spoke to ama­teur golfer and golf fan, Jack Lydon, to see what he had to say.

[00:04:08] Jack Lydon: The rea­son I got into golf was I guess for a cou­ple of rea­sons, one of which I’m going to kind of talk about on ques­tion two as well. I got into golf because after high school, I did­n’t real­ly have many sports that I could play com­pet­i­tive­ly for the rest of my life. You always got­ta pick up a bas­ket­ball game here or there, but no more base­ball or any­thing like that.

So, I want­ed to pick some­thing that I could play pret­ty much for the rest of my life, and some­thing that I real­ly enjoyed. I think that sort of leads me into ques­tion two, which was, why do I think the pop­u­lar­i­ty of the game has grown? Well, I think a lot of peo­ple, Gen Z males par­tic­u­lar­ly got into golf when things were shut down due to the COVID 19 pan­dem­ic in 2020.

I think that there was an incen­tive to be out­side at that point. And that was real­ly the only way you could inter­act with your friends or your col­leagues or what have you. I think that golf was a real­ly enjoy­able way for peo­ple to stay com­pet­i­tive and stay ath­let­ic. But also at that time stay safe from get­ting Covid. 

I can already look for­ward to next sea­son as well. I had shoul­der surgery on my labrum this past fall. The posi­tion in which my back­swing is, my right arm is sort of at a 90 degree angle. So That is the most vul­ner­a­ble posi­tion for a shoul­der so I think going through my rehab and sort of tak­ing what I’‘ll get from my rehab and apply­ing it to my dynam­ic stretch­ing for golf will be a very impor­tant step for me in not only stay­ing loose and being able to play well on the golf course, but also stay­ing safe.

[00:06:21] Robbie/Narration: For ama­teurs like Jack, Kyle had this message.

[00:06:23] Kyle Morde­cai: Keep going. Just keep at it. It’s going to click. This game stinks, but it’s the best thing in the world. I tell that to every­one, and every­one kind of looks at me crazy when I say it. I hate the game, but it’s the only thing I love.

It’s chas­ing that per­fec­tion and hit­ting that good shot. Bot­tle that, a cou­ple of good shots every round and enjoy it. Under­stand that this game is hard, extreme­ly, extreme­ly hard. You know, being a 95 to a hun­dred score golfer, you’re on the aver­age side of the golf game.

So under­stand that and like it, and just enjoy it and keep play­ing. If you don’t play, you’re not going to get bet­ter. So keep play­ing and enjoy it.

[00:07:10] Robbie/Narration: Whether it be from COVID or even social media accounts such as Bob Does Sports or Good Good Golf, golf is gain­ing more eyes and more play­ers, specif­i­cal­ly play­ers who are women, eth­nic minori­ties, and young men.

What was once a game that was seen as a bor­ing game and only for cer­tain types of peo­ple, it is now one for every­one. And we will have to see if this growth con­tin­ues as the years come.