National golfer base growth accelerates in ’25: What demographic groups are driving it?
Pellucid announces the release of their annually anticipated scorecard on the golfer base size, shape and growth
In the ’25 update to this annual analysis of the golfer base, based on Pellucid’s 15+ year partnership with the National Sporting Goods Association and their all-sports survey, we look at the shape and changes in the golfer base through the following dimensions:
- Gender – both groups grew; males added more golfers but females grew faster
- Age – Encouragingly, the 35-44 group grew the most while 65-74 was the sole loser
- Income – “Democratization” took a hit as all gains happened at $75K+ income
- Involvement – Casuals (2-9 rds/yr) notched the largest gain while Committeds (40+ rds/yr) declined
- Play dynamics – Participation gained, Frequency (rds per golfer) declined and Play Rate (rds per capita) was unchanged
The full data detail in Excel is available one of two ways:
- Pellucid Publications Membership, all Pellucid publications annually, comes in Local (owner/operators) or National (everyone else) versions
- Golf Market Research Center (owner/operators); sign up to submit Rounds, Golf Revenue and Rate Card pricing info and get web portal access to trend reports of your figures, weather impact data and a KPI scorecard including weather-adjusted performance metrics (as well as all Pellucid annual publications)
At <$500/yr any of the above ought to be a no-brainer for the majority of golf stakeholders who need to understand national industry health and directional trends. For the “hesitant majority”, we’ll make it a half-brainer by offering a free 3-month trial. Email us to sign up for that program. Jim Koppenhaver will “run the numbers” in the April issue of Outside the Ropes providing commentary to the figures; did we mention that’s included of either of the annual subscriptions? Subscribe today and get the positive news, straight from the “industry contrarians” (ha, ha)!
Jim Koppenhaver
