National Golf Foundation reports increase in rounds played in 2019

Is golf actually turning a corner these days?

In other words, after years of declines in participation and in rounds played, could it be that the game, at least recreationally, is starting to see an upswing?

A 1.5% increase in rounds played in 2019, as reported by the National Golf Foundation, might not be the great resurgence in the game people have hoped for over the last decade. But in the business world — and golf is still a business — any increase is better than a decline.

The 1.5% increase means that NGF estimates 440 million rounds were played last year. The NGF says that number is actually skewed a little because weather in the country was not great. In fact, it was the second-wettest year on record in the United States, meaning that plenty of potential rounds were rained out.

In California, for a least the last few months of the year, things were pretty stable compared to 2018. Across the country, though, other places had strong showings. In the south, basically the area from Florida extending into Texas, rounds of golf were up more than 3% from 2018. But in the upper Midwest, rounds of golf were down, with weather being the main enemy.

So what does all of this mean to the future of golf.

In the area from Florida extending into Texas, rounds of golf were up more than 3% from 2018. (Kamran Jebreili/Associated Press)

Well, for one, it means the game still is dependent on the weather to make the business run. Bad weather means no revenue on certain days, but that has always been the case.

It also means that perhaps there is some light at the end of the tunnel for the game. Despite the weather, rounds of golf reached 440 million. After more than a decade of decline, an increase in rounds played is a good thing.

Yes, we are still hearing stories about golf courses that are closing and equity clubs having to sell out to private companies and private clubs having to open their doors to outside play to generate revenue. But if the argument has been that more people need to play golf, then 2019 saw more people play golf. Or perhaps it wasn’t more people, but the same number of people playing more golf individually. Either way, it was more money in the cash registers of the courses.

What we can’t know from the raw numbers is why the rounds of golf went up. Are more people taking up the game for the fist time? Are people returning to the game after leaving for a while? Are some club initiatives like junior executive memberships getting younger people to come to the game? Are shorter tees keeping older people in the game longer?

The truth is we can’t learn much from one year of such a small increase, even if it is an increase. What we can hope is that this is all part of a decade-long trend of increased rounds and increased participation that will get the game healthier than it is now. Maybe we won’t go back to the boom times of the late 1990s and early 2000s, but increases in rounds played is never a bad thing for golf.