Jupiter, Florida, United States: The National Golf Foundation’s (NGF) Graffis Report, a holistic overview of the golf industry for 2021, paints a positive picture.

Available for NGF members, the Graffis Report compiles many of the game’s key data points on the business of golf and the health of the game in a single publication: golf participation, engagement, rounds-played, golf course supply and development, golf equipment sales, retail supply and the game’s reach.

The full state-of-industry report is named after Herb and Joe Graffis, who founded the NGF 86 years ago as the first golf business research, education and trade organisation.

While resurgence was central to golf’s story in 2020 following the Coronavirus outbreak, the underlying theme throughout the industry in 2021 was opportunity. What 2021 and the tail-end of 2020 fostered is renewed engagement, whether that’s committed golfers playing more, interested non-golfers giving the game a shot for the first time, or lapsed golfers returning after an extended time away.

Among the notable numbers from 2021:

• The number of traditional, on-course golfers rose for the fourth straight year to 25.1 million
• Overall golf participation (on/off-course combined) increased 2% year-over-year to 37.5 million participants
• The 600,000 gain in golf’s consumer base was evenly split between on and off-course players
• The number of junior golfers has increased by almost 25% over the past three years, to over 3.1 million
• Women comprise 25% of golfers and people of colour 21%, both groups increasing meaningfully over the past five years
• The number of beginners hit a record high, at more than three million
• The increases in play that received significant attention during the second half of 2020 continued in 2021, with the total number of rounds played across the US increasing about 5% over the year prior, and around 20% over recent pre-pandemic years.

Interest among non-golfers (both lapsed and those who have never played) reached record levels, with almost 18 million Americans saying they’re ‘very interested’ in taking up the game.

This is due in part because golf has broad appeal – played by one in nine Americans among all age groups – and has long provided a healthy physical, mental and social outlet, but also because the growing number of off-course forms of the game offer an engaging, accessible and non-intimidating introduction to golf in a non-traditional way.