Golf welcomed a record number of first-time players in 2017, with the 2.6 million beginners eclipsing the numbers set when Tiger Woods was in his prime and drawing a wealth of newcomers to the game around the turn of the century.
The number of people who played on a golf course for the first time in 2017 increased for the fourth straight year, one in a series of positive indicators detailed in the National Golf Foundation’s Golf Industry Report. The NGF report is a comprehensive state-of-the-industry overview that compiles many of golf’s key data points in a single publication to provide a holistic view of the game.
The Golf Industry Report showed that golf’s on-course participant base remained stable at 23.8 million golfers last year.
