The number of golfers playing on Europe’s full-length courses – 7.9 million in 2016 – now exceeds 10.6 million, according to the latest edition of the European Golf Participation Report, drawn from the research of Sports Marketing Surveys and published by The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews (R&A), golf’s governing body in the U.K., and the European Golf Association (EGA). Much of the increase took place in the last two years, due no doubt in part to the Covid pandemic, which prevented people from engaging in many other sports activites.
The figure represents the sum of club members and independent golfers, the latter making up 59 percent of the total. For Phil Anderton, chief development officer at The R&A, counting independent golfers together with those who are registered as club members gives a more accurate view of the total number of golfers playing on a full-length course each year and reflects how the sport is being consumed from country to country.
When it comes to the numbers for registered golfers, the report, which is updated every two years, also shows that 73 percent of the EGA’s 49 national federations and 66 percent of the golf clubs expanded their rolls from 2019 to 2021, with total registered golfers up by 4.6 percent, from 4.13 million to 4.32 million.
England and Sweden generated the highest absolute rises in registered golfers, up by 63,500 and by 54,589 members, respectively. Latvia and Belarus produced the greatest growth, each of them growing by over 150 percent. Nine countries, mostly “emerging golfing nations,” recorded growth of at least 30 percent. By percentage of the population, the most golf-loving countries are Iceland (17.7%), Scotland (10.9%), England (8%) and Ireland (7.8%).
The number of registered female golfers in Europe now exceeds one million, having increased their numbers by 13,000, but their proportion among all European golfers has dipped by one percentage point to 26 percent. In absolute numbers, female participation in golf is highest in Germany (221,865), followed by Sweden (129,949) and the Netherlands (125,537).
There are now more than 350,000 junior golfers in Europe, or 43,000 more than in 2019; and their proportion among all registered golfers hovers at 8 percent. In this category, Sweden (61,839), England (45,304) and Germany (41,212) are at the top.
