The post-pandemic golf boom continues to chug along.
Nationwide demand for golf in 2025 reached a record 540 million rounds played, according to the annual state of the industry report presented recently at the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando.
It marked the third consecutive year of record-breaking rounds played, according to the annual report.
Presented annually by Jim Koppenhaver of Pellucid Corp. and Stuart Lindsey of Edgehill Golf Advisors, the report also revealed that the number of golfers in the pipeline is still growing, and the inventory of golf courses continues to decline, even if ever so slightly.
In the past 20 years, supply has contracted from 14,848 golf courses in 2006 to 12,703 last year, for a total loss of 2,145 courses in 18-hole equivalents.
An increase in demand for golf is just one of many statistics used to help measure the state of the golf industry. Those rounds played take on greater meaning when factoring in weather in 2025.
Years ago, Koppenhaver's Pellucid Corp. established a metric known as Golf Playable Hours. GPH is a measurement of the metrics that influence how many hours in a day one can play golf, including daylight, temperature, wind, precipitation, etc. According to this year's report by Koppenhaver and Lindsey, 2025 represented the lowest nationwide average for Golf Playable Hours was the lowest in 2025 since Koppenhaver established the metric.
The number of golfers in the system grew in 2024 by about a net 900,000 players to about 24.2 million, according to Pellucid. Although final numbers on the number of golfers in the market are not yet in for 2025, the National Golf Foundation is predicting the number could be another million, bringing the number of players shooting upward to about 25 million.
Behind that net gain of 900,000 golfers is a pick-up of 6.5 million players (3.4 million new golfers and 3.1 million recommitted golfers) coupled with 5.6 million people who walked away from the game.
"And so now what we do is we look at this and say, okay, let's look at first retention," Koppenhaver said. "So, 76 percent of those were retained year to year.
"In consumer packaged goods, if you've got a product and you're looking at year-year-to-year, 80 percent is an acceptable retention rate. We would like to see an 80 percent for a viable ongoing brand. So I look at our 76 percent, not bad."
The golf industry has been marked by supply contraction for two decades, with closures outpacing new construction every year since 2006. Although construction is booming in a few places, such as South Florida and Texas, overall it was down again in 2025.
Nationwide demand for golf in 2025 reached a record 540 million rounds played, marking the third consecutive year of record-breaking rounds played.
Construction was completed on 20 golf courses in 2025, according to the report, but a total of 50 closed, for a net loss of 30 courses (in 18-hole equivalents).
In those 20 years, supply has contracted from 14,848 golf courses in 2006 to 12,703 last year, for a total loss of 2,145 courses in 18-hole equivalents.
The key to continued success at the individual facility level should be on player retention, because it is easier to keep golfers than attract new ones, said Lindsey.
"How many rookies do we have to attract to offset a lost golfer?" asked Lindsey.
"So the problem here is everybody we lose, we have to replace with more than one of them in the franchise."