Market research authority Sporting Insight reports that a solid fourth quarter for 2025 built on a very strong finish to Q1, a record breaking Q2, and a positive Q3. It leaves the year end-total the highest since comparable records began in 2005 and up double-digits in percentage points against every post-pandemic year.
In total, 2025 rounds played in GB were:
- Up +14% vs 2024
- Up +11% vs 2023
- Up +14% vs 2022
- Up +21% vs 2021
The uplift was nationwide, with every region in 2025 outperforming each of the previous four years. Good weather certainly played a part, with 2025 warmer, significantly sunnier, and slightly drier than average despite occasionally intense rainfall and storms. This alone though does not account for golf’s consistent and striking success.
At the time, Sporting Insight wrote that Q1’s performance added to the growing body of evidence for a sustained golf boom. That 2025 not only maintained but accelerated progress seems to confirm this further.
Nor is the appetite for golf isolated to the British Isles. In the USA, The National Golf Foundation reports that 2025 rounds set an all-time record for the fourth time in five years. There are, clearly, factors beyond the weather that are generating enormous interest in playing the sport.
John Bushell, Managing Director at Sporting Insights, commented: “This is obviously extremely good news for the golf industry. Our sport has never been more visible, more accessible or more popular, and huge credit should go to everyone involved. We in the industry know well the myriad benefits and joys of golf, from fresh air to time with friends and family, the challenge, the competition, the decades-long hunt to lower that handicap, or just the excitement, thrill, and fulfilment from that perfectly struck shot. That more golf is being experienced at golf clubs, on golf courses, and elsewhere is a wonderful thing.
“New entry points to the game and enhanced practice sites are having an impact, from simulator venues to shot-tracking equipped driving ranges that provide much more data and feedback to golfers of all levels.
“This is opening up the game to new social players, to younger golfers experiencing a different type of golf – as well as our core golfer who use it for data-driven practice, and for all-year-golf play in markets where golf cannot be played on course during winter – in Scandinavia, northern Europe and Canada for example.
“These things are picked up in growing global participation, and are included in alternative formats of golf, tracked by The R&A. The Rounds Played data suggests that those formats are in turn pushing more people to play traditional forms of golf more often.”
Since 2000, Sporting Insights has tracked rounds played at commercial golf courses across mainland Great Britain. For more information or to purchase the full report, contact Sporting Insight. N.B., all records are comparable back to 2005.
