The sport is attracting whole new categories of players to a growing number of variants of the game.
Here’s a fact that may surprise you: included among the top choices of locations to meet up for a first date among millions of Tinder users in the United States last year was – wait for it – a golf driving range.
“When I was younger, I was a tennis player and thought golf was an elite sport,” she says. “There seemed to be a lot of etiquette with golf, and the rules were intimidating. Big Swing Golf has been a revelation for me and the simulator was a safe place for me to try the game. The video playback is brilliant, and the distance feedback is a great motivation for Carter. We generally practice for half an hour and then play each other at a famous golf course on the screen for the other 30 minutes.
“Golf here is all about enjoyment,” says Philip Drew, Sandy Golf Links’ general manager. “We don’t host competitions, and our local rules-of-play are all about having fun, including that it’s OK to not keep score, it’s OK to play from the shortest tees, it’s OK to give yourself a better lie by rolling the ball around a little, and it’s OK to throw your ball out of the bunker after one try. We have no dress code – apart from no work boots on our greens.
The average age of on-course-only golfers is 48, while the average age of off-course-only golfers is 36. Women comprise 23 per cent of on-course-only golfers but 53 per cent of off-course-only golfers. Madden says much of golf’s attraction is its value-for-money proposition. “People realised during COVID that golf was safe to play in the open spaces and fresh air. It’s an enjoyable walk, and it doesn’t break the bank balance. We are not a $3000-a-year membership model. Our mid-week rate for 18 holes is $38 and our weekend rate is $46. People are happy to pay this for four hours of entertainment. The game has been insulated a little from rising interest rates.
For many years a group has been agitating to reclaim nine holes of Moore Park to make it public land. The increasing popularity of the facility – which is more than 100 years old – is leading to increasingly stiff opposition to this move.The tough streets of north-east Glasgow might not seem the most obvious place for the R&A to invest in a public golf facility, but in early August it opened Golf It! on the old council-run Lethamhill golf course in Scotland’s most populous city.
In the US, the trend of on-course and off-course golfers – and the relationship between the two – is equally telling. Today more than 25.6 million Americans play on-course golf, and 10 per cent of those credit their off-course experience for getting them into the game. Nearly half of on-course participants say their off-course experience re-engaged them with the game.
Many of Drummond Golf’s franchises run Big Swing Golf , where players – individuals or in groups – hit balls into large screens that simulate the golf ball’s flight in real time. There is casual play, nearest-the-pin competitions, family play, parties, coaching and leagues. Players can practice on a fairway or play rounds on many of the world’s great courses including St Andrews, Pebble Beach and TPC Sawgrass.
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