"The worst year in memory was still a boom year for golf"

Sam Weinman at GolfDigest.com files what will be the first of many year-end pieces grappling with the horror that is 2020 and the golf businesses unfathomable turnaround. It’ll take years to full wrap heads around what happened but as he writes…

A pandemic strategy, one that disrupted virtually every element of life but somehow preserved and even fortified golf’s most important elements, was surely never part of the plan.

And yet at the end of 2020, golf can boast the type of surge in participation no bar graph projection would have dared make. According to the National Golf Foundation and Golf Datatech, there will end up being some 50 million more rounds played in 2020 than in 2019, a figure even more staggering considering how the season began. In April, May and June, golf rounds were actually down sharply because of shutdowns and general apprehension in the early days of the pandemic. But once golfers started showing up at courses, a confluence of time, favorable weather and a dearth of other options led to full tee sheets around the country straight through the fall.

“We’ve never seen anything like it,” said John Krzynowek, a partner at Golf Datatech.

He features some stunning numbers on junior golf participation and overall increases despite three months where play was reduced in many states to restrictions. The sport also lost more golfers in 2020 for reasons yet to be sorted out. Long term I’m more bullish on the uptick continuing as it’s hard to see this scene returning to the world in just six months, or possibly, anytime soon.

As businesses discover those workers staying at home are as productive as before and folks are finding peace of mind in a less frenetic pace, those late nines cited as one of the biggest growth areas for golf will continue. More than any $600 driver purchase—I know, blasphemy—the time avoiding a commute and instead playing golf is not something the luckier folks will be giving up any time soon.