Photo: Joe Pugliese, Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
The most frequently asked questions within the golf community over the past year have been: When will the pandemic golf surge end? How far ahead of 2019 (the last “normal” year) will we be? Will we retain the golfers who took up the game due to COVID-19 restrictions?
The good news is rounds played continue to be well ahead of both 2020 and 2019 levels, and unless there is an unforeseen economic collapse and/or a catastrophic year weather-wise in 2022, golf is in a much better place today than it was pre-pandemic.
The chart below indexes annual rounds played using 1999 as the base, as that was the first year Golf Datatech started collecting and projecting monthly rounds played. Rounds played consistently trended lower in the United States since the turn of the century; however, it has been like a large bucket of water with a small hole – a constant drip. Over the past 20 years, rounds played were down roughly 18 percent, so on trend to lose a little less than 1 percent pe...