Is Germany about to replace England as Europe’s top golfing country?

England’s total domination of the number of people per country in Europe who play golf is under threat for the first time since records began.

According to new research by the European Golf Course Owners’ Association (EGCOA) an extraordinary rise in the number of golfers in Germany since the start of this century, coupled with a drop in England, has meant the two countries are now almost neck and neck in the number of registered golfers or golf club members each country has.

In 2000 England had just under 900,000 members of golf clubs while Germany had less than 350,000 registered golfers.

However, EGCOA has found that the number of golf club members in England has now fallen below 700,000, with a drop of more than five per cent in the last year, at approximately 699,000. Meanwhile in Germany the figure has shot up to more than 640,000, with the number rising by 0.63 per cent in the last year. Almost all of the drop in England has taken place since 2008, while the pace of Germany’s rise has slowed considerably in the last decade.

The research found that there are 4.15 million registered golfers in Europe – a slight drop from the previous year which represents a slowing down of this trend, with 16.86 per cent from England and 15.49 per cent from Germany.

More than half of the European market is based in England, Germany, Sweden, France and the Netherlands.

Scotland and Ireland both have just under 200,000 club members each, while Wales has about 45,000 members of golf clubs.

The research also finds that there are 7,000 standard length golf courses and 66 per cent of the 4.15 million golfers are male, 25 per cent female and nine per cent juniors.

“Germany also has a much healthier proportion of both juniors and women [than England], suggesting that it may not be long until it leads demand for golf in Europe,” said a spokesman for EGCOA.