There are 4.2 million registered golfers in Europe

KPMG’s annual survey of the state of the golf industry in Europe has found there are just under 4.2 million members of 6,900 golf clubs in the continent.

The research, conducted on 2017’s figures from national golf unions, finds that England remains the dominant market with 655,839 golf club members, a fall of nearly 40,000 from 2016. Germany is right behind with 644,943 golfers, a rise of nearly 2,000 from the previous year.

England has 1,872 golf clubs, a drop of 35 while Germany has just 731 facilities, a drop of one.

Sweden is the next biggest market with nearly half a million golfers, followed by France, the Netherlands, Spain, Scotland and Ireland.

Overall, the European golf market has continued to stabilize both in terms of numbers of registered golfers and golf courses in operation, although some countries did record noticeable changes.

Italy, for instance saw growth in golfers of nearly 10 per cent to bring their total number of golfers just below 100,000.

More than three quarters of local golf associations indicated that the level of participation in their country in 2017 had either stabilised or increased. The remaining 24 per cent of European markets still experienced some decline, including key markets such as England, Scotland, Ireland and the Netherlands. The overall participation rate for Europe has remained stable since 2015.

The research shows that the number of registered golfers and affiliated golf courses in Europe slightly decreased, by 0.8 per cent, from 4,185,879 to 4,150,954 golfers, and one per cent, from 6,932 to 6,861 golf clubs respectively. In Europe, 18 golf clubs were built and 89 closed down.

This means 0.9 per cent of Europeans actively played golf in 2017.

The gender mix of registered golfers hasn’t changed since 2016, which means golf is still a male dominated sport (67 per cent) in Europe.