June was another month of new data showing a boom in participation mixed with the difficulties of rising costs.
Green fees are going up – but is this sustainable?
It’s no surprise that the average price of a green fee has been rising in recent months, as inflation has been a major issue for people and businesses for several years now.
However, an analysis of the ‘Top 100’ courses has found that green fees have risen by more than three times the rate of inflation in the last year.
This comes as other research found that, for the last seven years, Scottish clubs have, on average, put their fees for visitors up at a higher rate than they’ve increased their fees for members.
It is understandable that many golf clubs would rather pass the bill for rising costs onto their visitors than their members, but how sustainable is this?
Many Scottish clubs are still struggling
Perhaps not very. A new survey has found that, despite these green fee rises, or maybe even because of them, nearly half of Scottish golf clubs view bringing in more visitor income as a big challenge. What’s worse is that more than two-thirds say rising costs is a major issue for them while more than half say rising wages are.
On a scale from zero to 10, some well-known and highly regarded destinations with large memberships rank their financial strength at just 5.0 or less.
One issue Christopher Spencer, who heads up the Club Management Association of Europe’s Scottish branch, highlights is ageing memberships at clubs. In particular, he states that some clubs have a problem because retired members, who might play three or four times a week, book all the Saturday morning tee time slots, which means younger people can’t play, and in turn do not renew their memberships.
Golf is still booming though
After the participation boom during the pandemic, nobody would have expected that golf participation records would still be broken in 2025, but this year might be a record year.
The month of May 2025 saw the highest number of World Handicap System scores (1.59 million) submitted in England ever – more than every summer month from 2021 to 2024.
And that was after April 2025 broke submitted score records for the month of April.
This also comes as Oxford Golf Club, which is more than 150 years old, says it has never had more members than today.
The club says its membership is currently two-thirds higher than it was just five years ago.
As England Golf chief operating officer Richard Flint says: “The figures so far this year have been tremendous and show that our game is thriving.”
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