The strategic state of public, private and indoor golf in 2026

By Doug Radkey, KRG Golf

Fall Season 2026

Golf no longer needs to prove that its recent momentum was temporary. Operators now need to convert that demand into durable profit, relevance and loyalty.

The numbers are strong. U.S. on-course participation surpassed 29 million people in 2025, its eighth consecutive year of growth. Total participation reached more than 48 million across on-course and off-course formats, up 50 percent over the past decade. U.S. courses have hosted more than 500 million rounds in each of the past six years. In Canada, approximately six million golfers played 74 million rounds in 2023 and the sport contributed $23.2 billion to national GDP.

Now, let’s be truthful. That momentum can also get operators into trouble.

A full tee sheet can hide poor systems. A waitlist can delay a conversation about member value. A packed simulator on Friday can disguise empty weekday bays. Revenue can rise while margins and standards move in the opposite direction.

Golf is in a stronger position than it has been in decades. Its next stage will be decided by the business behind the demand.

The Industry Has Reached a Higher Baseline

The U.S. market has approximately 16,000 courses across nearly 14,000 facilities. Supply is 13 percent smaller than in 2006, and record participation is being served by roughly 2,000 fewer courses than during the previous peak. The correction improved balance while putting more pressure on the assets and teams that remain.

In September 2026, the National Golf Foundation reported that nearly three-quarters of surveyed public facilities rated their financial position as good or excellent. Stronger participation, rounds and pricing have helped public and private operators, but that health is not uniform.

Statistics Canada reported that golf courses and country clubs generated a record $4.1 billion in operating revenue in 2024, up 6 percent. Expenses rose faster at 7.1 percent, narrowing the industry profit margin from 10.6 percent to 9.7 percent. Salaries, wages, commissions and benefits represented 42.1 percent of expenses.

That gap is important to understand. Participation is an industry metric. Profitability is an operator outcome. The two should never be confused.

Private Golf Has Pricing Power and a Capacity Problem

Private club golfers represent less than 8 percent of the U.S. golfer population, yet they play and spend more. Since 2019, private club membership has increased by almost 50 percent. Private play outpaced public play during 2025, and private clubs account for more than half of current course development.

For well-positioned clubs, this creates pricing power and renewed confidence to reinvest. It also creates a risk of complacency.

Membership demand should not become permission to ignore the member journey. When access becomes harder, facilities feel strained or service turns transactional, members notice. A club can deliver golf while weakening the belonging that justified membership.

The opportunity is to define the membership promise beyond tee access through relevant social and family programming, better food and beverage, thoughtful onboarding and communication that reflects how different segments use the club. Boards and leadership teams also need clear decision rights. Short-term pressure should not overrule the positioning, capital priorities or standards required for the club’s next decade.

A waitlist is evidence of demand. It is not a substitute for strategy.

Public Golf Carries the Growth Responsibility

Public golf remains the industry’s foundation. Roughly 72 percent of U.S. courses are publicly accessible, and close to 80 percent of rounds are historically played at daily-fee, municipal and resort facilities. Around 70 percent of committed golfers report that some of their earliest experiences happened at municipal courses.

Public operators therefore influence far more than tee-time volume. They are often the first test of whether a new golfer feels welcomed or judged.

Nine-hole products, twilight golf, beginner leagues and community partnerships can create more entry points. Facilities can improve yield by pricing inventory around demand while protecting access. The strongest will treat food and beverage, instruction, events and loyalty as parts of one customer relationship.

The threat is commoditization. When every course markets the same aerial photography, discount and promise of great conditions, price and availability become the only visible differences. Third-party booking channels may deliver a transaction without building a relationship. An operator can know who booked at 8:10 a.m. and still know little about why the guest chose the course or what would bring them back.

Public golf needs stronger brands, not louder promotions. A clear market position should guide the product, service standards, pricing, programming and capital plan.

Indoor Golf Is Becoming a Serious Operating Category

Indoor golf has moved beyond winter practice. It now combines sport, hospitality, entertainment and technology.

The National Golf Foundation counted at least 1,500 U.S. commercial simulator businesses in late 2025, nearly three times its 2022 count. That excludes course, retail and clubfitting installations. The average business was about three years old, operated three to four bays, and more than three-quarters offered memberships. Just over half offered food and slightly fewer than half served alcohol.

The simulator and screen-golf participant base has more than doubled since 2019. More than four million green-grass golfers also use simulators, and far more users report that simulators increase their outdoor play than reduce it.

Indoor golf complements the traditional course. It expands the calendar, reduces weather and time barriers, and creates a less intimidating place to begin. It also gives existing golfers more reasons to practise, compete and socialize.

Still, a simulator is equipment. It is not a concept.

Too many developments begin with a bay count and technology brand. The sequence should start with the market, customer, occasion and revenue model. A performance facility, membership club and golf bar may use similar hardware, but require different sites, service models, programming, pricing and teams.

The category’s biggest threat is sameness combined with high fixed costs. When comparable technology is available elsewhere, the venue needs a stronger reason to return. Weekend demand will not rescue weak weekday use, poor food and beverage controls, unreliable equipment or rent based on optimistic occupancy.

Operators should know bay revenue by daypart, hourly utilization, repeat frequency, food and beverage attachment, labour per occupied bay and customer acquisition cost. Without those measures, activity can feel healthy before the economics prove it.

The New Golfer Is the Biggest Unfinished Job

Golf has attracted more than three million first-time on-course players in every year from 2020 through 2025. Yet National Golf Foundation research suggests only about one in four beginners becomes a committed golfer.

This is the industry’s conversion gap.

Acquisition gets attention because it is visible. Retention is built through quieter decisions. Was booking simple? Did anyone explain arrival and pace expectations? Did the team support the beginner? Was there a clear next invitation?

The opportunity is especially important because the customer base is changing. Women and girls now represent 28 percent of U.S. on-course golfers and accounted for more than half of net participation gains from 2020 through 2025. Off-course-only participation is more diverse again, with women representing 43 percent and people of colour 45 percent of that audience in 2024.

Operators cannot invite a broader audience into an experience designed around assumptions from 20 years ago.

Brand Marketing and Programming Must Work Together

A golf brand is not its logo, course photography or simulator technology. It is the expectation created before arrival and the experience delivered after it.

Marketing should make the venue easier to understand. Who is it for? What occasions does it serve? What should a first-time guest expect? Why is membership valuable after the novelty disappears? Clear answers improve conversion.

Programming turns that promise into behaviour. Leagues, clinics, member introductions, junior development, women’s programs, corporate events and cross-season challenges create recurring reasons to return. Every program needs a target audience, commercial purpose, operating owner and measurement plan.

Green-grass and indoor operators should stop treating each other as separate worlds. A course can extend coaching and leagues indoors. An indoor venue can prepare beginners for their first outdoor round. Shared programming can give both businesses access to customers they may not reach alone.

Technology Must Connect the Business

Golf has no shortage of software. Many operators still have a shortage of connected information.

The booking engine, point of sale, customer database, membership platform, marketing tools and playing technology should create one useful view of the customer and operation. When they do not, teams duplicate work and make decisions from incomplete data.

Technology should reduce friction and improve judgement. It can support demand forecasting, dynamic pricing, automated waitlists, personalized communication, pace monitoring, preventive maintenance and labour planning. It should also make hospitality more informed, not less personal.

The test is simple. Does the technology help the team recognize the guest, make a better decision or remove an avoidable delay? If it does none of those things, another platform may be adding complexity rather than capability.

People and Culture Remain the Differentiator

The industry’s assets may be specialized, but the operating truth is familiar. The guest experience depends on people who understand the promise and have systems that help them deliver it.

Culture shows up when a starter handles a delay, a simulator host supports a nervous beginner or departments solve a problem without passing the guest between them. Those moments require role clarity, training, pre-shift communication, useful standards, coaching and leaders who follow through.

Labour pressure makes this work more important. Operators cannot afford avoidable turnover, inconsistent onboarding or managers spending every shift reacting. A weekly leadership rhythm, visible performance measures and regular team feedback create stability. Strong culture is an operating system, not an internal slogan.

Capital and Sustainability Need a Clear Strategy

Demand has encouraged reinvestment, but capital choices are becoming more consequential. A 2025 GCSAA survey found that the average proposed capital budget at an 18-hole U.S. facility reached approximately $303,000, up 53 percent from 2022. Yet 16 percent of respondents had no capital budget, showing how uneven reinvestment capacity remains.

Every capital decision should connect to market position, operating constraints and measurable return. Irrigation, kitchens, clubhouses and simulator bays can all be justified. None should be approved because a competitor has one.

Sustainability also belongs inside the operating strategy. U.S. courses used 31 percent less water in 2024 than in 2005, with most of the reduction linked to more efficient practices. That progress is commercially relevant. Water resilience, energy use, maintenance technology and responsible land stewardship affect costs, risk, community trust and future access to capital.

The Next Era Will Reward Operating Discipline

Golf enters the next era with strong participation, broader audiences and more ways to play. Public courses have renewed demand. Private clubs have membership momentum. Indoor venues have created a year-round channel with room to mature.

None of those advantages guarantees a healthy business.

The operators who protect this momentum will assess the operation honestly, choose a clear position, build around the right customer and install systems their people can execute. They will measure profit and loyalty alongside participation, treating each program, platform and capital project as part of one experience.

That is also the premise behind KRG Golf. Assessment creates clarity. Strategy sets the sequence. Coaching turns the plan into consistent execution.

Golf has already created the demand. The work now is to build businesses worthy of it.

Editorial Source Notes

1. National Golf Foundation. Golf’s State of Industry in 3 Minutes. January 2026.

2. National Golf Foundation. Golf Industry Facts. 2026.

3. National Golf Foundation. How Financially Healthy Are Golf Courses. September 2026.

4. National Golf Foundation. Golf’s Private Side. October 2025.

5. National Golf Foundation. Inside Golf’s Foundational Municipal Renaissance. June 2026.

6. National Golf Foundation. Screen Golf’s Growth Is Not Simulated. November 2025.

7. National Golf Foundation. The Golf Simulator Market. November 2025.

8. Golf Canada. National Golf Day Economic Impact Findings. May 2024.

9. Statistics Canada. Our Stats Are on Par. June 2026.

10. Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. 2025 Capital Budget and Labor Survey.

11. Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. Golf Courses Reduce Water Usage by 31 Percent. December 2025.