Where is golf played?

[Sven Nilsen]

What percentage of the game's total rounds is played at top 100 courses? Top 200?  Top 1000?

[jeffwarne]

What percentage of the game's total rounds is played at top 100 courses? Top 200?  Top 1000?

Don't know the answer but I guarantee you a higher % of rounds at at Top 100 are comp than at a Top 1000

[James Brown]

34,000 golf courses.    It's reasonable to think the top 100 are at least somewhat representative of golf as a whole in terms of rounds per day, although there is a private course skew.


But there are also thousands of movies made each year and only a few dozen get media attention...

[Wayne_Kozun]

Assuming that the top 100 are, on average, as busy as the average course in the world then the number is 0.29%.

[Colin Macqueen]

Sven,
One place I did not expect to see golf played was in St. Petersburg, Russia! But blow me down there they were whacking the gowf ba' down the fairways. The most interesting thing about the course that I could see as I whipped past it in the car was the great number of man-made berms I think we would call them. Stretches of bulldozed earth about 10 feet high here and there...no doubt strategically placed! Cart paths and buggies were there but there were some walkers with push buggies. It is the only course in St. Petersburg and I did not gain the impression they were building any more soon!

However the restoration of St. Petersburg has been extraordinary in the last 15 years after all it is Putin's hometown I think!

Cheers Col

[Tom_Doak]

I wonder if the top 100 really are as busy as the average course.  Maybe, since there are a lot of small courses that are half-abandoned, to drag down the average.  But there sure aren't many top 100 tracks that do 50,000 or 60,000 rounds.


One time when I was overseeing the GOLF Magazine top 100 list, when we sent plaques to all of the clubs we also sent a survey asking about green fees, membership fees, stats on the course, and number of rounds played.  About half the clubs actually returned it, but some of the numbers were very surprising; I believe I still have the results somewhere in my files.  I would love to see those statistics for the current lists with all of their super-exclusive private places ... I bet there are a half-dozen courses on there that host less than 5,000 rounds per year, and a couple that don't break into the thousands!

[David Davis]

I would think the number is not far off what Wayne suggested.


I believe there to be roughly 40,000 courses worldwide.


take an average of 20,000 rounds per course. Which I guess should be a conservative estimate. I know public track in The Netherlands that do 80-100k rounds per year. They are open all year. As Tom says a small percentage will do much less.


Courses like Shanqin Bay and Ellerston won't do 1000. Then there is a whole list of others I guess at least 30% of the top 100 that won't do many more. If anything the average in the Top 100 is half of what the worldwide average is.


Of course all estimates. There are a couple outliers such as Pebble Beach, Bethpage Black, Sawgrass, Kiawah Island, Harbortown that will be on the high end of this and I'd guess do more like 50-60k+


Assuming the 20k average we're looking at .25% of all rounds roughly. I guess it's half of that so more like .12% of all rounds played.

[SB]

There is no way a top 100 course is remotely as busy as an average course.  Nearly all are private, and a typical private club has probably 30% of a typical nearby daily fee course.  Many are destination courses, limiting play even more, and most are pretty exclusive, also cutting down on play. 


The NGF estimates that there were 465,000,000 rounds played in the US, and there are 15,000 courses in the US, so an average of 31,000 per course.  If the average top 100 club plays 15,000 rounds, that works out to be 0.3% of the total US rounds. 

[Joe_Tucholski]

Sven,
One place I did not expect to see golf played was in St. Petersburg, Russia!

Colin I believe there is a member on the board from Russia.  Ivan Lipko.

[Wayne_Kozun]

Many top 100 courses will have a low number of rounds but some will get a lot. Pebble gets 62,000 rounds per year. St Andrews Old must also get a lot rounds despite only being open six days per week.


One of the main considerations for rounds per year will also be climate as you won't have as many rounds when you are only open for six months of year.

[Steve Lang]

   I thought the answer was 6", i.e., in between the ears!