The under-40 wave and what clubs do about it
The busiest year for rounds since 2005, and the new players arrived through ranges and simulator bars rather than junior sections.
British golf had its busiest year for rounds played since 2005 in 2025, and the growth was not evenly spread. The interesting number is not the total but the share of players under forty, and what clubs are doing to keep them.
What actually changed
Participation grew through the pandemic years and did not fall back. The new arrivals mostly did not come through a junior section at a members’ club: they came through driving ranges, simulator bars and pay-and-play courses, and they can hit a ball before they know what a provisional is.
They came in through the range, not the first tee
That is the opposite of the traditional path and it changes what a club needs to offer: an on-ramp for people with a swing and no idea about etiquette, rules or pace. iGolf from England Golf, and the equivalent schemes in Scotland and Wales, give those players a handicap without a club membership, which is either a threat or an opportunity depending on how a club looks at it.
Nine holes, twilight rates and the four-hour problem
Four and a half hours on a Saturday morning is a hard sell to somebody with young children and a job. Clubs that have grown their under-forty membership have generally done three things: proper nine-hole competitions that count for handicap, genuinely cheaper off-peak rates, and serious work on pace of play.
Dress codes are quietly loosening
Untucked shirts, hoodies on the course and the retirement of the jacket-and-tie rule in the dining room are now common at clubs that would have refused a decade ago. Whether that is progress or decline is a matter of taste; that it changes who joins is not in doubt.
The membership models that work
Intermediate categories that step up by age, country and weekday memberships, flexible schemes that convert a subscription into a credit for rounds, and family memberships are the four structures that appear wherever the average age has fallen. All exist because a full subscription is the wrong product for somebody of thirty with a mortgage.
What it means for you
If you are choosing a club, the average member age and the categories on offer tell you what the place will feel like in five years. If you already belong, the nine-hole and off-peak programme is the thing worth pushing for at the annual meeting: it costs the club almost nothing and it is what keeps younger members playing.
Questions worth asking
- Does the club run nine-hole qualifying competitions?
- Is there an intermediate, country or flexible category, and what does it actually cost in pounds?
- What is the average round time at the times you would play?
British golf is not short of new players. It is short of clubs organised around how those players live.
