Defining the Average Recreational Golfer
How do you describe the average recreational golfer? What might be his/her golf interests and golf capabilities?
In my mind there are a number of factors which can be used to describe the average recreational golfer. These would include score, number of times per year a golfer plays, and just simply the fact that an individual plays for recreational purposes. Throw in enthusiasm for playing the game and I’m closing in on being able to define what average means for the recreational golfer.
In order to dig a little deeper into this, some statistical information has to be presented and somewhat analyzed. The information I’m presenting has come form organizations including the National Golf Foundation and the Royal Canadian Golf Association. The information was easily discovered with some simple Google searches.
Based upon US data, the average score for 18 holes on a regulation length course is 2005 was 98.3 (96.4 for men and 108.1 for women). A regulation length course was defined as a course with a length of at least 5,200 yards that includes a variety of par 3, par 4 and par 5 holes with a total par of at least 66.
In looking at the average score of 98.3 with regards to average golfers, you need to also examine how scores breakdown amongst score ranges. The following list details a breakdown of the US based score data:
Score Range % of Golfers Within Range
- under 80 5%
- 80 to 89 19.7%
- 90 to 99 27.2%
- 100 to 119 32.8%
- 120 and over 15.3%
In terms of rounds per year, US numbers indicate that an average of 21 rounds per year is played based upon 28.7 million golfers. In Canada there are 5.95 million golfers who play an average of 15.5 rounds per year (RCGA 2006 data). The difference between the Canada and US numbers is most likely due to the shorter Canadian golf season (in other words, it is a hard game to play in the snow and cold). The RCGA also define a core golfer as an individual who plays 8+ round per year which accounted for 2.7 million Canadians in 2005. It is interesting to compare the number of Canadian golfers versus what the RCGA describes as core golfers. Less than 1/2 of the golfers in Canada would be considered core golfers.
I’m left to conclude after a short bit of analysis that, in Canadian terms, the average golfer is a golf enthusiast:
- who plays more than 8 rounds, and
- has an average score between 80 and 119.
Applying the US based scoring percentages statistics noted above against the Canadian data, there would be approximately 4 million golfers that you could place in the average category…….over 20 million in the US. This is a big audience.
This analysis is by no means scientific. I just want to point out that there is a large group of average recreational golfers out there – average golfers like myself and my golf buddies.
I believe this audience wants to hear different things than we are hearing and reading now. I’m going to attempt to provide some of that additional information.
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Lane Smith – lane@lifepast50.ca