A Closer Look at Course Openings

In 2000, a record 399 golf courses (as measured in 18-hole equivalents) opened across the United States. It was the high-water mark during a 20-year building boom and came a year after NGF issued a strategic report urging the golf industry to shift its attention to growing the number of golfers. That two-decade period of unprecedented growth started with an undersupply of courses and was later spurred on by real estate developers who saw golf as a way to sell housing, not to mention overeager entrepreneurs and municipalities who wanted in while Tiger Woods was at his peak and golf participation was ...