Click image to download 3-page PDF of April’s rounds played report
April 2022 rounds were down 13% compared to last year, the third year-over-year decline through the first four months.
Rounds in April were down in six of eight geographic regions tracked by Golf Datatech, which incorporates facility-level data collected by NGF in its monthly reports.
As was the case in March, the biggest declines were seen in the upper Midwest portion of the country, where colder, wetter weather has hampered the early part of the golf season.
The West North Central region (Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota) saw rounds drop by almost 35% compared to April of 2021. The temperature was also almost 4 degrees colder, on average, than the same period last year, while precipitation levels were 60% higher.
It was a similar situation in the golf-rich East North Central region (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin), where rounds were off 33% from April 2021. The average April temperature was also 4 degrees cooler than a year ago, with 43% higher precipitation.
The Mid Atlantic region (New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania) experienced a dip of almost 16% versus April 2021 play, while the Pacific (California, Oregon and Washington) was off 12%.
Entering May, play is down almost 10% compared to last year, when there were more rounds played at U.S. golf courses than any other time in history. This year’s play trajectory, however, remains ahead of recent pre-pandemic years.
