Golf has been around for centuries, dating all the way back to the 15th century. Since its inception it has garnered the attention of millions. However, in recent times, many have wondered if it is considered a dying sport. While it still is quite a popular sport, is the sport losing its fanbase?
In this article I took a deep dive to see if golf is on the decline to figure out whether or not golf is actually a dying sport.
Is golf a dying sport? According to trends, golf has seen a 29% decrease in overall interest from the general public. Additionally, viewership for the most popular televised golf events has decreased an average of almost 33%. These numbers suggest that golf is in fact a dying sport.
General Interest In Golf:
To get a feel for what the trend for general interest in golf is. I took a look at Google Trend data over the past 17 years to see if there are more or less users interested in the topic of golf.
Below is a chart that represents the popularity of the topic of golf in terms of how frequently people are searching it throughout the years.
From what it looks like, currently, the interest in golf has declined about 28% – 29% since 2004. While it is not a dramatic drop off, it seems as though the loss of interest does trickle down a few percentage points each year. However, despite this overall drop, there is something that suggests golf may be on the rise.
From this chart, it seems that from 2015 to 2021, there is about a 14% increase in golf interest. In other words, from 2004 to 2015 the overall interest went from 100% to about 43%, but from 2015 to 2021 it increased from 43% to 71%.
The recent increase in golf could indicate that although it was declining around 6 years ago, it could be on the rise. This could suggest that golf is not actually a dying sport.
Golf Viewership Trends
Another aspect to whether or not golf is a dying sport is looking at the viewership over the years of televised golf events.
Sports Media Watch compiled a table of the overall viewership of the top 4 most popular televised golf tournaments: The Masters, US Open, European Open, and PGA.
I took that table and turned it into a line graph so it’s a bit easier to see how each trends. The trend in viewership could help indicate whether or not people are more or less interested in golf, thus showing signs if golf is actually a dying sport.
From this, it is pretty clear to see that less people are actually watching golf in comparison to 25-ish years ago. All 4 of these major televised events dropped pretty substantially since the initial tracking began.
For better reference here is how much each has dropped since their oldest and most recent televised event:
| Event | % Change |
| Masters | -26.92% |
| PGA | -34.00% |
| US Open | -18.57% |
| British Open | -52.33% |
It seems that in terms of actual percentages, the British Open has seen the most substantial drop off in viewership, followed by the PGA, Masters, and the US Open. Notice how each of these are all negative.
While most of these were pretty volatile with their annual viewership, it is safe to say that they all steadily declined in the long term.
Is Golf A Dying Sport Conclusion
So with the information and data above, it is safe to say that golf is definitely not growing. The trend data coupled with the viewership data suggests that golf’s peak has come and gone.
Does this mean that golf will ever truly die? No. It still reaches millions of people every year, it just so happens that it doesn’t reach as many as it used to. Golf will be around for many more years to come.