Number of Scots golfers drops 4,731

Scotland lost nearly 5,000 registered golfers and suffered 18 course closures last year, according to an annual report released by KPMG.

The Golf Participation Report for Europe 2017 also claims that only 12 per cent of women made up the total of registered players in the home of golf.

It’s the second year running that the report has made disturbing reading from a Scottish perspective, although the losses have dropped from 2016.

Then, Scotland topped the list of registered golfers lost with a fall of 6,711 while it was claimed that 19 courses had also gone. In the latest report, a drop of 4,731 put Scotland fourth on the same list behind England (38,784), Netherlands (12,913) and Ireland (7,422). The latest drop of 2.46 per cent left Scotland with a total of 187,802 registered players.

As for the number of golf courses, the report claimed that Scotland had lost another 18 in 2017 on top of the 19 reported for 2016, leaving the total at 560. Only England, with 35, lost more courses in 2017.

Reflecting a similar gender mix in most other countries, males made up 79 per cent of the registered golfers in the sport’s birthplace. Juniors contribute just nine per cent. The total number of registered

players in Europe was 4,142,390, a drop of one per cent, while the total number of standard golf courses stood at 6,861, a loss of 71 from 2016.

The report revelaed that the leading golf market in Europe is England with 655,839 registered golfers and 1,872 courses while Sweden has the highest ratio with 4.7 per cent of its population playing golf.

The overall participation rate for the sport in Europe has remained relatively stable since 2015 but it remains male dominated.

“The gender mix hasn’t changed since 2016, which means golf is still a male dominated sport (67 per cent) in Europe,” concluded the report.s authors.