Guide to the avid golfer

Golf business is a major industry. But where do most golfers spend their money?

A recent survey conducted in the United States - but with parallels on this side of the Atlantic - questioned nearly 12,000 players about their spending habits on equipment, fees, clothing, food and beverage, and miscellaneous items. And it confirms that most people open their wallets - and purses - to actually play the game. The US National Golf Foundation report found that American golfers spend $30.5 billion on the game and related services annually - but discovered that the lion's share (60.7 per cent or $18.5 million) went on club membership fees or green fees.

The report provides an interesting glimpse into golfers' budgets, most noticeably the price they pay to play. Indeed, Irish golfers - who are being asked to pay higher and higher rates at the top end of the market - may be interested to know that $70 (£58) is considered the "high end" of the market in the United States.

It also pointed out that although there are some 900 new courses currently under construction in the USA, over two-thirds of them aspire to breaking into that top end of the market: a similar trend appears to be under way here in Ireland, too, with most new courses aspiring to the upper sector of the market. Other interesting results from the survey found that an avid player was one who played 25 or more rounds in a year.

And among avid players who purchased clubs in the previous year, 35.9 per cent of them bought a driver, making it the most popular club selection. The driver was followed by fairway woods (29.8 per cent), putters (24.7 per cent), irons (24.0 per cent) and wedges (16.6 per cent).

An extension of this aspect of the survey is that players are more willing to spend big money on a driver but less prepared to do so when it comes to a putter. Although club memberships and green fees constitute the largest sector, the survey found that the balance was made up from clubs (11.8 per cent), food and beverage (10.1 per cent), clothing (7.9 per cent), other equipment i.e. balls, bags, gloves and shoes (6.8 per cent) and miscellaneous items such as club repairs, golf aids and books/magazines accounted for 2.6 per cent of expenditure.

The breakdown discovered that the "avid golfer" would spend an average of $174 (£145) on other golf equipment including bags, balls, gloves and shoes each year.