Have been you a better-than-average golfer in 2024? This new information will let you know

Do you retain rating?

The USGA does. As a part of its year-end accounting, the governing physique has tallied up the numbers from 2024 to provide its first report highlighting home golfer participation, drawing on data from the greater than 77 million scores posted below the World Handicap System (WHS).

An image could also be value a thousand phrases, however information can present a vivid portrait, too. On this case, what do the numbers present?

For starters, like a lot else in golf, participation within the WHS is up. Greater than 3.35 million golfers within the U.S. maintained a handicap in 2024, a 6 % improve over final 12 months and an almost 30 % soar since 2020. Of these golfers, a big and rising quantity performed 9-hole rounds. In truth, they did so at a document fee, posting greater than 13.7 million 9-hole scores, up 8 % from final 12 months and 40 % since 2020.

These 9-hole rounds had been notably widespread amongst girls golfers who established a handicap in 2024; they opted to play 9 greater than half the time (newly enrolled male golfers performed 9 roughly 1 / 4 of the time). 

Such figures assist what you would possibly suspect: Shorter outings are a great way to ease into the sport.

Additionally they replicate a wider pattern. Quick programs are all the craze, their smaller footprints showing in all places from native municipal services to vacation spot resorts. Many of those compact layouts are par-3 programs, which this 12 months grew to become eligible to acquire Course and Slope Scores, permitting scores from rounds performed on them to be posted, too.

Modifications of this sort are a part of an ongoing effort by the USGA to make the WHS as trustworthy a mirrored image as potential of how the sport is being performed throughout the nation.

“It’s been thrilling to see year-over-year traits develop because the World Handicapping System has matured,” Steve Edmondson, the governing physique’s managing director of handicapping and course score, mentioned in an announcement. The info, he mentioned, have been used to tell a spate of adjustments, “together with updating how 9-hole scores are handled for handicap functions.”

Knowledge may assist bust myths. Sustaining a handicap is broadly perceived as a apply reserved for hard-core golfers competing in elite occasions. Not so, the numbers present. Of the 77 million rounds posted in 2024, 94.5 % had been leisure. Taking part in — and posting — for enjoyable is on the rise.

As for enjoying properly, that is dependent upon your requirements. The year-end data-driven snapshot reveals the next about golfers in U.S: the common male participant carries a handicap of 14.2; the common feminine performs to a 28.7. On common, male gamers posted extra scores (23.8), in comparison with 19.6 for feminine gamers.

There’s extra within the report, together with little tidbits for cocktail-party dialog. The preferred month for posting scores? No shock: June. The state the place 18-hole rounds had been prevalent? That might be Nevada, the place such rounds accounted for 93 % of posted scores. Maine, in the meantime, was the chief within the clubhouse for biggest share (32.6) of 9-hole rounds

The discharge of all this information coincides with technological adjustments geared toward making handicap-keeping simpler and extra participating than ever. These modifications embody a newly redesigned GHIN cell app, with an upgraded model of GHIN Rewind, a enjoyable and informative characteristic that gives golfers with a private year-in-review, replete with stats on Handicap Index adjustments, whole rounds performed, hardest and best programs, most-play programs, and extra. As 2024 attracts to a detailed, you possibly can see a fleshed-out image of your recreation over the previous 12 months. Right here, for reference, are a couple of stats from mine:

You’ll be capable to do the identical in 2025, offered you retain up your finish of the discount. You’ll must maintain — and put up — your scores. If you happen to haven’t been, you possibly can join to take action right here.