If you’ve enjoyed a golf vacation or two over the last few years you’re certainly not alone.
The National Golf Foundation says more than 12 million Americans have traveled to play golf each year since 2022, up from an estimated 8.2 million in 2018.
The life altering event of this generation – COVID-19 – helped ignite the recent golfing boom for a myriad of reasons, ranging from access to the game at the time of the pandemic to a mental attitude of “living for the moment.”
“COVID played a big part of this, even though it’s not the current reason for the increase in travel. It was the catalyst to jump off,” says Billy Dunham, product manager at Georgia-based Premier Golf. “So you take people that like to travel, and then you can’t travel, so there was this revenge travel taking place. We went through that period, and we also saw a big uptick in golf participation with COVID because it was one of the few activities you could do during the lockdowns, so more people got exposed to the game.”
The booming travel trend has also been fueled by more than just golf, according to Dunham.
“It used to be that everyone wanted to play 36 holes a day – it was all golf, golf, golf and then go to bed,” he says. “We still have those hardcore guys, but there’s more of a trend of ‘what else is there to do in this area?’ Travelers want to do the golf, but they want the restaurants and they want the private chefs and they want the hiking and the trail riding and maybe whitewater rafting depending on the area of the country that they go to.”
Brian Oar, the founder of Utah-based Golf Package Pros, has seen his firm increase bookings by 50 percent year-over-year since 2023. It wasn’t so rosy for Oar’s company when COVID threw a scare into everyone.
“The day everything shut down our phone literally rang for 48 hours with cancellations, and we lost a million dollars worth of business,” Oar says. “All of it was tough, that’s for sure. But now there has been this strange turn of events of how money shifted and people started to appreciate experiences. I think it really became ‘Hey, let’s take this trip because we may never be able to take this trip again’ mentality.”
Over the past five years, more than 40% of new golf course openings have had resort ties or can be considered “destination” locations, where golf is the prime focus, according to the NGF.
The former category includes recent debuts at high-profile resorts such as Bandon Dunes in Oregon (Shorty’s), Streamsong in Florida (The Chain), Sand Valley in Wisconsin (Sedge Valley) and Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina (No. 10 and a proposed No. 11 course). The latter encompasses private or public getaway destinations such as Broomsedge, Old Barnwell and The Tree Farm in South Carolina, or GreyBull and Landmand in Nebraska.
Oar and Dunham believe the proliferation of social media, drone photography and video on destination and resort websites, along with increased participation, have all had a hand in helping the golf travel and tourism business – which is the second-largest contributor to the U.S. golf economy.
Dunham uses his wife, who has never had much interest in golf, as an example. Though she still does not play, Dunham’s wife’s attitude toward attending tournaments and taking golf vacations changed after attending her first Masters.
“I think there were a lot of people who got exposed to the sport and like to travel in general, and now you have support from both sides of the family. It used to be as a family you would go to the mountains or on a beach vacation Now, it’s cool if you go somewhere where there’s golf and stuff to do. It’s a perfect storm of people just wanting to get back out there and experience life.”
Plus, golf is viewed as being cool, especially with the twentysomething crowd.
“Golf got cool on Instagram and golf got cool on YouTube,” Oar says. “It was just a combination of timing, social media and the introduction of experiences in terms of travel. The young guy’s buddy trip all of the sudden became the coolest thing you could possibly do, which we all knew was the coolest thing to do all along.”
Golf hotspots in the United States — states such as Arizona, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Utah — have increased their inventory and are attempting to stay ahead of the increased travel trend.
“Developers maybe are seeing the shift in demographics of how their business model continues for the next 50 years,” Oar says. “Maybe they see the writing on the wall. The old stuffy country club maybe doesn’t continue in too many aspects. Yes, it will still survive because the exclusivity is attractive to a certain group, but those who can create this very laid-back, super-chill, go-out- there-in-shorts and a T-shirt type of mentality will only get stronger.”
More than 1,250 golf facilities in the United States have a resort component, with locations such as Pinehurst and Orlando able to reach 1.9 million golfers each with a 250-mile radius, according to the NGF.
“And there has been a good balance between the old guard and the new guard,” Dunham says of locations golfers are flocking too. “The standards — Pinehurst, Kohler, Pebble Beach — those are always going to have the interest because there’s a reason why they have become what they are. They’re fantastic resorts, but then somewhere a place like Sand Valley, that’s relatively new, that hasn’t established itself, has blown up in popularity because it kind of came into being during the COVID era so there’s an embracing of, ‘I want to be the first to see these places and come back to my club and say I played there.’”
While experts say overall tourism may now be “tapping the brakes” somewhat, the golf sector remains strong, the NGF research finds, as bucket lists continue to fill up, with bookings launched six weeks ago at many major resorts for 2026 play.
“You don’t want to compare COVID to 9/11 but it did show us all that life is short and to get out there and do things, and that’s really the golf trend now,” Dunham says. “It doesn’t matter if they have the money or not, they’re finding a way to do it.” “And what I’m also seeing is the young kids are driving the destinations to the old guys,” Oar said. “They’re saying, ‘Dad let’s go to St. George, let’s to go to Mesquite, to Sand Valley, to Cabot. Absolutely, I think this continues.”