Golf Statistics Ireland 2026: 236,384 Club Members and 800,000 People Playing in Some Form

Golf in Ireland is at a high point. Club membership is the largest it has been since Golf Ireland was formed, The Open drew a record crowd to Royal Portrush in 2025, and the Ryder Cup comes to Adare Manor in 2027. This page gathers the current figures in one place for journalists, researchers, clubs and golfers: how many people play, how many are members, what the game is worth, who visits to play, and how off-course formats such as simulators are changing participation. Each figure is labelled with the period it measures.

Key golf statistics for Ireland at a glance

• Golf Ireland had 236,384 affiliated club members on the island of Ireland at the end of October 2025, the most in its history. Source: Golf Ireland, 2025 Year in Review.
• Membership was 182,000 in 2020, so it has grown by 30% in five years, including 8% in 2025 alone. Source: Golf Ireland, 2025 Year in Review.
• About 800,000 people engaged with golf in some form in 2024, including driving ranges, simulators and adventure golf. Source: Golf Ireland / R&A Golf Barometer, reported December 2024.
• More than 500,000 adults played on an 18-hole course at least once in 2024. Source: Golf Ireland / R&A Golf Barometer, reported December 2024.
• There are 376 affiliated golf clubs across the island of Ireland. Source: Golf Ireland, 2024 Year in Review.
• Golfers recorded more than 2.5 million competitive rounds in 2024, up 9% on 2023. Source: Golf Ireland, 2024 Year in Review.
• Golf contributes €717 million in gross value added to the Irish economy and supports 15,600 jobs. Source: Golf Ireland Economic Impact Report, published June 2025.
• Over 220,000 international golfers visit Ireland each year, and golf tourism is worth more than €300 million. Source: Fáilte Ireland figures reported by Hospitality Ireland, June 2025.
• The Open at Royal Portrush drew 278,000 spectators in July 2025, the largest attendance at an Open outside St Andrews. Source: The R&A, The Open, November 2025.
• Worldwide, 68.3 million people play off-course golf at driving ranges and on simulators, out of 112.2 million golfers outside the United States and Mexico. Source: The R&A, April 2026.

<a href="https://moderngardenrooms.ie/blog/golf-statistics-ireland/"><img src="https://moderngardenrooms.ie/images/blog/golf-statistics-ireland-infographic.png" alt="Golf Statistics Ireland 2026 infographic by Modern Garden Rooms" width="1200" height="1560" style="max-width:100%;height:auto;border:0;" /></a>
<p>Source: <a href="https://moderngardenrooms.ie/blog/golf-statistics-ireland/">Golf Statistics Ireland 2026</a> by Modern Garden Rooms</p>

How many people play golf in Ireland

The broadest measure comes from the Golf Barometer, a quarterly survey run by Golf Ireland with The R&A. In 2024 it found that approximately 800,000 people across the island of Ireland engaged with golf in some capacity. That figure includes traditional rounds on a course as well as driving ranges, simulators and adventure golf. The same survey found that more than 500,000 adults played on an 18-hole course at least once during the year.

The gap between the two numbers is at least 300,000 people, a figure calculated from the survey’s rounded totals. It represents people whose only contact with golf in the year was off the course, or on shorter courses, and it is the clearest published measure of how large the off-course game has become in Ireland.

The economic impact study commissioned by Golf Ireland and The R&A reported that golf participation rose from 7.6% to 10% of the adult population between 2014 and 2023, as reported by the Irish Times in June 2025. Golf Ireland also reports that 43% of the population are interested in golf as a player, spectator or fan, that 20% of non-golfers are interested in taking part, and that only cycling and soccer finished ahead of golf in its sports participation research. For context, Sport Ireland’s Irish Sports Monitor found that 49% of adults regularly participated in sport in 2024.

Club membership is at a record

Golf Ireland publishes its affiliated membership each autumn. At the end of October 2025 the total was 236,384 members on the island of Ireland, the largest figure since the body was formed. Membership stood at 182,000 in 2020, so the five-year increase is 30%, or 54,384 members when calculated from the two published totals. Growth in 2025 alone was 8%, and junior membership rose by 25% in the year.

Growth has not been continuous. Golf Ireland’s 2024 review said that registered club members for that year were expected to remain consistent with 2023, before the 2025 increase. Spread across 376 clubs, the 2025 total works out at an average of about 629 members per club, a figure calculated from the two Golf Ireland counts and not published by the body itself.

Members are a minority of players. Set against the more than 500,000 adults who played an 18-hole course in 2024, the 236,384 members recorded in 2025 amount to fewer than half, although the two figures cover different years and the membership count includes juniors. The remainder play as visitors, through open competitions, or through the independent golfer scheme described below.

Women and girls in Irish golf

Women make up 20% of overall membership, with 40,158 women and 5,141 girls holding club membership in 2025. The Get into Golf programme for women ran in 136 clubs in 2025 with 3,487 participants and a 59% conversion rate to club membership. In 2024 the same programme ran in 117 clubs with 2,791 participants and a 58% conversion rate, according to the 2024 review.

By the end of 2025, 175 clubs had reached the Gold Standard of the Women in Golf Charter, up from 160 in 2024, and 220 clubs had signed the charter. Golf Ireland’s schools programme, Unleash Your Drive, reached 3,214 students in 76 schools in 2025, 51% of them girls.

Clubs, rounds and handicaps

Golf Ireland describes a network of 376 clubs across the island. Fáilte Ireland puts the number of golf courses at over 400, a figure that includes courses outside the club network, as reported by Hospitality Ireland in September 2023.

Play is measured through the World Handicap System. In 2024, over 2.5 million competitive rounds were played, up 9% year on year. Of those rounds, 89% were competition scores and 86% were 18-hole scores. Golf Ireland’s inter-club competitions involved an estimated 40,000 golfers and 5,709 club teams in 2024, and approximately 25,000 golfers on 4,654 teams in 2025.

Golfers without a club can now hold an official handicap. The iGolf scheme launched in October 2024 and had just over 950 subscribers by 1 December that year, with an average age of 42. By November 2025 it had over 4,900 subscribers, who had played more than 30,000 rounds and contributed an estimated €1.4 million in green fees to clubs. Over 240 of them, or 4.7%, went on to join a club. The average Handicap Index of an iGolfer was 19 for men and 31 for women.

What golf is worth to the Irish economy

The most detailed valuation is the Golf Ireland Economic Impact Report, prepared by the Sport Industry Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University with The R&A and published in June 2025. It found that golf contributes €717 million in gross value added to the Irish economy, that consumer spending on golf totals €703 million, including €143 million on club memberships and subscriptions, and that the game supports 15,600 jobs and delivers €277.6 million in tax revenue.

The Irish Times report adds that gross value added has risen by 117% since the previous study in 2014, that golf employment has risen by 129%, and that the €717 million splits into €593 million in the Republic of Ireland and the equivalent of €124 million in Northern Ireland. Consumer spending works out at about €100 per head of population.

Golf tourism

Fáilte Ireland’s figures, as reported by Hospitality Ireland in June 2025, put international golf visitors at over 220,000 a year and the value of golf tourism at more than €300 million annually. A golf visitor typically spends three times more than the average leisure tourist, with most of the money going to accommodation, transport, food and drink rather than green fees. In September 2023 the same body put the annual figure at 200,000 golfers, so the market has grown by about 10% on those two published counts.

Tourism concentrates on particular regions. Fáilte Ireland said in 2023 that 115 of Ireland’s 400 golf courses are in Ireland’s Ancient East, and that up to 80,000 fans attended the 2023 Irish Open at The K Club over four days.

Major events: The Open and the Ryder Cup

The 153rd Open at Royal Portrush in July 2025 was attended by 278,000 spectators, the largest Championship held outside St Andrews. Research by Sheffield Hallam University for The R&A found the event generated £280 million in economic benefit for Northern Ireland.

The next landmark is the Ryder Cup. It will be played at Adare Manor in County Limerick from 13 to 19 September 2027, with three days of competition from Friday 17 September. It is the centenary staging of the contest and the second time Ireland has hosted it, after The K Club in 2006.

Off-course golf: ranges and simulators

Golf is no longer played only on a course. The R&A reported in April 2026 that 112.2 million adults and juniors play golf in all its forms worldwide, outside the United States and Mexico, an increase of 4.2 million in a year. Within that total, 65 million adults play on a course and 68.3 million adults and juniors play off-course formats such as driving ranges and simulators. Junior participation rose by 3.2 million in one year, and The R&A credits non-traditional formats with much of the growth.

Ireland follows the same pattern. The Golf Barometer’s 800,000 figure explicitly includes simulators, and the gap of at least 300,000 between people who engaged with golf and adults who played an 18-hole course shows how many people now meet the game somewhere other than a fairway. A home simulator is one of the ways that happens, and it lets a golfer keep practising through the months when Irish courses are closed or waterlogged. Our remote working statistics for Ireland show why so many of those golfers are now at home during the day.

Investment in clubs

Public funding reached clubs in several forms in 2024. The Sports Energy Support Scheme distributed €2.1 million to 127 eligible golf clubs, and phase two of the Community Sport Facilities Fund delivered over €11 million to 107 golf clubs, with a further 23 clubs sharing €770,000 in equipment-only grants. Golf Ireland itself awarded Junior Development grants to 124 clubs and Girls Golf grants to 104 clubs in 2024, and 145 clubs received junior development grants in 2025.

How these statistics were compiled

This page draws on Golf Ireland’s 2024 and 2025 Year in Review statements, the Golf Ireland Economic Impact Report as summarised by Golf Ireland and the Irish Times, Fáilte Ireland figures as reported by Hospitality Ireland, The R&A, Ryder Cup Europe and Sport Ireland. Every source was opened and every figure checked on 6 October 2026. Figures described as calculated were worked out from the cited sources and are not published by them: the five-year membership increase in people, the average members per club, the gap between people engaged with golf and adults playing 18-hole courses, and the growth in international golf visitors.

Two limitations apply. The economic report’s growth and participation figures and the Fáilte Ireland tourism figures are taken from press reports that name the source body, because the underlying reports were not available as text at the time of writing. The Golf Barometer figures are survey estimates for the island of Ireland and are rounded by Golf Ireland.

The page will be updated when Golf Ireland publishes its 2026 Year in Review, expected in November or December 2026, and when The R&A publishes its next global participation figures. The year in the title identifies when the page was last compiled. It does not mean every statistic was measured in 2026.

How Modern Garden Rooms helps

The figures above describe a game that has grown off the course as much as on it. For a golfer who wants to practise at home, the practical question is where to put a simulator, because a launch monitor, a screen and a full swing need more ceiling height and depth than most spare rooms offer.

Modern Garden Rooms designs and builds fully insulated garden rooms for golf simulators across Dublin and Leinster, with the height, lighting and electrics a simulator needs to work all year. We build the room, not the simulator. Most fit within the 30 square metre planning exemption, which our planning permission guide explains, and a free site visit will confirm what your garden allows.