There are few better places to be than a golf course at seven on a summer morning. Dew on the fairway, a flask in the bag and four hours outdoors with people you like. More and more people agree.
More than one in four adults in England, 12.6 million people, played some form of golf in the last 12 months [1]. Club membership has reached 750,071, up by more than 100,000 since 2021 [2].
Yet most of those golfers are not members anywhere. They play at the range, in simulators, on a nine hole pay and play or at an adventure golf course with the kids. That gap is the biggest marketing opportunity golf clubs have had in a generation.
This guide looks at the numbers, who the new golfer is and eight practical golf club marketing ideas to win new members in 2027, and keep the ones you have.
Golf in numbers: lots of players, far fewer members
England Golf’s latest figures show just how wide the game has become [1]:
- 12.6 million adults played some form of golf in the last 12 months
- 9.4 million played crazy or mini golf
- 7.3 million played at least one round on a nine or 18 hole course
- 5.3 million tried an off course format such as a driving range, simulator or adventure golf
- 750,071 are members of a golf club [2]
Put those last two course figures side by side. For every club member there are roughly nine more people who played on a course in the past year without belonging to one. They already like golf. They just haven’t been given a good enough reason to join.
The good news is that the people who play want more of it. 98% of recreational golfers expect to keep playing and 59% want to play more often [1]. The top reasons they give are socialising, being outdoors, health and simple fun [1].
The growth is also coming from new places [2]:
- Club membership rose 2.66% in 2025, from 730,602 to 750,071
- Junior membership jumped 34%, from 46,028 to 61,483
- iGolf, England Golf’s scheme for golfers without a club, grew 34% to 72,921
- iPlay, its newest beginner offer, more than doubled from 5,738 to 12,562
Scotland tells a similar story. Playing membership reached 220,210 in 2025, with junior boys’ membership up 28.2% [9].
So golf doesn’t have a player problem. The job for clubs in 2027 is turning players into members.
Who is the new golfer?
The person most likely to join your club next year probably doesn’t look like your average member today.
- They started off course. Their first swing was at a range, in a simulator bar or on a mini golf course. A traditional clubhouse can feel like a big step.
- They are short on time. Nine holes after work suits them better than five hours on a Saturday. Women’s nine hole scores rose 24% in 2025 [3].
- They want flexibility. Many would rather build up to full membership than commit on day one. More than 24,000 iGolf subscribers have gone on to join a club [3], which shows the pathway works.
- More of them are women and juniors. Female golfers submitted over 151,000 more scores in 2025 than the year before [3]. Yet women still make up only around 11% of club members, and under 18s less than 10% [7].
- They are watching the cost. More than 80% of members in one survey said their fees had gone up in the past year [6].
None of this is bad news. It simply means the old approach of an open day banner and a joining fee waiver won’t be enough. We looked at the wider picture in our UK golf trends for 2026 and 2027. Here we’ll focus on what clubs can do about it.
8 golf club marketing ideas for 2027
1. Build a pathway, not a single offer
Most clubs sell one thing: full membership. New golfers need steps. Think taster session, then a beginner course, then a flexible or points based membership, then full membership. Give each step its own page on your website with a clear price and one button. In one survey, 16% of golfers without a club said they planned to join one within the year [5]. Make it easy for them to say yes to something small first.
2. Go and find the off course golfer
5.3 million adults played an off course format last year [1]. Partner with your nearest driving range or simulator venue. Offer their regulars a free twilight nine holes. Run a simulator league in winter that finishes with a final on your course in spring. Target people on Meta and Google who follow golf but have never visited your website.
3. Sell time as well as golf
Promote nine hole memberships, twilight tickets and early bird slots as products in their own right. Show the actual time in your marketing: “Nine holes, home by eight.” For a busy parent, that line does more than any photo of your 18th green.
4. Make women and girls visible
If women are 11% of members [7], there is a lot of room to grow. Start with what people see. Feature women in your photography, your social posts and your homepage video. Run women’s taster evenings with a female coach and a drink afterwards. Then tell those stories. Our guide to storytelling in sport shows how real people do the selling for you.
5. Win the family, not just the golfer
Junior membership grew 34% in 2025 [2]. Families are looking for things to do together outdoors. A junior academy, a family membership and a relaxed short course or putting area give parents a reason to choose you. England Golf’s Get into Golf Week, held from 3 to 9 August in 2026 [1], is a ready made moment to plan a campaign around each summer.
6. Show the club on film
People join a place and a group of people, not a scorecard. A short film that captures your course at its best and the life around it will work harder than any brochure. Pair one hero film with a steady flow of short clips for social, as we explain in short form vs long form video in sports marketing. Aerial footage is especially powerful for golf, and our guide to drone filming covers what you need to know. Good sports photography from the same shoot day will refresh your website and adverts for a full year.
7. Be the first result for “golf membership near me”
When someone decides to look for a club, they search. Keep your Google Business Profile up to date with fresh photos and replies to reviews. Build a dedicated membership page that loads quickly on a phone and shows prices. Then run Google and Meta ads to that page ahead of the main season and again in late summer. If your site is hard to use on mobile, fix that first. Our website design page explains how we approach it.
8. Treat retention as marketing
Keeping a member usually costs less than finding a new one. In a survey of more than 2,500 golfers, 77.9% of members planned to renew [4]. That leaves around one in five undecided or leaving. An earlier survey found that only 23% of former members were ever asked why they left [8]. So ask. Welcome new members properly in their first 90 days, introduce them to playing partners and send a short survey before renewal time, not after.
Your first 90 days
You don’t need to do all eight at once. Here is a simple order to start with:
- Weeks 1 to 2: Check the basics. Search for your club on your phone. Look at your Google profile, your membership page and your last ten social posts. Ask someone who has never visited what they think.
- Weeks 3 to 6: Plan one shoot day to capture film and photography of the course, the clubhouse and real members. Include women, juniors and newer golfers.
- Weeks 7 to 9: Rebuild your membership page around a clear pathway with prices, and add one taster offer.
- Weeks 10 to 12: Launch a small local ad campaign to that page and measure enquiries, tasters booked and members joined.
Golf is in a wonderful place. More people are picking up a club, getting outside and falling for the game than at any time in recent memory. The clubs that welcome them well will be the ones that thrive.
At Floom Creative we help golf clubs and golf brands tell their story through film, photography, websites and paid advertising. Take a look at our golf marketing agency page and our sports video production work, or get in touch and tell us about your club. For the bigger picture across sport, read our sports marketing trends for 2027.
References
- The Golf Business (July 2026), reporting England Golf figures. More than one in four adults in England played golf in the last 12 months. https://thegolfbusiness.co.uk/2026/07/more-than-one-in-four-adults-in-england-played-golf-in-the-last-12-months/
- Golf Business News (2026), reporting England Golf figures. England Golf reports major rise in club membership. https://golfbusinessnews.com/news/growing-the-game/england-golf-reports-major-rise-in-club-membership/
- GolfTimes (2026). England Golf reveals record breaking participation surge in landmark 2025 season. https://golftimes.co.uk/?p=1965
- Golfshake (March 2026). Have you renewed your golf club membership for 2026? Many will, but not everyone. https://www.golfshake.com/news/view/22274/Have_you_renewed_your_golf_club_membership_for_2026_Many_will_but_not_everyone.html
- Golfshake (2025). Is it time to tear up the traditional golf club membership model? https://www.golfshake.com/news/view/22182/Is_it_time_to_tear_up_the_traditional_golf_club_membership_model.html
- National Club Golfer (February 2026). Have you seriously thought about leaving your golf club? https://www.nationalclubgolfer.com/club/have-you-seriously-thought-about-leaving-your-golf-club
- Women and Golf (2026). Women in golf club membership and volunteering. https://womenandgolf.com/?p=88921
- Golfshake (2023). Survey Reveals Attitudes And Barriers to Joining a Golf Club. https://golfshake.com/news/view/19667/Survey_Reveals_Attitudes_And_Barriers_to_Joining_a_Golf_Club.html
- Glenmuir (2026), reporting Scottish Golf figures. The golden era of golf. https://www.glenmuir.com/news/golden-era-of-golf
