Had 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 underneath 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 a virtually 30 % bounce since 2020. Of these golfers, a big and rising quantity performed 9-hole rounds. In truth, they did so at a report price, posting greater than 13.7 million 9-hole scores, up 8 % from final 12 months and 40 % since 2020.

These 9-hole rounds have been notably fashionable 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 help 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 trend, 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 turned eligible to acquire Course and Slope Scores, permitting scores from rounds performed on them to be posted, too.

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

“It’s been thrilling to see year-over-year tendencies 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 information, he mentioned, have been used to tell a spate of adjustments, “together with updating how 9-hole scores are handled for handicap functions.”

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

As for enjoying nicely, that depends 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 have 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 best proportion (32.6) of 9-hole rounds

The discharge of all this information coincides with technological adjustments aimed toward making handicap-keeping simpler and extra partaking than ever. These modifications embrace 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 an in depth, you possibly can see a fleshed-out image of your recreation over the previous 12 months. Right here, for reference, are just a few stats from mine:

You’ll be capable of do the identical in 2025, supplied you retain up your finish of the cut price. You’ll should hold — and publish — your scores. Should you haven’t been, you possibly can enroll to take action right here.