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A new study has discovered that the number of rounds of golf played in the UK hit record levels in 2022.

Data gathered by tee time management booking service BRS Golf and the world’s biggest tee time marketplace, GolfNow, shows that a total of 24.7 million rounds were played across England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales last year.

That’s up 1.8 million on 2021, 2.5 million on 2020 and a whopping 11.2 million on the last pre-pandemic year in 2019.

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This represents 8% growth on 2021, 11% growth on 2020 and a remarkable 84% growth on 2019.

England accounted for the majority of rounds played (12.36 million), followed by Ireland (5.29 million), Scotland (3.98 million), Northern Ireland (1.78 million) and Wales (1.28 million).

A spokeswoman for BRS and GolfNow welcomed the findings.

“Over the course of 2022, we saw a very consistent level of member
play, with the patterns of monthly rounds following the traditional golf
season,” she said.

“If we look at the two main off-seasons – January to March and October
to December – the levels of member golf were almost equal in these two
periods, with 5.1 million versus 5.05 million rounds played.

“With restrictions in place in the UK in Q1 of 2021, it is impossible to
compare to this period but, looking at Q4 of 2021, the level of member
play has remained flat.

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“However, compared to the off-season in 2019, we
have seen an additional 2.3 million member rounds played in both Q1 and
Q4 of 2022. Even with the shorter days, poorer weather and golf courses
going through course maintenance programmes, we have continued to see a
high level of member play.”

The findings also showed a significant increase in the average number of members per club, and how often those members are playing. At the end of 2019, BRS had approximately 533,000 registered members. By the end of 2022, that number had risen to more than 673,000.