The 2021 European Golf Participation Report showed an encouraging increase in the number of registered players across the continent. 35 of the EGA’s 49 members saw growth in participation despite the pandemic. But which of these countries currently has the most registered players?
According to the report, England (692,500) and Germany (651,417) are the leading two nations when it comes to the number of registered players.
To put these numbers into perspective, there are 4.32 million golfers registered with the EGA’s 49 Member Federations. This means that England’s golfers make up 16% of Europe’s total.
Sweden (538,962), the Netherlands (407,302) and France (402,991) complete the top-5.
A country’s total number of registered golfers is of course heavily correlated with its population size. So, in which countries in Europe is golf the most popular relative to the number of people that live there?
According to the statistics, Iceland (5.46%) has the highest number of registered golfers as a percentage of population size. More than 1 in 20 people in the country play the sport. As well as being the second largest golfing country in Europe in absolute numbers, Sweden (5.21%) is also second highest when it comes to the percentage of people playing golf. Scotland (3.53%), Liechtenstein (3.17%) and Ireland (2.94%) completing the top-5.
Finland (2.84%), Denmark (2.65%), the Netherlands (2.34%) and Norway (2.07%) are the other countries with rates above 2%. Comparing this to the rest of the continent, around 0.5% of the European population is registered with their country’s national golf federation.
The European Golf Participation report, a joint initiative between the EGA and The R&A, contains a number of additional insights into participation numbers in Europe and can be downloaded through the link below.