Golf, a modern and popular sport

With nearly 437,000 licenses registered by the French Golf Federation in 2021, the discipline is winning the period of confinement. Democratization finally seems to have begun, accompanied by a rejuvenation of the image and a variety of increasingly affordable practices. On courses or in more urban spaces, golf remains a moderate physical activity that responds to a search for well-being, and attracts as much for its playful side as it does for socializing.

It would seem that the ancestor of golf was played with a rod and a ball in the often dirty streets of Imperial Rome, far from a hobby practiced by the most prominent citizens. Nearly 2,000 years later, in France, a pandemic will have helped this sport, which was already one of the most prolific in terms of licensees, to regain a stronger craze. “Golf, as a sport, is beginning to find its place in France, confirms Christophe Muniesa, general manager of the French Golf Federation (ffgolf). “We regret that French golf is experiencing a delay in development compared to the second half of the 20th century and to other places where, on the contrary, it developed more strongly, such as in Scandinavia or Spain. But today we are very satisfied.”

Numbers on the rise

In 2021, licensing figures broke all ffgolf records. With nearly 437,000 licenses, the exceptional peak of 2012 (423,000) has been beaten. Compared to 2020, where the end of the year had already shown encouraging signs despite the winter period, the increase in licenses is more than 8%. In 2019, the last reference year before covid, it was almost 4.5%. The first rises in 2022 do not betray this positive trend. The numbers most […]

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