Record Breaking Start to The Golf Season

It was a month injected by the spectacular scenes of Rory McIlroy completing the career Grand Slam at the Masters, and then propelled by unseasonably warm temperatures in the UK, so it perhaps shouldn't be a surprise that April was a record-breaker for golf in England.

That combination of inspiration and perspiration - the Met Office recorded this past month as the sunniest April since those records began in 1910 - was the formula that encouraged a vast number of golfers to venture out to their favourite courses, ushering in the new golf season in stunning fashion.

England Golf has crunched the numbers and confirmed that over 1.4 million scores were submitted through the World Handicap System in April, which was a 95% increase on scores submitted during the same month in 2024. 

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Suggesting that we could be in for a booming season ahead - from January to April 2025 - England Golf also saw 67% more scores submitted through the WHS compared to the same period last year.

(Image Credit: Kevin Murray Golf Photography)

The introduction of the World Handicap System came in late 2020, which coincided with the pandemic and the consequential surge in participation, but to see its progress continue unabated is an indication that we are not yet ready to see a decline, with the game arguably being in a better place now than it was during those dark days half a decade ago.

And we have numbers of our own to support this hypothesis.

From our survey that was recently completed in March by 2,500 golfers, 89% of those who were club members stated that they had or were going to renew their membership, while 19% of non-members were planning to join a club, more golfers were expecting to travel and a staggering 39% of club members said they hoped to play more golf in 2025 compared to last year, with 53% of non-members hoping to play more too.

What all of this points to is that the momentum from April should continue into the summer, which means that 2025 could be a banner year for the game in this country.

Let's hope there are enough tee times to go around for everyone!

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