Junior Golf Is Booming: What the Latest Numbers Show
Just under 4 million juniors played golf on a course in 2025, the most since 2004. What the numbers show, and where talented kids still get left behind.
Walk past almost any driving range in America on a weekend and you will see it: more kids, more girls, more families with a bucket of balls and a borrowed seven-iron. It is not your imagination. Junior golf is having its biggest run in two decades.
Just under 4 million juniors played golf on a golf course in 2025, more than in any year since 2004, according to the National Golf Foundation, and that figure is up 58% since 2019. The question for the next few years is not whether kids want to play. It is whether the talented ones can afford to keep going once playing turns into competing.
A Younger, Broader Game
The National Golf Foundation (NGF) tracks who plays golf in the United States every year, and its figures for 2025 describe a game that is getting younger and broader at the same time. The surge in junior players is only part of the story. The faces on the range are changing too. Girls now make up 35% of junior golfers, compared with 15% back in 2000, and 26% of junior golfers are people of color.
The adult game is riding the same wave. A record 48.1 million Americans age 6 and up played golf in 2025, on a course or off it, and 29.1 million of them played on a golf course. All those players are keeping the tee sheets full. More than 500 million rounds have been played at U.S. courses in each of the past six years.
Most Courses Are Open to the Public
Golf still carries a country-club image, but the numbers tell a different story. At the end of 2025 there were about 16,000 golf courses at 14,000 facilities in the U.S., and about three-quarters of them are open to the public. That includes roughly 2,600 municipal facilities and about 7,600 more daily-fee facilities.
For a kid, that matters. A public course is a place you can walk into without a membership. Here in San Antonio, juniors 18 and under can play the city's courses for $5 through Youth On Course, and our guide explains how San Antonio kids can play city golf courses for $5.
Getting started in golf is cheaper than ever. Getting good is not.
Programs Built to Lower the Cost of Starting
A handful of national programs exist to make those first steps affordable. Youth on Course began in 2006 with a simple promise of access to golf for $5 or less a round. It reached 394,000 members in 2025, up 59% in a year, and those members played 1.52 million rounds, up 46%. By the organization's count, families saved $22.9 million in a single year.
First Tee takes a different approach, pairing golf with life-skills coaching. Its 2025 Annual Review counts more than 600 PGA and LPGA certified coaches in its network and notes that nearly a third of its chapters own or operate golf courses. Its college scholarship program welcomed 25 new scholars, bringing the total to 121.
Programs like these focus on getting kids onto the course and into the game. A full competitive schedule is a different expense, and that is where the next problem begins.
High School Golf Is Growing Too
School teams are where many kids first play golf for something, and those teams are filling up. On October 1, 2026, the National Federation of State High School Associations reported that boys' golf had the largest percentage increase of any boys' sport in 2025-26, rising 8.3% to 175,757 players. Girls' golf grew 6.3% to 90,176 players.
The NGF sees the same momentum from another angle, counting approximately 1,000 more high schools with girls' golf teams than a decade ago. For a closer look at how school golf works here, see our guide to Texas high school golf and how San Antonio teams reach state.
Where the Pipeline Still Narrows
Here is the catch. Getting started is cheaper than ever. Getting good is not. The Aspen Institute's Project Play found that the average U.S. sports family spent $1,016 on a child's primary sport in 2024, a 46% increase since 2019 and about twice the rate of inflation over the same period.
Competitive golf runs well above that average. A single American Junior Golf Association event costs $95 to $295 to enter, and that is before travel, lessons or equipment. Those bills land hardest on the families with the least, and kids from low-income homes quit sports because of cost at six times the rate of kids from high-income homes.
The college door is narrow as well. About 5.4% of high school boys and 6.9% of girls who play golf go on to compete in the NCAA. We break those odds down in from junior golf to college golf: the real odds, and the full cost picture is in what competitive junior golf really costs a family.
Where Future Golfers of America Fits
Future Golfers of America was built for the step after the first lesson. It serves the talented, competitive junior whose family cannot keep up with tournament fees, equipment, coaching and travel. Selected athletes may receive individual support for exactly those costs, along with mentorship.
If you know a competitive junior in San Antonio or the surrounding area, you can nominate them for FGA's Founding Athlete Class through November 30, 2026. If you would rather give, the #DriveForJuniors Holiday Drive runs through December 31, and 100% of donations support junior golfers directly. FGA's charity tournament, the 2nd Annual Underdog Open, is planned for April 2027, with the date to be announced.
More kids are picking up a club than at any time in twenty years. The goal now is making sure the best of them get to keep swinging.
Common Questions
How many kids play golf in the U.S.?
Just under 4 million juniors played golf on a course in 2025, according to the National Golf Foundation. That is the most since 2004 and up 58% since 2019.
Is high school golf growing?
Yes. In 2025-26, boys' golf had the largest percentage increase of any boys' high school sport, up 8.3% to 175,757 players, and girls' golf grew 6.3% to 90,176 players.
Are most golf courses private?
No. About three-quarters of U.S. golf courses and facilities are open to the public, including roughly 2,600 municipal facilities, according to the National Golf Foundation.
How can I help a talented junior keep competing?
You can nominate a competitive junior in the San Antonio area through November 30, 2026, or give to the #DriveForJuniors Holiday Drive through December 31.
Sources
- National Golf Foundation, Golf Industry Facts (2025 data)
- National Golf Foundation, Female Golf Participation 2026 (2025 year-end numbers)
- Youth on Course, "Youth on Course Celebrates 20 Years of Historic Growth and Impact" (January 13, 2026)
- First Tee, 2025 Annual Review
- NFHS, High School Sports Participation Survey (2025-26)
- Aspen Institute Project Play, family spending on youth sports survey (2025)
- Aspen Institute Project Play, low-income kids and the cost of sports (2020)
- American Junior Golf Association, Tournament Fees and Benefits
- NCAA, Probability of Competing Beyond High School (2024-25)
- Future Golfers of America, Nominate a Competitive Junior Golfer
- Future Golfers of America, #DriveForJuniors Holiday Drive
