Every few years, someone publishes a piece about golf's youth problem. The sport is too slow, too expensive, too exclusive, too stuffy. The kids are not coming. The game is dying. The piece is usually written by someone who has not been to a public driving range recently, because if they had, they would have noticed something: it is full of people under thirty.
Gen Z's relationship with golf is different from previous generations, but different is not the same as absent. They are playing Top Golf and discovering that hitting a ball is genuinely satisfying. They are watching YouTube instruction videos and showing up to the range with a swing that is already halfway decent. They are playing nine holes instead of eighteen because nine holes fits into a Tuesday evening.
The culture shift is real and it is mostly positive. Younger golfers are less attached to the traditions that made the game feel inaccessible — the dress codes, the pace-of-play anxiety, the sense that you needed to be good before you were allowed to enjoy yourself. They are playing the game on their own terms, and the game is better for it.
The courses that are thriving are the ones that figured this out. Walkable layouts with reasonable green fees. Ranges with good lighting for evening sessions. Food and beverage programs that do not feel like a 1987 country club. The game does not have a Gen Z problem. It has a relevance problem in specific corners of the industry that have not adapted.
The next generation of golfers is already here. They are just playing the game differently than their parents did. That is not a crisis. That is how every sport survives.
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Julia Velasquez
Julia Velasquez covers golf culture, the LPGA Tour, and the business of the sport for The Par Report.