[Golf Topic] South Korea Golf Population "4.7 Million → 5.64 Million"

[Asia Economy Reporter Nowrae Noh]

The number of golf players in South Korea has increased explosively. According to the 'Leisure White Paper 2022' recently published by the Korea Leisure Industry Research Institute, the number of golf players in Korea was counted at 5.64 million last year. It increased from 2.93 million in 2009 to 4.7 million in 2019, and surged to 5.64 million in 2021 due to the global COVID-19 pandemic and other reasons. This is a remarkable increase of 940,000 compared to 2019.

Last year, this number was even higher than Japan's golf population of 5.2 million. Japan's golf population decreased from 9.6 million in 2009 to 5.2 million in 2020. It was highest at 14.8 million in 1992 and has been steadily declining since then. In Korea, the percentage of people aged 13 and older who play golf increased from 6.6% in 2019 to 10.2% last year. The data on Korea's golf population is based on the results of the social survey published every two years by Statistics Korea and the annual number of golf course users.