5 consumer shifts every golf business should know

"If you drink, don't drive. Don't even putt."

Dean Martin

What’s on our mind this week

Rory’s banana peel, record breaking 581 rounds in 2025, the ‘who’s going to LIV’ rumour mill is in overdrive, but Sungjae calls it fake news, prep to break 80 in ’26 starts now, can Santa deliver home simulators, Grant Thornton Invitational will be interesting, Wyndham Clark thinking outside the box.

Steph Curry splits from Under Armour after 12 years, retains full brand ownership

Why it matters: Golden State Warriors guard Steph Curry and Under Armour announced an amicable separation after 12 years, with Curry retaining full ownership of Curry Brand and his "Splash" logo as Under Armour executes a $255m restructuring that includes $95m in additional costs beyond initial plans.

Our Take: This is brand extraction timed perfectly for Curry's golf transition. At 37, he's openly planning PGA Tour Champions eligibility whilst scaling Underrated Golf, which has already engaged 400+ junior players across prestigious tour stops. He just walked away from a global apparel company with full IP ownership, positioning himself to build golf-focused brand partnerships on his terms. Under Armour's entire basketball business generates only $100-120m annually, irrelevant to their turnaround strategy. Curry's golf credibility as an elite amateur combined with owned brand equity makes him uniquely attractive to golf apparel and equipment companies seeking crossover appeal. He extracted maximum value from basketball endorsements, retained control, and now enters golf's commercial ecosystem unencumbered.

McIlroy and Scheffler launch Golf Channel Games to compete with YouTube golf for younger audiences

Why it matters: Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler, in conjunction with PGA Tour Studios, will spearhead the Optum Golf Channel Games on December 17th, a primetime event on Golf Channel and USA Network featuring timed challenges, skills competitions, and team formats.

Our Take: The PGA Tour understands it's losing younger audiences to creators who build millions of followers through personality-driven content and entertaining formats. YouTube golf proved there's massive demand for golf entertainment that isn't traditional tournaments. Good Good, Bryan Bros, and other creators with 5 handicaps generate more engagement than tour events because they prioritise entertainment over competition. The Golf Channel Games applies that strategy using the tour's greatest asset: the world's best players. Timed challenges, team dynamics, and skills competitions transform McIlroy and Scheffler from shot-making machines into personalities viewers can connect with. The December 17th primetime slot positions this as entertainment competing with mainstream TV, not just golf broadcasts. Whether this works depends on execution. If it feels like stiff tour players awkwardly attempting YouTube energy, it fails. If McIlroy and Scheffler genuinely embrace entertainment-first golf, the tour might finally capture audiences that currently ignore traditional broadcasts entirely.

WTA secures $500m Mercedes-Benz partnership as women's sports attract institutional capital

Why it matters: The Women's Tennis Association signed a title sponsorship with Mercedes-Benz worth $50m annually for up to 10 years, comfortably surpassing the WTA's previous deal with Hologic at $20m per year.

Our Take: Women's sports weren't undervalued; they were under monetised. CVC took 20% of WTA for $150m, professionalised commercial operations, and immediately unlocked a partnership 2.5x larger than the previous deal. This is private equity proving that women's tours lacked professional deal-making infrastructure, not market demand. The LPGA's FM broadcast investment and this WTA deal demonstrate the same pattern: institutional capital plus commercial expertise unlocks valuations that legacy sports organisations failed to capture. Mercedes isn't backing women's tennis for social responsibility, they're backing professionally managed sports properties with growing audiences and underpriced sponsorship inventory. The LPGA should be watching closely when their next major partnerships come up for renewal.

Read: Fried Egg Golf’s Kevin Van Valkenburg writes a brilliant piece on Rory’s unprecedented 2025 season – honest, informative and insightful.

Watch: Go inside the walls of a Washington prison where golf is part of the rehabilitation programme.

Listen: Fried Egg 10yr Podcast show. From a weekly newsletter among 10 mates, to one of the biggest golf media companies in the world. We like this story for obvious reasons!

Follow: PGA Memes for anyone who loves golf and loves memes. Travis Miller’s page always brings the humour.

Why we track consumer trends (and why you should too)

Consumer behaviour is evolving at unprecedented pace. The creator economy is democratising influence. Screen fatigue is reshaping leisure priorities. Algorithm changes are rewriting discovery. For golf businesses, this is the backdrop against which strategy, investment decisions, and growth initiatives must be built.

That's where our 2026 Consumer Trends Report comes in. Think of it as your strategic guide for the year ahead - insights designed to spark conversations, sharpen positioning, and inspire the next generation of golf experiences.

At its heart, this report is about people and the culture that influences them. We examine where consumers are heading: how they'll balance experiences with possessions, navigate the shift from social networks to interest-driven discovery, and seek authentic connection in an increasingly automated world.

Why we look beyond golf

When someone decides how to spend their recreational time and money, they're not choosing between golf options in isolation. They're making decisions across an entire universe of competing priorities.

Traditional courses compete with Netflix and bucket-list travel. Apparel brands compete with lifestyle labels across all sports. Entertainment venues compete with every other way people socialise. Equipment companies face consumers reallocating spending from material goods to experiences.

The real insight isn't found tracking golf-specific metrics. It's found understanding macro forces reshaping consumer behaviour across industries, because those forces inevitably reshape golf. Whether you operate courses, build brands, run entertainment venues, manufacture equipment, or invest in golf businesses, you're navigating the same fundamental shifts.

What's in the report

We've identified five consumer shifts every golf business should understand:

The $250 billion creator economy is fundamentally changing who controls golf's narrative and where audiences spend their attention. Traditional golf media built authority through institutional credibility, but independent creators have built massive engaged audiences without gatekeepers. The average PGA Tour viewer is 64 for linear TV, while younger audiences consume golf content from creators on platforms legacy media doesn't dominate. This shift is also reshaping career paths. Teaching pros, club fitters, and brand ambassadors are building personal brands and direct income streams. For every part of the golf business, the question becomes: how do you leverage creator dynamics rather than resist them?

Social media peaked in 2022. Time spent on platforms has dropped nearly 10% since then, with Gen Z and millennials leading the decline. Golf - whether on traditional courses, in simulators, or at entertainment venues - offers something this generation increasingly craves: offline experiences that deliver real skill-building, social connection, and time away from screens. The challenge for every golf business is closing the gap between these offline strengths and marketing still centred on digital engagement metrics.

Social media isn't social anymore. Platforms now show content based on what you engage with, not who you follow. This levels the playing field entirely. A small brand with 200 followers can reach 50,000 people if their content resonates. A major brand with 100,000 followers can't assume visibility. Golf's traditional relationship-based marketing strategy just got rewritten by algorithms that prioritise relevance over relationships.

Americans now spend 58% more on experiences than material goods. This shift has different implications across golf. Destination rounds, tournaments, and golf travel align perfectly with where consumer dollars are flowing. Equipment and apparel face headwinds as material purchases are now competing for reallocated spending. Entertainment venues and simulators succeed when positioned as experiences, struggle when positioned as transactions. Understanding where your business sits on the experience-to-product spectrum determines your strategy entirely.

Pickleball hit 20 million U.S. players. Padel reached 30 million globally. The simulator and entertainment golf market is projected to hit $2.4 billion by 2030. Consumers increasingly value accessibility, speed of play, social formats, and lower barriers to entry. Every segment of the golf industry faces the same strategic question: how do we adapt our offerings to align with what's driving growth in recreational sports and leisure?

How to use this report

Each trend comes with context: why it matters, what it means for golf, and the opportunities it brings to operators, brands, and investors looking to stay ahead.

The golf businesses that thrive won't be the ones with the most heritage or largest marketing budgets. They'll be the ones who understand that golf, in all its forms, competes with every other way consumers choose to spend their time, money, and attention.

Consumer behaviour just shifted. This report shows you where it's going.

Download the full 2026 Consumer Trends Report here:

The origins of bird terms in golf

The term "birdie" was born at Atlantic City Country Club, New Jersey, around 1899, though some sources suggest 1903. During a round, Ab Smith, playing alongside his brother William and George Crump (who would later build the legendary Pine Valley Golf Club), hit a magnificent second shot to within inches of the hole on a par four. Smith exclaimed "That was a bird of a shot!" and suggested the group should receive double compensation for such excellence. In American slang of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, "bird" meant anything particularly excellent or outstanding, making it the perfect descriptor for a score one under par.

The group immediately adopted "birdie" for such scores, and the term spread remarkably quickly. Because Atlantic City Country Club was a popular resort destination with many visiting golfers, the terminology caught the fancy of American players and travelled across the country. By 1919, the term was being introduced to Britain, though initially referred to as an Americanism.

The avian theme naturally extended beyond the birdie. Smith and his companions soon began using "eagle" for two under par, reasoning that what could be more majestic than a little birdie? An eagle, of course. The term "albatross" for three under par emerged in Britain around 1929. One golfer, JG Ridland, claimed to have suggested the name after scoring three under in India in 1934, fascinated by the bird's ability to follow ships across vast oceans. Interestingly, such scores only became possible with the advent of steel-shafted clubs, which could reach par-5 holes in two shots, unlike their hickory predecessors. Americans often prefer "double eagle" for this rarest of avian achievements.

Next week

We speak exclusively to The Legends Tour owner Ryan Howsam about what it takes to run a global golf tour and how he’s going to create a $1bn golf ecosystem.

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Have a good week. Until next Friday,

David

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