The golf industry has reinvented itself. Can the classical music industry do the same?

Originally published July 29, 2021. Updated on August 30, 2025. Hat tip to Mark Schaefer who sent me the original NYT article as a potential lesson for arts organizations.

Classical music isn't the only industry that's been experiencing an existential crisis in recent decades. From the early 2000s through 2018, American golf participation saw consistent decline. The number of golf players dropped 22% between 2003 and 2018, golf course closings outnumbered openings for over a decade, and the player base was aging.

Theories about these trends abound—and the parallels with the classical music industry are striking:

• Is the game too slow for millennials, who prefer more socially interactive activities?

• Are American parents just too busy?

• Is there a disconnect between golf's exclusionary reputation and the millennial aversion to elitism, racism, and sexism?

• Is golf simply too expensive for millennials, who face more financial challenges than their parents' generation?

• Or perhaps the rules of etiquette and attire are just too old-fashioned for today's society?
  (In 2008, golfers lauded Arnold Palmer's 10 Rules for Good Golf Etiquette, which included the following admonition: "The best players have been meticulous about their appearance. The neatly appointed golfer, like a businessman or someone headed to church, gives the impression he thinks the golf course and the people there are special.")

By the late 2010s, the sport was in freefall. More courses were closing than opening. Millennials weren’t picking up clubs. Commentators openly wondered whether golf would go the way of bowling leagues—remembered fondly by older generations but irrelevant to the next.

“The golf industry will need to change to stay in play,” Bloomberg warned in 2017. Insiders could no longer deny it: without reinvention, the sport’s best days were behind it.

Source: Pellucid

Source: National Endowment for the Arts

The golf industry took the warning to heart—and the transformation has been remarkable. In January 2025, the National Golf Foundation reported seven consecutive years of growth, with a 16% increase over the past five years alone. This expansion marks golf participation levels not seen since 2008.

According to the NGF, nearly 30 million Americans played on-course golf in 2023. And these aren’t just lapsed players. Golf’s transformation strategy created entirely new markets, with 3.4 million first-timers in 2023 alone.

Far from just stabilizing a declining industry, golf leaders sparked record-breaking growth by making the sport accessible to people who never would have engaged with traditional formats. Off-course participation jumped 18% in 2023 to nearly 33 million participants, a 41% increase compared to pre-pandemic 2019 levels.

Not only are more golfers participating, but the demographics have shifted dramatically. The younger golfer is now four times as likely to be non-white and twice as likely to be female, while female participation has reached record levels with unprecedented representation for people of color.

What's behind this sustained transformation?

• They’ve removed barriers to participation.

• They’ve made it easier for the uninitiated to engage.

• They’ve redesigned the experience to provide more benefits to participants beyond pure enjoyment of the sport.

In short, the new value proposition is simply more appealing to today’s consumer.

New Golf

Interactive, social, and entertainment elements have increased exponentially through a combination of the sports bar vibe and the driving range setting. Protocols that have lent a formality to the sport for decades have been relaxed (no eyebrows are raised if a golfer eschews the ubiquitous polo shirt—or even shoes.) The time commitment for playing a round has been reduced from 18 holes to 12 (and sometimes just six.) Some golf courses now play music over built-in sound systems, and keeping score is optional (or is tabulated by microchips in the golf balls themselves.)

The transformation is most visible in entertainment or “off course” golf venues like Topgolf, which has grown to over 100 locations globally as of 2024, with 93 venues in the United States. As of February 2024, they were expected to exceed 30 million customers in 2024.

Incredibly, young adults (18-34 year olds) are now golf’s largest age segment, as they increasingly engage with golf in a variety of nontraditional ways. The pipeline is full of 7 million young adults who play “off course”, and another 7.5 million non-golfing young adults say they’re very interested in taking up the game.

Industry leaders once spurned these nontraditional venues as "not real golf," but now realize they've found a way to capitalize on latent interest in the sport and serve as recruiting outposts for traditional golf.

It’s a study in contrasts:

Old Golf

• Silence required on the course

• Polo, golf shoes, and trousers expected

• Traditional customers are white, wealthy

• Driving ranges aren't considered "real golf" by insiders

• It's a daytime sport

• Country club membership required

• Food/drink is not allowed on the course

• Cell phones are off

• Players keep score meticulously

• Just clubs and balls

New Golf

• Music and laughter abound

• Come as you are

• All are welcome

• Driving ranges have the potential to turn newbies into loyalists

• Floodlights allow for nighttime play

• Public courses attract bulk of players

• Cocktails/food are delivered to players

• Cell phone apps add value, interactivity

• Keeping score is optional

• Technology is central

For those who may argue that golf’s turnaround is due entirely to Covid’s push toward outdoor activities, the NGF emphasizes that "we don't owe all the good fortune to COVID-19." The turnaround began well before the pandemic, and the sport continues to grow even now.

As John Barba writes in MyGolfSpy, “Golf isn’t dying. The pipeline appears to still be full.”

Opening Up Access

When insiders build in new ways of accessing their world, everyone benefits. This is the lesson that the golf industry has embraced.

As Nina Simon writes in The Art of Relevance, this kind of transformation is not a dumbing down. It’s an opening up. "It doesn't transform what's inside the room. It just changes who can get in."

If a centuries-old, tradition-laden sport can build new ways to be more accessible and more relevant for outsiders (and, in so doing, reverse its downward slide), our centuries-old, tradition-laden arts sector can too.

And we don’t need to embrace the sports bar vibe to do it. We just need to craft a value proposition that resonates today.

The scale of opportunity becomes clear when you examine the numbers. In 2017, classical music engaged just 8.5% of US adults—about 22 million people. But today, all across America, hundreds of millions of adults are seeking the outcomes that classical music delivers. 50% of adults were experiencing loneliness even before the pandemic—that's over 125 million people in need of social connection. Add those seeking stress relief, meaningful experiences, and digital detox, and classical music is perfectly positioned to serve needs at massive scale.

Golf's transformation demonstrates how business model changes can unlock this kind of latent demand. Many new golfers are consumers who never saw golf as relevant until new approaches aligned with their actual needs: social entertainment, stress relief, accessible outdoor activity.

Classical music has the same opportunity, if we can stop asking "how do we survive as a niche?" and start asking "how do we serve everyone whose needs align with what the arts provide?"

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