Issue 016 | The Understudy

Every time I watch golf on TV, I drift into “this is boring.” Not the golf. The golf’s incredible. It’s everything wrapped around it.

And it’s not just me. When golf’s on at home, my wife puts her headphones in. Football’s the total opposite. She’ll happily have that on in the background, just for the atmosphere and the commentary. Golf commentators do try, to be fair. But they rarely land a joke, or give you any feel for who the players are. It’s all light chuckles and “cheers to that.” The kind of stuff where you feel like you need to be in the club to get it. Oh, the irony.

So when I read a golf tournament had brought in an AI commentator, my first thought wasn’t “is it any good?” It was “is that really what we were missing?”

What happened when an AI commentated the New Mexico Open?

This month the New Mexico Open put an AI commentator on air. It's not a big tour event. It's a state open, streamed on YouTube and social. But it got people talking. The AI's called Duff Foreman. It sat alongside two humans, Ryan Burr and Notah Begay III. A company called Gopher Hole Productions built it, and its job was the numbers. Win probabilities, strokes gained, more stats than anyone could keep in their head. At one point it gave the leader, Blake Tomlinson, an 11% chance of winning. An amateur won it in the end.

Then it talked through how the greens would play. Firm, dry, textbook stuff. Except it had rained the night before. Begay had to jump in, live: “Duff certainly not aware that we did get some rain last night.” Later on Duff missed its cue completely. Dead air. So Burr filled it, telling it to take a break and grab a “granola bar or whatever it is you AI people eat.”

Doesn’t golf already have enough data?

Yes. Loads. And that’s what gets me. Golf already tracks everything. Swing speed, ball flight, spin, the slope of every green, the wind, the weather, how a player’s body moves through the swing. A lot of that’s already AI, working away in the background. And it’s good at it.

I’ve got no problem with that. That’s where it belongs. It makes the graphics better. It helps the players. It helps the coaches. But it was never missing from the broadcast. If anything there’s too much of it. So sticking a voice in the booth whose only job is more numbers? That’s fixing a problem golf didn’t have.

Why does golf commentary feel so boring?

Because it’s too nice. That’s my main thing, and I know not everyone will agree. Golf’s already too analytical. You get hours of it, what feels like the whole day, about how beautiful the course looks and how well-struck that was. It’s a gentleman’s game and you can hear it in the booth. Everyone’s being so nice to everyone that it ends up dull.

And it’s the oldest joke in the sport. Why do golf commentators whisper when they’re sat in a booth nowhere near the players?

So what does golf need instead?

Energy. And it has to be human.

Golf’s in a great spot right now. Loads of new people are coming in, from cultures the game’s never really reached before. People who wouldn’t have picked up a club ten years ago. It could be huge. But the tour, and everything around it, can’t keep up. And when the top of the game doesn’t feel like it’s for you, you go back to the version that does. Simulators, driving ranges, the off-course stuff. Nothing wrong with any of that. I just don’t want it to be the only door left open.

Who does an AI in the booth push away?

This is a bird’s-eye view, and I could be wrong. I can’t put a number on it. But it’s how I see it. Loads of people are watching AI start to take jobs. And a lot of those are working-class jobs. That’s exactly who golf keeps saying it wants to reach. So when golf starts handing the mic to a machine, even at one tournament, that says something. Whether it means to or not. In one go, it turns off the people it most needs to turn on.

What happens when YouTube sends new fans to the real thing?

YouTube’s brought more new people into golf than anything else since I started playing. No filter. Big characters. People being themselves. Sometimes that goes wrong, and I wrote about one of those times in Too Laddy. But mostly it works. Because it feels human.

Then those people get curious. They want to watch the best players at the best tournaments. So they switch on, and it’s a completely different world. Whispering, stats, pretty shots of trees. And now, at one tournament at least, an AI reading out even more stats.

That’s them gone. Right there.

So what would I do about it?

Give people a choice. Trial it on Sky first. You press a button and pick your commentary. The standard one, if that’s what you like. Or an alternative.

The alternative has a couple of strong anchors in the booth. Proper broadcasters who can hold it all together. Then you bring in people from golf’s culture side to sit in and give their opinions as it plays out. Because it’s a long time to talk for. Four days, hours at a time. Nobody keeps that fresh on their own. More voices keeps it moving. And it’s a chance to bring in the people new fans already follow.

Same with the interviews after the round. Have someone in the studio ask the player one question that’s got nothing to do with golf. Something they haven’t been media trained for. That’s the bit people would clip and send to their mates. And it’s the bit where you find out who the players are.

The Understudy

There’ve been two fixes tried this year. In July, the PGA Tour tried a stream with no commentary at all. Just the players, the caddies and the crowd. And I think that was a step in the right direction. You hear what they say to their caddie. You hear them lose it at themselves. It’s the kind of thing I already watch on YouTube, like Charley Hull’s Sweet Spot Golf. Real people being themselves.

Then this month, the New Mexico Open tried an AI. That’s a step the other way. The machine was meant to be the new face in the booth, and the humans ended up covering for it.

Commentary was never short on stats. It’s short on energy. And that energy has to come from people who were there.

So go on then. What would make you keep a tournament on? More numbers, or someone who’d have noticed it rained? Drop a comment.

Paul is the founding editor of Room 19, a golf brand telling the untold stories of the game for people who found it through culture, not the clubhouse. He took up golf at 37. Find Room 19 on Instagram and TikTok.

I started Room 19 because I wanted golf writing that treated the game the way the culture magazines I read treat everything else, properly, not as tips, gear reviews and FOMO shots of golf courses. If you want the next one first, subscribe below.

Previously in Room 19:

Issue 013 | The Wall, on what decides who feels welcome in a clubhouse before anyone's said a word.

Issue 014 | The Icebreaker, on why off-course golf is becoming a faster, more honest way to get to know someone.

Issue 015 | The Heads Up, on why golfers shout fore when it isn't a rule.

Personal Story | Too Laddy, on where golf's laddish energy tips from fun into something that pushes people out.

Quick answers

Who was golf’s first AI commentator? Duff Foreman, an AI commentator built by Gopher Hole Productions. It co-hosted streamed coverage of the New Mexico Open in September 2026 alongside Ryan Burr and Notah Begay III, and the event billed it as a first for pro golf.

What went wrong with the AI commentary? It described the greens as if they were dry when it had rained the night before, and Notah Begay III corrected it live. It also missed a cue, leaving dead air that Ryan Burr filled with a joke.

Did the AI commentator predict the winner? No. It gave the leader, Blake Tomlinson, an 11% chance of winning. The event was won by amateur Jackson Funkhouser.

Did golf try a broadcast with no commentary? Yes. In July 2026 the PGA Tour ran a commentary-free feed at the Rocket Classic on PGA Tour Live, where viewers heard the players, caddies and crowd instead of commentators.

What else are the AI commentator’s makers planning? Its creator has talked about developing it into a virtual caddie or swing instructor, and building the tech into golf simulators.

Why does golf commentary feel boring to new fans? Room 19’s view is that golf commentary leans too polite and too analytical, with plenty of stats and scenery but little humour or character. New fans who found golf through YouTube expect more energy than traditional broadcasts give them.

How could golf commentary be improved? Room 19's suggestion is an optional alternative commentary feed, trialled alongside the standard one, with strong anchor commentators and guest voices from golf culture, plus post-round interviews that include one question from outside golf.

Sources: Duff Foreman at the 2026 New Mexico Open, via Sports Video Group, AZFamily, Forbes, Operation Sports and Australian Golf Digest (creator Gopher Hole Productions, Begay and Burr as on-air partners, streamed from 14 September on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube). The rain correction, the 11% win probability for Blake Tomlinson, Burr’s “granola bar” line and the creator’s plans for a virtual caddie, swing coach and simulators, via GOLF.com, Alan Bastable, 16 September 2026. Amateur Jackson Funkhouser won the event, via KRQE. The PGA Tour’s commentary-free stream at the 2026 Rocket Classic, via Detroit News and Golf.com. Charley Hull Sweet Spot YouTube Channel. The opinion on AI, jobs and working-class audiences is Paul’s own view, not a sourced claim. The opening is Paul’s own first-hand account.

I spent my whole first year worrying there was some system to it. Fore left, fore right, rules I hadn’t learned yet, and a fear that I’d shout the wrong one, or shout it too late, in front of people who’d been playing for decades.

There wasn’t a system. It was seven years ago now, so I can’t tell you the first time I heard it, but I do remember how it worked. My friends shouted it for me. If my ball cleared the trees, one of them would call it out before I’d thought to, because they’d played those courses before and knew where the other tee boxes were. They had the awareness and the etiquette, and I just had the club. A friend called it out whenever a ball looked like it might reach someone, and that was it. I’d spent twelve months overthinking something that simple.

What stayed with me is how nobody explains it. Golf teaches you the swing, the grip, the stance, and then leaves the one word every golfer has heard shouted to you to work out on your own. So this issue is what I found when I looked at it properly: where the word comes from, whether it’s a rule at all, and what it’s really for.

Is shouting ‘fore’ a rule?

No, and the highest court in New York has said so directly. A golfer was hit while searching for his own ball, after another player’s shot went wrong nearby. He sued, arguing the other player should have shouted a warning first. The case, Anand v. Kapoor, ended in December 2010 when the state’s Court of Appeals unanimously threw it out, calling being hit “a commonly appreciated risk of golf.” Shouting first is courtesy, not law. Nobody has ever been legally required to say it.

How dangerous is a golf ball, really?

Less than the word’s reputation suggests. In the United States, a study of emergency room data from 1990 to 2011 found around 30,000 golf-related injuries a year, and about 16% of them were caused by being struck by a ball. That’s roughly 4,800 a year. Set that against the 500 million or so rounds played a year at around 100 shots each, and it works out at somewhere near 1 in 10 million shots ending with someone in hospital. That last figure is my own estimate, built from public rounds-played numbers rather than a number anyone has published, so treat it as a rough size, not a precise count. Across the injuries in that same study, 93.7% ended with treatment and a trip home the same day.

So the odds were never the reason people shout it.

Where does the word “fore” come from?

Nobody agrees, including golf’s own governing bodies. The USGA, golf’s American governing body, says on its own history page that it’s a military warning cry, from the word used to tell soldiers to get out of the way of artillery fire. Scottish golf historians say it’s really a worn-down “forecaddie” call. A forecaddie was the person sent ahead down the course to spot where balls landed, and players shouted to warn them to look out. Neither side has settled it, which is a strange thing to be true of golf’s most shouted word.

When are you supposed to shout it?

If it looks like your ball might reach someone, you shout. Nothing in that depends on how bad the shot was, only on where it’s headed.

Here’s the part that would have saved me a year of worry. The real trigger is a ball travelling further or curving more than you’d expect, which makes it mostly a concern for longer, straighter hitters, not for new players. A beginner’s bad shot usually doesn’t travel far enough to reach anyone. The further and straighter you hit it, the more this becomes your job. The fear I carried around it was mostly aimed at the wrong person.

What should you do when someone shouts it at you?

Don’t try to find the ball. You won’t. Turn away from the shout, cover your head and neck with your arms, and take cover if there’s something nearby to take cover behind. It’s the same response whether you hit the shot or just heard someone else’s. And if you want to know what the extras are, fore left and fore right do exist, but they’re optional, and you don’t need to learn them before you play.

The Heads Up

Hearing someone shout it means they caught the danger in time and did something about it. It’s not the word that’s dangerous. It’s the silence, the moment a ball is heading somewhere it shouldn’t and nobody says anything at all. So I don’t flinch at the word anymore. To me it’s the sound of a stranger looking out for you before you even knew you needed it, and it survives for that reason alone, because there’s no rule making anyone do it.

If you’ve ever shouted fore without quite knowing why, or felt too embarrassed to ask what it means, I’d like to hear about it. Drop a comment: what’s the golf word or rule you were too worried to ask about when you started?

Previously in Room 19:

Issue 012 | The Misread, on the handicap system most people mistake for a scale of shame.

Issue 013 | The Wall, on what decides who feels welcome in a clubhouse before anyone’s said a word.

Issue 014 | The Icebreaker, on why off-course golf is becoming a faster, more honest way to get to know someone.

Personal Story | Is Golf Too Laddy, on where golf’s laddish energy tips from fun into something that pushes people out.

I started Room 19 because I wanted golf writing that treated the game the way the culture magazines I actually read treat everything else, properly, not as tips, gear reviews and FOMO shots of golf courses.

Paul is the founding editor of Room 19, a golf brand telling the untold stories of the game for people who found it through culture, not the clubhouse. He took up golf at 37.

Find Room 19 on Instagram and TikTok.

Quick answers

Is shouting “fore” a rule in golf? No. New York’s highest court ruled in 2010 (Anand v. Kapoor) that being hit by a stray ball is “a commonly appreciated risk of golf,” and that shouting a warning first is courtesy, not a legal duty.

Where does the word “fore” come from? It’s disputed. The USGA says it’s a military warning cry from artillery use. Scottish golf historians say it’s a shortened “forecaddie” call. Neither has been settled.

How often does a golf ball hit someone badly enough to need hospital treatment? In the US, about 4,800 ball-strike emergency room visits a year, from a study covering 1990 to 2011. Set against roughly 50 billion shots a year, Room 19 estimates that’s around 1 in 10 million shots.

When should you shout “fore”? Whenever your ball looks like it might reach someone. It’s about where the ball is headed, not how bad the shot was, and it matters most for longer, straighter hitters.

What should you do if you hear someone shout “fore”? Don’t try to spot the ball. Turn away, cover your head and neck with your arms, and take cover if you can.

Sources: Anand v. Kapoor, New York Court of Appeals, decided 21 December 2010 (15 NY3d 946), quote “a commonly appreciated risk of golf,” via CBS New York and Fox News. Golf injury data (about 30,158 average annual emergency room visits, 16.0% from ball strikes, 93.7% treated and released), Walsh et al., “Golf-related injuries treated in United States emergency departments,” The American Journal of Emergency Medicine, 2017, covering 1990 to 2011, via em-consulte and the journal listing. The “1 in 10 million” figure is Room 19’s own estimate: about 500 million US rounds a year, working midpoint of NGF figures, via NGF’s rounds played page, times about 100 shots a round, per NGF’s own estimate in Who’s Keeping Score?, divided by roughly 4,800 ball-strike visits a year. Realistic input ranges keep the result between about 1 in 9.7 million and 1 in 10.8 million. It is US data only. The origin of “fore”: the military and artillery theory per the USGA’s history FAQ, the forecaddie theory per Scottish Golf History, overview via Wikipedia. Guidance on what to do when you hear “fore” (turn away, cover your head, take cover) via Caddie AI and The Left Rough, general golf guidance rather than a single official rulebook. The same goes for the point that distance and curve are the real trigger for shouting. The opening, about spending a first year worrying about a system that wasn’t there and friends shouting it on his behalf, is Paul’s own first-hand account, told from memory seven years on.

Issue 014 | The Icebreaker

I’m no longer the target audience for a dating app (I’m 44 and been with my wife for 20 years), but I still very much remember exactly what a second date used to mean: another two hours across a table, or a seat next to someone in a dark cinema, still working out who they really were underneath all the good behaviour. Golf turned out to be nothing like that.

It unmasks someone’s temperament faster than almost anything else I’ve played. These days a round, or even just an hour on a simulator, is basically two dates in one: you try golf, and you bring someone along, and by the time you’re walking off you already know more about how they handle a bad moment than a whole dinner would ever have told you.

None of what follows comes from a date of my own. I'm not doing that anymore. It came from watching the pattern from outside it instead, the same claim kept turning up whenever the subject came up, and a handful of venues had already built a real, recurring business around it without anyone quite explaining why it works.

Why does dinner make it so easy to hide who you are?

Dinner puts you in more control than almost any other kind of date. You choose your words, you choose how calm you look, and if it’s not going well you’re stuck there for a while working out how to leave gracefully. Over 80% of daters say dinner is the hardest kind of date to escape once it’s already going wrong, and the average one runs close to three hours, according to a 2023 survey of 2,000 daters run for Canada Dry. That’s a long time spent controlling every part of yourself in front of someone you barely know.

Does it really take less time than a bad dinner?

It can, and that’s the point. Most golf simulator venues let you book a bay by the hour, no membership, no full round required, just a set of clubs and a screen. Urban Golf’s own pricing page lists a standard rate of £40 an hour, off-peak. If it’s not working, you’re out in under an hour. If it is working, there’s still time left for food, or another drink, afterwards.

Is there real evidence an activity reveals more than dinner does?

There’s more to this than one person’s experience with a set of clubs. Relationship expert Susan Winter has said an activity date tends to draw out unguarded, natural responses, the kind of read on someone’s actual disposition that’s harder to get from two people sitting still and trying to make a good impression across a table. Allison Gerrits, a matchmaker at Three Day Rule, makes a similar point: an activity date shows someone’s true colours quickly, often within the first few minutes.

None of this is a new discovery about golf specifically, either. “To find a man’s true character, play golf with him” is a line commonly attributed to P.G. Wodehouse, whose golf writing dates back to the 1920s. There’s no referee watching every shot in golf, so how someone scores themselves, handles a bad one, and treats whoever they’re playing with has stood in as a character test for close to a century, long before dating apps existed.

Is this already happening, or just a nice theory?

It’s already happening, and has been for a while. A recurring dating night, run by True Dating rather than Puttshack itself, has taken place at Puttshack’s Bank venue in London for more than 17 months straight, with listings still selling forward dates. Topgolf’s own marketing in the UK makes a similar pitch directly, one of their own blog posts is headlined “7 Reasons Topgolf is an Unmatchable Date Location.” Neither venue built its business around dating. They just turned out to be a good setting for it, and both have noticed.

Does it have to be a big commitment to work?

No, and that’s the part that makes it work as a first step rather than a big ask. Golf never expects a beginner to start with a full eighteen holes, you start with a bucket of balls at a range, then a few holes, long before anyone plays a full round. A full round takes close to four hours by the USGA’s own reckoning. An hour on a simulator, or a quick round of mini golf, is a fraction of that. Two people can do the same thing golf already does for new players: start small, see how it goes, and only take it further if it’s worth taking further.

The Icebreaker

Dinner was never built to reveal anyone. It’s built for control, careful words, a calm face, a table that gives you time to compose yourself before you say anything real. Golf wasn’t built for dating at all, but it does something dinner structurally can’t: it puts a small, visible failure in front of someone, a bad shot, a missed putt, with nowhere to hide the reaction to it. That’s not a gimmick. It’s a faster, more honest read on who someone really is, and it comes with a low-stakes way to start that golf already worked out for its own beginners long before anyone thought to use it for a first date.

If you’ve ever learned more about someone from one bad shot than a whole evening of conversation, I’d like to hear about it. Drop a comment: what’s the smallest moment that told you the most about someone you were just getting to know?

Previously in Room 19:

Issue 011 | The New Icon, on personality replacing the old template for who gets to stand out.

Issue 012 | The Misread, on the handicap system most people mistake for a scale of shame.

Issue 013 | The Wall, on what decides who feels welcome in a clubhouse before anyone’s said a word.

Personal Story | Too Laddy, on where golf’s laddish energy tips from fun into something that pushes people out.

I started Room 19 because I wanted golf writing that treated the game the way the culture magazines I actually read treat everything else, properly, not as tips, gear reviews and FOMO shots of golf courses. If you want the next one first, subscribe below.

Paul is the founding editor of Room 19, a golf brand telling the untold stories of the game for people who found it through culture, not the clubhouse. He took up golf at 37. Find Room 19 on Instagram and TikTok.

Quick answers

How long does a golf simulator session usually take? Most venues book by the hour with no membership required. Urban Golf’s own pricing page lists a standard rate of £40 an hour, off-peak.

How long does a full round of golf take? Around four hours, per the USGA’s own reference point for a round played at a normal pace with no waiting.

Is there research showing activity dates reveal more about someone than dinner does? Yes. Relationship expert Susan Winter and matchmaker Allison Gerrits have both said activity-based dates draw out more unguarded, natural reactions than a traditional sit-down date.

Who said you can judge someone’s character by playing golf with them? A line commonly attributed to the writer P.G. Wodehouse, whose golf stories date back to the 1920s: “To find a man’s true character, play golf with him.”

Is there already a recurring golf-based dating event in the UK? Yes. True Dating has run a “Mini Golf Singles Party” at Puttshack’s Bank venue in London for more than 17 months straight, with listings still selling forward dates.

Sources: Susan Winter and Allison Gerrits on activity dates revealing character, via Bustle. “To find a man’s true character, play golf with him,” commonly attributed to P.G. Wodehouse, via onedayjournals.com and Goodreads. Urban Golf’s hourly simulator pricing (£40/hour off-peak, no membership) via Urban Golf’s own pricing page. Puttshack’s own average game length (about 30 minutes for 9 holes, 2 players) via Puttshack’s help centre. Four-hour full-round reference via USGA, Anatomy of a Four-Hour Round. True Dating’s recurring “Mini Golf Singles Party” at Puttshack Bank, run by True Dating rather than Puttshack itself, dated listings found from March 2025 through August 2026, via True Dating and True Dating’s events listing. Topgolf UK’s own dating-focused marketing via Topgolf’s blog. The dinner-date survey figure (over 80% say dinner is hardest to leave once it’s going badly, average length 2.72 hours) is credited to a 2023 OnePoll survey of 2,000 daters commissioned by Canada Dry; a direct link to the original release wasn’t confirmed after a search, flagging as outstanding rather than publishing a guessed link, and it’s a US-only survey, not necessarily representative of UK dating habits. The reflection that golf reveals character faster than most things Paul's played is his own stated view; the claim that this makes golf work as a dating format specifically is presented as an outside observation rather than personal dating experience, per the opening's own framing.

Issue 013 | The Wall

Walking into a golf clubhouse, in my experience, tells you who belongs before anyone’s actually spoken to you. The environment is old and traditional, and that shows up everywhere, portraits of previous winners lining the walls, all with roughly the same look, staff who tend to be picked based on what’s gone before, and a clientele where social class is doing more work than anyone would admit to. None of that is a sign on the door. It’s just what the room looks like, and a room can do all the talking a policy never has to.

I know this isn't only a golf thing, and it isn't only about my own mixed heritage either. It's a feeling I've carried into plenty of rooms outside the game too. Golf just magnifies it. I became a paying member of a club for a year once, and it didn’t make me feel any more welcome. The club already had its people, and wasn’t especially interested in bringing more in. Paying the fee got me through the door. It didn’t get me the feeling the fee was supposed to buy. Belonging.

What shifted it wasn’t a rule change or a new membership policy. It was smaller than that. I waited until I was 37, until one person invited me and made it feel possible, and after that I just turned up without worrying about it. The moments the feeling lifts are usually small too, a more diverse crowd in the room, or a face on the wall that looks something like mine, and I relax without deciding to. That gap, between what changes it and what most clubs assume changes it, is the whole subject of this issue.

What’s deciding who feels welcome in a clubhouse?

The easy assumption is that golf shuts people out on purpose, a policy somewhere, or a person turning you away at the door. That’s rarely how it works. Most of the barrier is unconscious, decided by what a room signals before anyone’s said a word to you. Clubhouses are older, more visual, more tradition-coded than most social spaces, so the evidence is often literally on a wall, whose portrait made the honours board, who’s serving behind the bar, who’s already sitting in the room. None of that needs a rule to work. It just needs repetition.

Does the next generation already look different?

It does, by a meaningful margin. Over 200,000 children have come through the Golf Foundation’s programmes, and 18% of them are from ethnic-minority backgrounds, already ahead of where the adult game sits today. That figure traces back to Golf Foundation CEO Nicola Bennett, reported by Sky Sports in January 2023, so it’s a few years old rather than brand new, worth being upfront about rather than presenting it as this month’s number. Even a few years on, it’s a clear signal that whatever’s changing in junior golf hasn’t caught up with the adult side of the sport yet.

Is there already appetite waiting to be tapped?

There’s a reasonable case for it. One survey, run by Sport Psychology Ltd and the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust, found that roughly a quarter of BAME non-golfers said they’d be very interested in playing if the game felt more inclusive, and 92.4% rated golf as not fully welcoming as it stands. Worth being honest about the limits of that number too, I couldn’t find a published sample size or survey date for it after a genuine search, so it’s a real finding but not one I’d hang the whole argument on by itself. Taken together with the junior numbers above, though, it points the same direction: less a door that needs forcing, more one that people are already stood in front of.

Does paying for membership fix it?

Not on its own, in my experience. A year of paying membership didn’t make me feel any more welcome, because the club already had its people and wasn’t particularly trying to bring more in. Access and belonging turned out to be two different things, and assuming the first automatically buys you the second is probably the biggest misread in this whole piece.

So what changes it?

Visible variety does more work than any policy could, who’s in the room, who’s in the photos, who’s behind the bar. That’s the kind of thing a club can act on without anyone having to write a new rule. But the fastest version of it, in my own experience, was smaller still: one person willing to make an invitation feel real. That’s not a big structural fix. It’s just someone deciding to include you, and deciding to mean it.

The Wall

Golf clubs don’t need to tell anyone they don’t belong. The room usually does it for them, without a word, and without meaning to most of the time. Nothing about that changes with a new sign or a new rule. It changes when the room itself looks different, and when someone in it decides to make the invitation real rather than just available.

If you’ve ever walked into a room and known who belonged before anyone said a word to you, I’d like to hear about it. Drop a comment: what’s one small thing you think would actually make a room feel more like yours?

Sources: Golf Foundation youth participation figures (200,000+ children introduced to the game, 18% from ethnic-minority backgrounds), reported via Nicola Bennett, Golf Foundation CEO, in Sky Sports, 29 January 2023. Survey findings on BAME interest in golf (roughly 25% very interested if the game felt more inclusive; 92.4% rating golf as not fully welcoming), Sport Psychology Ltd and the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust, reported via bunkered.co.uk; original sample size and survey date not independently confirmed after a genuine search. The membership and clubhouse observations are Paul’s own first-hand account, not stated as universal fact.

Previously in Room 19:

Issue 012 | The Misread, on the handicap system most people mistake for a scale of shame.

Personal Story | Too Laddy, on where golf’s laddish energy tips from fun into something that actually pushes people out.

Issue 011 | The New Icon, on personality replacing the old template for who gets to stand out.

Issue 010 | The Format, on the new formats bringing a different kind of player into the game.

I started Room 19 because I wanted golf writing that treated the game the way the culture magazines I actually read treat everything else, properly, not as tips, gear reviews and FOMO shots of golf courses. If you want the next one first, subscribe to our channel.

Paul is the founding editor of Room 19, a golf brand telling the untold stories of the game for people who found it through culture, not the clubhouse. He took up golf at 37.

Find Room 19 on Instagram and TikTok.

Quick answers

How many children have come through the Golf Foundation’s programmes, and how diverse are they? Over 200,000, with 18% from ethnic-minority backgrounds, per Golf Foundation figures reported by Sky Sports in January 2023.

What percentage of BAME non-golfers say they’d be interested in playing golf? Roughly a quarter said they’d be very interested if the game felt more inclusive, per a survey by Sport Psychology Ltd and the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust.

What percentage of BAME respondents don’t feel golf is fully welcoming? 92.4% rated golf as either not inclusive at all, or said only “some people like me” are welcome.

Does paying for a golf club membership guarantee you’ll feel welcome? Not necessarily. A year of paying membership didn’t change how welcome Room 19’s founder felt, since the club already had its own people and wasn’t focused on bringing more in.

What actually makes a golf clubhouse feel more welcoming? Visible variety, in the room, in the photography on the walls, and in who’s behind the bar, plus individual members willing to make an invitation feel genuine rather than just available.

Issue 012 | The Misread

Golf treats a high handicap like a confession, a number to lower before anyone sees it. It’s the reason two strangers of wildly different ability can play each other and call it a fair match. More than 780,000 golfers in England carry one, and more than 6 in 10 of them play off 16 or higher, nowhere near the standard most beginners assume they’d be up against. Even St Andrews’ Old Course and Royal Troon, two of the most exclusive-looking addresses in the sport, only ask visitors to be roughly average, 24 or under and 20 or under respectively, not elite. The number was never testing whether you belong. It’s the reason you already do.

None of this changed how I thought about golf because of a stat. It changed on an ordinary Saturday, in a pub, listening to my mates tell me how well they’d played, how they’d won, before I’d ever picked up a club myself.

I finally started playing with them properly, and saw behind the curtain. Their handicap did the winning, not their golf. Their game on the course wasn’t especially standout, it just matched a system built to let two different standards compete and still call it fair. Finding out the story I’d been told wasn’t quite true should have felt like a letdown. Instead it did the opposite. It’s what let me stand on a tee with players better than me and not feel like I was intruding on their game.

The other assumption took longer to correct. I assumed there’d be certain courses I simply wouldn’t be let onto without a low enough number attached to my name, an Open Championship venue being the obvious example. Then I played Prince’s Golf Club in Sandwich, Kent, an Open venue since 1932, and nobody asked me for a handicap certificate at any point. Golf’s most exclusive-looking rooms turned out to have a wider door than I’d assumed.

Is the golfer you’re afraid of as good as you think?

Mostly, no. More than 780,000 golfers in England carry an official handicap index, and more than 6 in 10 of them play off 16 or higher. The “everyone else” a nervous beginner pictures, low single figures, effortless, unbothered by a bad shot, describes a small minority of the people on the course. Most of the field is a lot closer to average than the fear suggests, which means the stranger you’re paired with on your worst day is probably not judging you the way you assume, they’re most likely in roughly the same boat.

Do the world’s most exclusive courses only let good golfers through the gate?

Not even close. St Andrews’ Old Course, arguably the most famous course on earth, asks visitors for a handicap index of 24 or lower for men (36 for women) to enter its ballot or book in advance. Royal Troon, an Open Championship venue, asks for 20 or lower for men (30 for women). Neither is asking for a scratch golfer. Both are asking for roughly average. If the two most gatekept addresses in the sport only require ordinary, the mental image of golf as a place reserved for the very good doesn’t hold up.

So what is the handicap system really for?

Not a scoreboard of how good you are. Its actual job is closer to a currency exchange rate for ability, it converts two different standards into one fair contest, so a 24 and a scratch golfer can play each other and both have a real match, not a polite mismatch one side was always going to win. Most players never clock this because it works invisibly in the background of every round. The system isn’t rating you. It’s the reason you got invited to play at all.

Why did it take me so long to see this?

Because the misread runs in both directions at once, and both directions point away from the truth. I assumed my number said something about my worth as a player, and I assumed everyone else’s number said something better about theirs. Neither assumption survived getting on the course with people. The bar story and the course-access story are the same mistake wearing two different outfits, taking someone else’s number, or your own, at face value instead of finding out what it’s doing.

Does this change anything if you haven’t started yet?

I think it’s the whole reason to start. Most people decide golf isn’t for them before they’ve even swung a club, based on an idea of the game that the handicap system was specifically built to dismantle. You don’t need to arrive good. You need a number, any number, and the system does the rest, matching you into something fair from your very first competitive round rather than making you wait until you’ve earned the right to compete.

The Misread

Golf didn’t need me to get better before I belonged there. It needed a number that let someone else’s game and mine both count for something, at the same time, on the same course. That’s not a small mechanism. It’s the difference between a sport that waits for you to be ready and one that meets you where you are.

If you’ve ever assumed everyone else on the course was better than you, or that a good course was somewhere you hadn’t earned the right to play yet, I’d like to hear about it. Drop a comment and tell me what your own misread was, and what changed it. PLF

Previously in Room 19:

Issue 009 | The Overexposed, on the gap between the golf everyone posts and the golf everyone plays.

Issue 010 | The Format, on the new shape golf’s growth is starting to take.

Issue 011 | The New Icon, on personality replacing the old template for who gets to stand out.

Personal Story | Golf finally found its voice. Now I want to know who it's speaking to, My first personal editorial post, on golf's YouTube boom and who it's really being built for.

Sources: England Golf’s handicap index figures (780,000+ registered golfers, distribution by handicap band) via National Club Golfer. St Andrews Old Course visitor handicap requirement (24 men / 36 women, for both ballot and advance booking) via Birdie Brae. Royal Troon visitor handicap requirement (20 men / 30 women) via Royal Troon Golf Club’s own visitor information page. Prince’s Golf Club’s 1932 Open Championship history is a matter of public record; the handicap-certificate detail is Paul’s own first-hand account, not a stated club policy.

I started Room 19 because I wanted golf writing that treated the game the way the culture magazines I actually read treat everything else, properly, not as tips, gear reviews and FOMO shots of golf courses. If you want the next one first, subscribe below.

Paul is the founding editor of Room 19, a golf brand telling the untold stories of the game for people who found it through culture, not the clubhouse. He took up golf at 37.

Find Room 19 on Instagram and TikTok.

Quick answers

How many golfers in England have an official handicap? More than 780,000, per England Golf’s own handicap index figures, most of them club members with the rest subscribing through the iGolf app.

What percentage of golfers have a handicap of 16 or higher? More than 6 in 10, meaning the large majority of registered golfers are nowhere near scratch.

What handicap do you need to play the Old Course at St Andrews? 24 or lower for men, 36 or lower for women, required for both the ballot and advance bookings.

What handicap do you need to play Royal Troon? 20 or lower for men, 30 or lower for women. Handicap certificates may be requested on the day.

Do you need a low handicap to play a famous golf course? No. Even the sport’s most exclusive-looking venues generally ask visitors to be roughly average, not elite.

The short version: golf’s fastest-growing audience isn’t watching the R&A or the PGA Tour anymore, it’s watching YouTube, and that’s a genuinely good thing, it’s done more to make the game feel open and current in twelve months than a decade of “golf is for everyone” campaigns managed. But growth like that only holds if the new loudest voices in the room are welcoming people in, not just performing for whoever’s already watching, and if the channels doing the growing are being deliberate about who they’re building for, rather than chasing the fastest, loudest route to scale. This week gave the whole industry a clear example of what happens when nobody checks that before something goes out. Eighteen years signing off ads for a living tells me that particular failure wasn’t an accident.

I should say where I’m coming from with this one, because it’s the first time I’ve written something like it under my own name rather than reporting on someone else’s story. I’ve spent 18 years in media, most of it on the other side of the desk from where you’d expect, signing off north of 300 ads a year before they ever reached an audience. That job is mostly invisible when it’s done properly. Nobody notices the ad that didn’t cause a problem. You only hear about the process at all when it fails, which is exactly what happened this week.

Where is golf’s growth really happening?

Traditional broadcast isn’t dying. Worth saying plainly, because it’s easy to read a piece like this and assume the opposite. TV ratings were up at the start of the 2026 season, not down, mostly off the back of Scheffler’s dominance pulling in casual viewers, Koepka’s return, and a cleaner Nielsen methodology that had been undercounting golf’s older audience for years. The Masters pulled 14 million viewers on CBS this year, the best Masters rating in 11 years. That’s not a sport losing its audience.

What’s happening instead is a second audience building alongside the first, on a different screen, in a different tone, watching content the traditional broadcast was never built to serve. Golf’s mid-tier events are where the gap shows up clearest, a recent John Deere Classic final round drew barely a tenth of what the Masters pulls, and creator content has moved straight into that space. It’s an even bigger gap with the 18-34 crowd specifically, who overwhelmingly prefer a personality-led YouTube video to a Tuesday Tour broadcast. The content style backing that up is banter and big characters first, competitive golf second, made for a fraction of what a broadcast costs to produce. None of that is a problem in itself. Confidence and personality are exactly what pulled a lot of newer fans toward the game in the first place, myself included at times. What I want to know is whether that energy is built to bring people in, or whether it’s mostly performing for an audience that was already sold.

What happened this week?

A driver ad from one of those channels went out this week, one of the biggest of its kind, four million-plus subscribers, built on exactly the culture this piece is about. It showed a member of the group shove a female teammate to the ground on camera, captioned “you have been warned…” It was deleted within a day, after public criticism that it trivialised violence against women. Apologies followed fast, from the channel, from the equipment brand behind the ad, even from the sport’s own tour. A few days on, the brand went further than an apology: it ended its commercial relationship with the channel entirely and, in its own public statement, admitted its content review process “was not comprehensive enough.”

I’m not naming any of the people or companies involved here, deliberately. Enough has already been written elsewhere identifying everyone concerned, and that’s not really the point of this piece. The point is the sentence I keep coming back to: eighteen years and 300-plus ads a year taught me that nothing like that gets through by accident. Somebody in that process either didn’t ask the obvious question or didn’t have the standing to raise it if they did. The brand’s own review has now said, in effect, the same thing.

Is it the big personalities that are the problem?

It’s not the big characters I’ve got a problem with, and I want to be really clear about that, because it would be easy to read this piece as an argument for less personality, less banter, less noise. It isn’t. Plenty of these channels do this well, honest, self-deprecating, built on making the game look fun rather than making anyone feel small for being new to it. Big personalities aren’t the threat here, they’re most of what’s made golf watchable to people who’d never have tuned into a Tour broadcast in their life. That ad wasn’t a personality problem. It was a judgement problem, a moment where nobody in the room stopped to ask who this lands badly on. That’s a marshalling failure, not a genre failure, and it’s a far more fixable one.

It’s also not an isolated data point. Golf Monthly ran a piece this month on a much smaller, quieter version of the same dynamic, a female golf creator posting an ordinary practice video, and a chunk of the response sliding from dismissing her skill to suggesting she’d do better in a bikini, the exact false choice the piece’s author, PGA Professional Emma Booth, names directly: that women in golf content get to be taken seriously or visible, never both. Nobody shoved anyone in that clip. It didn’t need to be dramatic to make the same point this piece is making, that golf’s newer, louder content culture hasn’t fully worked out who it’s speaking to, and what it owes them once it has their attention.

Who are these channels really trying to reach?

Here’s the part I keep turning over. There are two ways to grow a golf channel fast. One is to lean into the easiest possible hook, banter, bravado, big personalities playing up exactly the kind of behaviour that gets you labelled “one of the lads,” because that content is cheap to make, easy to share, and reliably pulls in a crowd that already wants permission to act that way, on camera and, eventually, on the course. The other way is slower: build a tone deliberately, curate who you’re trying to reach, and accept that it takes longer to grow an audience that treats the game, and the people playing it, with any real care.

The downside of the first route is already visible off-screen, not just in ad controversies. Golf’s own trade press has been writing about it for a while, tee sheets packed constantly, rounds dragging past five hours, greens fees climbing, and, as one recent piece on the game’s “bro golfer” shift put it, some players treating the course “like a moving tailgate party.” That piece is careful to say both things can be true, that this same culture also brought real growth and real new fans, and I agree with that. But it’s worth asking honestly whether some of that on-course behaviour is downstream of exactly the content strategy that’s cheapest to scale, content that treats loudness and disregard as the whole personality, rather than one part of a much bigger one.

I don’t think every channel chasing growth this way is doing it cynically. Plenty probably haven’t thought about it in these terms at all, fast growth is just fast growth, and it’s genuinely hard to tell the difference from the outside between a channel that’s built its tone on instinct and one that’s built it on a strategy. But the channels that are being deliberate about who they’re building for, and there are real examples of this being done well, are making a harder, slower choice, and I don’t think that gets enough credit right now against the channels taking the easy route.

So who’s meant to be the adult in the room?

Golf spent years trying to convince people the game wasn’t closed off. YouTube did more for that in twelve months than a decade of campaigns managed, and I don’t think that’s an exaggeration. But growth like that only holds if the loudest new front door isn’t telling half the audience it wasn’t really built for them, a nervous beginner, a woman new to the game, anyone who already suspected golf was a laddy closed shop before they ever picked up a club. The fix isn’t fewer characters. It’s brands, platforms and creators being the adult in the room as the audience gets bigger, not just louder, the same job I did for 18 years, just applied to a much faster-moving version of the industry than the one I learned it in.

I’d like to know if this lands the same way for people inside golf’s YouTube world, creators, the brands working with them, viewers who found the game this way rather than through a clubhouse. Drop a comment, tell me if I’ve got the read right or if I’m missing something from the inside.

Quick answers

What happened in golf’s driver-ad controversy in August 2026? A golf YouTube channel with over four million subscribers released a driver ad showing a member shoving a female teammate to the ground, captioned “you have been warned.” It was deleted within a day after public backlash. The equipment brand behind the ad later ended its commercial relationship with the channel and admitted its content review process “was not comprehensive enough.”

Is golf’s TV audience declining because of YouTube? No. Golf broadcast ratings were up at the start of the 2026 season, helped by Scheffler’s dominance and a corrected Nielsen methodology. The 2026 Masters drew 14 million viewers on CBS, the best Masters rating in 11 years. YouTube is winning specifically in the mid-tier-event gap and with 18-34-year-old viewers, not replacing broadcast overall.

What’s the difference between “bro golf” culture and this ad controversy? “Bro golf” culture, loud course behaviour, crowding, rising green fees, is a separate, longer-running complaint about etiquette and access. This piece is about a distinct failure: content published without anyone checking who it excludes or harms. The two are related but not the same problem.

Are big-personality golf YouTube channels bad for the sport? No. Personality-driven content has done more to make golf feel accessible and current in a year than a decade of official “golf is for everyone” campaigns. The concern raised here is about editorial oversight and who a channel is deliberately building its audience to be, not about personality or entertainment value itself.

Sources: Golf broadcast ratings and Masters viewership figures verified via golf.com (”5 reasons for golf’s colossal TV ratings jump to start 2026 season”) and multiple outlets reporting the 2026 Masters’ CBS viewership (best in 11 years). John Deere Classic viewership and the 18-34 demographic preference claim are sourced from a single golf-industry newsletter (thebusinessofgolf.co) and have not been independently corroborated, flagged here for a second look before this locks. Golf Monthly, “Golf Sexism: From Dismissal To Sexualisation”, August 2026, confirmed by direct read. The Hackers Paradise, “The Rise of the ‘Bro Golfer’ and Golf’s Identity Crisis”, confirmed by direct read. Details of the driver-ad controversy referenced anonymously in this piece, including the equipment brand’s statements and subsequent actions, are drawn from multiple mainstream sports and golf trade outlets, 22-28 August 2026, kept unlinked here consistent with this piece’s decision not to name the individuals or companies involved.

Previously in Room 19: this is Room 19’s first Personal Story piece, more to come.

Paul is the founding editor of Room 19, a golf brand telling the untold stories of the game for people who found it through culture, not the clubhouse. He took up golf at 37.

Find Room 19 on Instagram and TikTok.

Issue 011 | The New Icon

The short version: golf has spent decades training people to behave a certain way, on tour and off it. That’s starting to crack. On an ordinary Saturday round, that looks like trainers instead of golf shoes and music on the buggy. On tour, the clearest example right now is Charley Hull: tied for the most runner-up finishes at any major since 2015, never won one, and still arguably the most talked-about golfer in the women's game, filmed smoking while signing an autograph before a major even started, pranking her own caddie with a fake lottery ticket, and never once looking sorry about any of it. None of it has cost her a single fan. She’s not breaking golf’s actual rules. She’s breaking the stereotype of how a professional’s supposed to carry herself, and that turns out to matter a lot more than another trophy would.

None of the moments that changed how I think about this happened on TV. They happened with my own mates, on an ordinary Saturday round, over the last couple of years.

We started turning up in trainers instead of golf shoes. Hoodies over polos. Music playing off a speaker on the buggy, loud enough that the group behind us clocked it before they saw us. Nobody asked permission first. The unspoken plan was always the same: keep doing it until someone in a blazer told us to stop, rather than wait around for a rule that might not even exist.

What we never touched is the stuff that matters. We rake the bunkers. We don’t hold up the group behind. We fix our divots. None of that’s up for negotiation, because that’s golf being golf, not golf being uptight. Everything else, the trainers, the hoodies, the speaker, was never really about the rules at all. It was about how much room there was to be yourself and still be welcome out there. Turns out there was more than any of us assumed.

That's the shift I recognise in Charley Hull, more than any highlight reel could show me. Different stakes, a much bigger stage, but the same basic instinct: do what feels like you and see if anyone stops you.

Where does golf’s pro side stand on this?

On the pro side, that gap has stayed narrower for longer. Mostly it’s felt like two extremes: a laddy, look-at-me energy that tries a bit too hard, or a buttoned-up professionalism so careful it reads as closed off. There’s not been much room for someone in between, properly herself, without playing either character.

Charley Hull fills that gap. She’s not breaking golf’s actual rules, she rakes her bunkers same as anyone. What she’s breaking is the stereotype of how a professional is supposed to carry herself: smoking a cigarette while signing autographs, pranking her own caddie with a fake lottery ticket, saying exactly what she thinks in a press conference. Unapologetically professional, not rule-breaking, stereotype-breaking. It’s a harder thing to pull off than either extreme, and it’s exactly why she stands out.

Who is Charley Hull, and why is everyone talking about her?

She’s an English golfer on the LPGA Tour, and by the numbers alone she shouldn’t be the name everyone brings up. She’s never won a major. She’s tied for the most runner-up finishes at any major since 2015, more heartbreak than almost anyone else in the women’s game over that stretch, and the trophy case still doesn’t reflect it. What she has instead is a habit of doing things no other golfer on tour would risk, and getting away with all of it without ever needing to apologise for who she is.

Has any of it cost her a fan?

Not one, as far as anyone can tell. If anything the opposite has happened. When she was filmed smoking while signing an autograph on her way to the range, days before the 2024 U.S. Women's Open even started, it went viral for making her more relatable, not less, and it's the moment most casual fans first heard her name. Two years later, at the 2026 AIG Women’s Open, she handed her caddie, Adam Woodward, a fake lottery ticket and let him believe he’d won £100,000, just for a laugh. Golf has a long history of editing personality out of players who don’t fit its expected mould. Hull is the rare case where the opposite kept happening: the more herself she was, the bigger the following got.

Why did a cigarette and a fake lottery ticket become such a big deal?

Because golf isn’t used to seeing either. The sport’s whole visual language, from the clothing to the walk to the way a player is expected to hold a press conference, is built around control. A player smoking or winding up her own caddie on camera reads as a small act of rebellion inside a sport that rarely allows one… Neither was a stunt built for engagement. Both just happened to be filmed, and both happened to be completely her.

“You’re allowed a good opinion and a bad opinion of me,” Hull has said, in an interview with Yahoo Sports. It’s a fairly plain sentence for a golfer to say out loud, and that’s precisely why it stands out. Most players train themselves out of saying anything that could be read as controversial. She isn’t doing that, and the game hasn’t figured out how to punish her for it, because the fans got there first and decided they didn’t want her punished at all.

Does this change anything for people who aren’t playing on tour?

I don’t think the real shift is happening on tour at all. I think it’s happening with people like my mates, who’ve been pushing this door open on ordinary Saturdays long before I had a golfer to point to as proof. Charley Hull doesn’t create that shift. She’s just the clearest example of it landing somewhere with cameras pointed at it, on a stage where the old rule about behaving a certain way has held on the longest.

The New Icon

If she doesn’t need an old template to be loved, neither do you, whether that means turning up in trainers, putting music on the buggy, or just not performing enthusiasm for small talk on the first tee. Golf’s next icon might not be the player with the most trophies. She might just be proof of something a lot of ordinary rounds already knew.

I’d like to hear where you’ve noticed this happening, on a course near you or anywhere else: someone who stopped waiting for permission and got welcomed in for it instead of frozen out. Drop a comment and tell me who it was.

Previously in Room 19

Issue 007 | The Hidden Room, on golf’s missing communal watch culture

Issue 009 | The Overexposed, on the gap between the golf everyone posts and the golf everyone plays.

Issue 010 | The Format, on the new shape golf’s growth is starting to take.

I started Room 19 because I wanted golf writing that treated the game the way the culture magazines I actually read treat everything else, properly, not as tips, gear reviews and FOMO shots of golf courses. If you want the next one first, subscribe below.

Paul is the founding editor of Room 19, a golf brand telling the untold stories of the game for people who found it through culture, not the clubhouse. He took up golf at 37.

Follow us on Instagram

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Quick answers

Has Charley Hull ever won a major? No. She’s tied for the most runner-up finishes at any major since 2015, without a major win to date.

What happened with Charley Hull and smoking at a major? She was filmed smoking while signing an autograph on her way to the range, days before the tournament started. The moment went viral and made her more popular with casual fans, not less.

What was the Charley Hull caddie prank? At the 2026 AIG Women’s Open, she handed her caddie, Adam Woodward, a fake lottery ticket and let him briefly believe he’d won £100,000.

Why is Charley Hull so popular despite not winning a major? Fans respond to her personality and honesty rather than her trophy count. She speaks openly in interviews, doesn’t perform for the cameras, and has said publicly: “You’re allowed a good opinion and a bad opinion of me.”

Issue 010 | The Format

By Paul, Founding Editor, +20 Handicap

Issue 010 | The Format

The short version: golf is booming by the numbers that matter, more people now play the game off a course than on one, worldwide. At the same time, golf clubs in England and Wales have been closing for over a decade, most of the land sold straight to housing developers. Three formats, Operation 36, golf simulators, and range tech, are already doing more to shrink the game’s biggest barrier than most clubs are. None of them, on their own, are the finish line.

I’ve played most of these formats myself, 9 holes, par 3s, sims, driving ranges. Not Operation 36, not yet. Every single one made golf feel less intimidating than I expected it to. One period stands out clearly. Around 2021, two years after I’d taken up golf myself, a work colleague had a membership at Pitch Golf, and we’d go after work some days. It became my regular way of introducing non-golfer friends from around where I live to the game, casually, no pressure, drinks in hand. Nobody was watching anyone’s form. Everyone was just there for the evening, taking turns. That’s golf and a night out meeting somewhere in the middle, and it worked, in a way I don’t think a driving range or a first tee would have for that particular group.

Looking back, the timing mattered as much as the format did. I was still new enough to golf myself to remember exactly how intimidating a real course had felt at first, but experienced enough to bring people in without it being my own first exposure too. Pitch became a kind of transitional space for me before the course properly became my home, somewhere I could hand golf to someone else the way it had been handed to me, without either of us needing to already belong there.

What none of these formats have done yet, for me or for anyone I’ve taken along, is replace the walk onto an actual course. The jump from a simulator bar, or a range with a scoreboard, to eighteen holes at a real club, is still a real jump. Not just in your head either, the whole environment’s different too. Right now nothing’s built to close that specific gap.

Is golf actually growing?

Yes, and the shift isn't small. Globally, an estimated 90 million people already play golf off a course, more than double the roughly 43 million playing an actual on-course round, according to the R&A's most recent global participation figures. That's not some leftover pandemic spike still settling down. It's already the bigger half of how golf gets played.

So why do clubs keep closing?

Because more people playing the game and clubs actually staying open are two different things, and most coverage treats them as one story. Over 60 golf clubs in England and Wales have closed in the past decade, according to legal analysis reported by The Golf Business, the land mostly sold on to housing developers. Maintenance costs are up, staffing’s more expensive, and membership numbers move around a lot. For plenty of clubs, selling to a developer just makes more sense on paper than staying open, even while more people than ever want to play the game somewhere.

Does Operation 36 solve this?

Partly, and it’s worth being specific about which part. Operation 36 skips the years most beginners spend getting good enough to play a full hole, starting people on real greens and real bunkers from 25 yards out instead. It’s now running in 800+ facilities across 22 countries, with more than 250,000 golfers already playing real rounds, real scores, from day one. What it gives you is the feel of an actual course without the anxiety of a full first tee shot. What it doesn’t solve is access to that course in the first place, someone still has to build the program, and most clubs haven’t.

What’s pulling new people in, if not the course?

Places that don’t ask you to already look like you know what you’re doing. That simulator bar I mentioned is one small example of something happening at scale. Range tech is doing something similar from a different angle, tracking screens and scored games have turned the driving range from something that used to feel like a test into something you’d choose on a night out. A Lightspeed survey found 68% of Gen Z and 62% of millennials already treat these venues as a normal night out, not a practice session, and half say they’d consider replacing a traditional round with one entirely. Nobody had to convince them. They just started showing up.

So what’s still missing?

The finish line. None of these formats, Operation 36 included, are actually the same as walking onto a real course, and I don’t think that’s a failure of any of them. Simulators, ranges, and social formats have already done the hard part, they’ve made golf feel less intimidating before anyone gets near a fairway. What’s still missing is a course built to meet that shift, rather than wait for it to turn up on its own.

Everything around the course has changed. The course hasn’t.

If you’ve felt more comfortable at a driving range than you ever have in a clubhouse, you already know exactly what this piece is describing. I’d like to hear where that happened for you, and whether you’ve made the jump to an actual course since, or whether that gap is still sitting there. Drop a comment and tell me what format got you closest, and what’s still stopping you from going further.

Sources: Off-course versus on-course global participation figures from the [R&A’s Global Participation Report]. UK club closure data from legal analysis by TWM Solicitors, reported via [The Golf Business]. Operation 36 facility and participant figures from [Operation 36’s official site]. Range tech and golf entertainment venue behaviour from a Lightspeed survey via [GolfN Insights].

Previously in Room 19:

Issue 006 | The ReRun, on golf's fashion moment and its 1977 football-terrace origins

Issue 007 | The Hidden Room, on golf’s missing communal watch culture

Issue 009 | The Overexposed, on the gap between the golf everyone posts and the golf everyone actually plays

I started Room 19 because I wanted golf writing that treated the game the way the culture magazines I actually read treat everything else, properly, not as tips, gear reviews and fomo shots of golf courses.

Paul is the founding editor of Room 19, a golf brand telling the untold stories of the game for people who found it through culture, not the clubhouse. He took up golf at 37. Find Room 19 on Instagram and TikTok.

Quick answers

Is golf participation actually growing? Yes. Globally, an estimated 90 million people already play golf off a course, compared to roughly 43 million playing an on-course round, according to the R&A’s Global Participation Report.

Why are golf clubs closing if participation is growing? Rising maintenance, insurance and staffing costs, combined with fluctuating membership, have pushed a number of UK clubs to sell to housing developers rather than continue operating. Over 60 clubs in England and Wales have closed this decade, according to legal analysis reported by The Golf Business.

What is Operation 36 in golf? A golf format that starts beginners on real greens and bunkers from 25 yards out, skipping the years typically spent before playing a full hole. It’s active in 800+ facilities across 22 countries, with more than 250,000 golfers playing real rounds through the program.

Do golf simulators and driving ranges get new people into golf? They’re making a real difference as a first step, at least when it comes to nerves. A Lightspeed survey found 68% of Gen Z and 62% of millennials already treat golf entertainment venues as a normal night out, not practice, and half said they’d consider replacing a traditional round with one entirely.

What’s stopping people who try these formats from playing a full round on a real course? The jump from a simulator, range, or short-format course to an 18-hole round at a traditional club remains a real barrier, both psychologically and in terms of access, and most clubs haven’t yet built anything to close that specific gap.

Issue 009 | The Overexposed

The short version: the golf on your feed and the golf on the range are two different sports. One is flawless tempo and perfect turf. The other is shanks, stiff hips and a three putt you laugh off with whoever's next to you. England Golf's own figures put the average handicap at 19.37, which is another way of saying most golfers are nowhere near what the feed shows. Looking good online was never the same as playing good golf, and the gap between the two is wider than anyone's admitted.

I don’t post my swing. Watching it back is hard enough on my own, a phone propped against the golf bag, replaying the same stiff hips and mistimed downswing in slow motion. Handing that same footage over for anyone else to watch feels like a different level of exposure altogether, one flaw I already know about, on display for people who don’t need to see it.

I don’t think that’s just a personal hang-up. I think the flood of polished swing content is doing the opposite of what it’s meant to. It’s not pulling more people toward the course, it’s pushing them away from it, just in two different directions depending on where you already are in the game. Beginners see the finished version and write themselves off as not good enough before they’ve had a proper go. High handicappers absorb enough tips and slow-motion breakdowns to end up standing over the ball mid swing, thinking about eight different things at once, worse off than if they’d never watched any of it.

Is the golf you see online actually the golf being played?

Open any golf feed and it’s the same world every time. Perfect swings, perfect grass, every shot landing exactly where it was meant to. Then you get to the range and somehow it’s a completely different game. You don’t need a study to feel that gap, you’ve probably felt it standing over your own ball wondering why your swing doesn’t look like the one you just scrolled past. But the gap is real and measurable too. England Golf’s national figures put the average handicap at 19.37. That’s not a beginner’s number, that’s the actual midpoint of the sport, and it sits nowhere near what a feed full of highlight swings would have you believe is normal.

So does everyone actually have a perfect swing?

No, and most people only ever see the posted one. Two different rounds are happening at once, one gets played and one gets posted, and they’re rarely the same round. That’s not a criticism of anyone posting their best shot, it’s just worth naming plainly. What you’re scrolling past is a highlight reel filtered down to the moments worth sharing. What’s actually happening on the course, for the vast majority of golfers, is the 19.37 version, not the reel.

Why doesn’t the average golfer post their round?

Because golfers today know more than they ever have and it hasn’t closed the gap. There are more lessons, more tips, more slow-motion swing breakdowns available than at any point in the sport’s history, and the average handicap still sits at 19.37. Knowing more about the swing was never the same as owning one worth posting, and most golfers seem to have worked that out for themselves, even if nobody’s said it out loud.

What do the people who actually teach golf make of this?

“More educated than ever. No better at diagnosing their own swing,” says Tony Ruggiero, a GOLF Top 100 Teacher, on the gap between how much golfers now study the swing and how little that’s changed their own. It’s the clearest version of the whole thesis from someone who watches it happen lesson after lesson. Katie Dawkins, a PGA Professional, sees the same pattern from the other side of it: “Keeping it real is what’s growing the sport now.” Two coaches, two different vantage points, landing on the same read, that the polished version isn’t what’s actually pulling people into the game or keeping them in it.

So which version of golf is actually worth joining?

Not the one on the feed. Nobody starts out perfect, and the golfers who keep coming back aren’t chasing a highlight reel, they’re just having a good game with people they like. That’s the whole case for the real version over the posted one, imperfect swing and all.

Your own swing

The feed was never lying exactly, it was just only ever showing one version of the game. Golf’s most photographed swing isn’t the one being played, most weeks, by most people, on most courses.

If you’ve got a swing you don’t post because it doesn’t look like the ones you scroll past, you already know the exact feeling this piece is trying to name. Tell me about it in the comments, what you didn’t post and why. Someone reading this has never once compared their own game to a feed and come out feeling worse for it. I’d like to know if that’s actually true.

Sources: England Golf’s published national average handicap figure of 19.37.

Tony Ruggiero and Katie Dawkins quotes via Room 19’s Issue 009 carousel.

Previously in Room 19:

Issue 006 | The ReRun, on golf’s fashion moment and its 1977 football-terrace origins

Issue 007 | The Hidden Room, on watching golf’s biggest moments alone when a shared room was already out there

I started Room 19 because I wanted golf writing that treated the game the way the culture magazines I actually read treat everything else, properly, not as tips, gear reviews and fomo shots of golf courses. If you want the next one first, subscribe below.

Paul is the founding editor of Room 19, a golf brand telling the untold stories of the game for people who found it through culture, not the clubhouse. He took up golf at 37. Find Room 19 on Instagram and TikTok.

Quick answers

What is the average golf handicap?

England Golf’s published national figure is 19.37, well above what most golf content on social media would suggest is typical.

Why does golf content online look so different from real golf?

Feeds favour highlight moments, flawless tempo, clean turf, a shot landing exactly where it was meant to. Most rounds, played by most golfers, look nothing like that, closer to the 19.37 average than to a highlight reel.

Does knowing more about the golf swing actually lower your handicap?

Not on its own. Coaches quoted in this piece note that golfers are more educated about the swing than ever through lessons and online content, without that translating into better self-diagnosis or lower scores on average.

Who are Tony Ruggiero and Katie Dawkins?

Tony Ruggiero is a GOLF Top 100 Teacher. Katie Dawkins is a PGA Professional. Both are quoted in Issue 009 on the gap between golf’s polished online image and the real game being played.

Issue 007 | The Hidden Room

The short version: golf’s biggest moment of the year, the Masters final round, still mostly gets watched the way it always has, alone, on a sofa, with a group chat doing the reacting that should be happening around you. That’s starting to change. Off-course venues, bars, simulator lounges and events among them, are already pulling close to 90 million people worldwide into areas built for watching and playing together, and most of golf hasn’t noticed yet, or hasn’t marketed it properly. I found this out by accident, before I ever thought to write about it.

Three years ago, I was in London with a friend, killing time with nothing planned, when we realised McIlroy was leading the Open. We found a bar showing it and ended up sat outside with a load of other fans, most of them strangers. The atmosphere was electric. It was the first time I’d watched a live round with other people around me instead of on my own, and it changed how the whole afternoon felt. I wanted to do it again after that. What stopped me wasn’t the golf. It was that nobody tells you these rooms exist or an agenda.

A big moment doesn’t land the same on your own. Golf has never been short of big moments. What it’s never quite had, at least not anywhere obvious, is a way of telling you where to find a place to socialise around the sport.

Does golf actually still get watched alone?

Mostly, yes, and I’d been doing exactly that for years before that night in London without ever noticing it as a gap. Catching a leaderboard on my phone, half-watching in the background, a group chat doing the reacting that should be happening face to face. It’s just how golf gets watched, so much so that it doesn’t register as a choice. 2025’s Masters final round pulled 13,995,000 viewers on CBS, golf’s biggest TV audience in 11 years, peaking above 20 million during the playoff. The moments are clearly still landing. What isn’t there, for most of that audience, is anyone else around when they do.

So has golf actually found its room, or not?

Not on the broadcast side, not yet. But that bar in London wasn’t a one-off, and once I started looking, it stopped feeling like one. Away from the TV numbers, off-course golf, driving ranges, simulator lounges, social venues built for hanging out rather than a solo round, has been growing into exactly the kind of shared space golf’s broadcast side has never had, largely unremarked on. Between the R&A’s count of players off-course worldwide and the National Golf Foundation’s count in the US alone, that’s close to 90 million people already choosing that version over the traditional round. That’s not a niche. That’s a scene already assembling itself, just not anywhere the Masters ratings would think to look.

Why has nobody credited this yet?

A big moment doesn’t land the same on your own. In a room like that, everyone reacts at once, together. It’s the whole mechanism football’s pub culture runs on, and it turns out it was never exclusive to football. It just needed somewhere for that to happen off the course.

Nobody’s really credited that yet, because the people measuring golf’s culture are still looking at the broadcast, the ratings, the majors, and that’s a reasonable place to look if the question is how golf compares to football as a TV product. It’s the wrong place to look if the question is whether people actually want to watch golf together, because the venues furthest from a clubhouse are already answering that question, just without a ratings number attached to prove it, or a proper list telling you where to find one, which is still the part I’d fix first.

Golf’s culture has a habit of turning up somewhere unexpected before golf itself catches up to it. Issue 006 traced the same pattern through fashion, decades before anyone in golf noticed the terraces had already found the wardrobe. This is the same shape, a room instead of an outfit.

There’s a bigger number underneath all of this worth stating plainly. Around 136 million people worldwide already watch, read or follow golf in some form. Most of them still do it alone. That gap, a genuinely huge audience with nowhere shared to put its attention, is the whole thesis here. This isn’t a niche fix for a small crowd. It’s an opportunity sitting inside an audience that size, waiting for more rooms to open, and just as importantly, waiting to be told they exist.

Your own room

Golf doesn’t start on the first tee anymore, not for a growing number of people. It starts somewhere like the place I stumbled into by accident. The room comes first, and the round follows.

If you’ve felt this, a room full of people who all reacted at once, you already know the feeling this piece is trying to describe. I’d like to hear where it happened for you. Drop a comment and tell me the place, the format, the moment. Someone reading this has never had that feeling watching golf and doesn’t know it’s already out there.

Sources: 2025 Masters final round viewership from CBS and Nielsen. Off-course participation data from the R&A’s 2025 Global Participation Report and the National Golf Foundation, including its Topgolf-specific visitor study. Global golf audience figure of 136 million as used in Room 19’s Issue 007 carousel.

Image Credits: Pitch Golf London

Previously in Room 19:

• Issue 004 | The Invisible Barrier, on the fear of being watched as a beginner

• Issue 005 | The Timeless Walk, on reconnecting with a drifted friend through golf

• Issue 006 | The ReRun, on golf’s fashion moment and its 1977 football-terrace origins

I started Room 19 because I wanted golf writing that treated the game the way the culture magazines I actually read treat everything else, properly, not as tips, gear reviews and fomo shots of golf courses. If you want the next one first, subscribe below.

Paul is the founding editor of Room 19, a golf brand telling the untold stories of the game for people who found it through culture, not the clubhouse. He took up golf at 37. Find Room 19 on Instagram and TikTok.

Quick answers

How many people watched the 2025 Masters final round? 13,995,000 on CBS, golf’s biggest TV audience in 11 years, peaking above 20 million during the playoff (CBS/Nielsen).

How many people already engage with golf off-course? Close to 90 million worldwide, combining the R&A’s count of 68.3 million off-course players outside the US and Mexico with the National Golf Foundation’s count of 19 million Americans who play exclusively off-course. Off-course participation grew roughly 10% year over year from 2023 to 2024.

Are off-course visitors actually likely to take up golf properly? In an NGF study of Topgolf visitors specifically, three in four non-golfers said they’d be interested in playing a real course afterward.

Where can I watch golf with other people? Golf Clubber’s events, Pitch Golf’s bars across Canary Wharf, Soho and Bishopsgate, The Golf Rooms in London, The Golf Bar in Glasgow, The Bunker in the Midlands, The Golf Lounge in Glasgow, Topgolf, and V Golf in Brighton are all real, current examples.

How big is golf’s total audience worldwide? Around 136 million people watch, read or follow golf worldwide. Most of that audience still experiences it alone.

By Paul, Founding Editor, +21 Handicap

Issue 006 | The ReRun

The short version: golf’s current style moment feels brand new. It isn’t. British football fans found golf’s wardrobe first, back in 1977, decades before streetwear “discovered” it. I found my own way in through a fashion job, not a fairway, years before I’d swung a club with any intent. Two different routes in, same mechanism: the look arrives first, and the round comes after, if it comes at all.

I found golf at Hypebeast, in the thick of building something we called HYPEGOLF. I hadn’t picked up a club with any real intent since I was seventeen. Then my manager landed in the UK and said we were golfing. First hole, I made par. Golf had been waiting. I just needed someone to say yes for me.

That’s not really a story about a good first hole. It’s a story about how I ended up caring about golf at all: not through a lesson, not through a membership, but through a job that had nothing to do with playing the game and everything to do with the culture sitting next to it.

Is golf’s style moment actually new?

It doesn’t feel new. TikTok fits, crossover labels, names nobody in a clubhouse has heard of, all of it outselling the old country-club brands. Everyone’s talking about it like it just arrived.

It didn’t. In 1977, British football fans started wearing golf jumpers, Lyle & Scott and Pringle specifically, straight off the pro shop rail and onto the terraces. Lyle & Scott’s own brand history describes the label as having become “synonymous with football culture” in the UK off the back of exactly that crossover, and the Museum of Youth Culture has archived the whole movement in detail. It wasn’t a stylist’s idea. It was football fans raiding a wardrobe that had nothing to do with them, years before anyone thought to call it a trend.

Why did football fans start wearing golf clothes in the first place?

The honest answer is stranger than “they liked the jumpers.” The look wasn’t stolen for style. It was camouflage. Football’s “Casuals” subculture deliberately avoided club colours through the late ‘70s and ‘80s, partly to blend in and avoid the police attention that came with looking like a football fan on a match day. Golf’s expensive, quiet, unremarkable leisurewear did exactly that job. Nobody built that connection on purpose. Golf just happened to make the right kind of alibi.

That’s the part that never gets told alongside the fashion story. The crossover wasn’t about golf being cool. It was about golf being invisible, in exactly the way a certain kind of person needed it to be.

What proof is there that it’s happening again?

It went quiet for decades after that. It isn’t quiet now. The global golf apparel market sits at roughly £3.76bn this year, and the fit is arguably doing more work in that number than the round is: much of that spend isn’t coming from people booking tee times, it’s coming from people building a wardrobe. Golf’s overall reach, meanwhile, is up 30% since 2016, and the strongest growth by a distance is coming from under-35s, not the traditionalists the sport used to be built around.

You can see the same pattern in who’s actually fronting golf’s biggest apparel moments right now. The ambassadors leading recent golf-specific campaigns for major activewear brands didn’t find their fame through golf. Their fame comes from film, from motorsport, from somewhere else entirely. Their fans are the new audience golf’s being introduced to, whether golf itself asked for that or not.

The brands doing the actual work on the ground aren’t the old country-club names either. UK labels like Manors Golf, Three Putt Golf and Khalhon are building identity-first, not clubhouse-first, the same way Malbon and Bogey Boys have done in the US. None of them are trying to look like members. That’s the point.

Why is this happening so much faster the second time around?

A stadium took decades to notice what its own crowd was wearing. A For You page takes a scroll. That’s the entire difference between 1977 and now: the mechanism is identical, culture reaching for golf’s wardrobe before golf reached back, but the distribution speed isn’t. What took a subculture years to spread across British terraces now spreads across a platform in an afternoon.

That’s also why it’s easy to miss that this has happened before. Golf’s own culture keeps leaving the building before golf does. It slips out sideways, into football terraces, into streetwear, into whatever a For You page decides is next, and by the time anyone in golf notices, it’s already left again.

Does it matter that some of these people will never play a round?

I don’t think it does, and I’d go further: I think that’s the actual story, not a footnote to it. Some of the people the look is reaching right now will never book a tee time, and that’s not a failure of the moment, it’s just the door being wider than it used to be. Wearing it doesn’t require playing it. It never has. Not in 1977, and not now.

Quick answers

When did football fans first start wearing golf clothes? 1977. British football fans began wearing golf jumpers, particularly Lyle & Scott and Pringle, straight off the pro shop rail and onto match-day terraces.

Why did football fans start wearing golf jumpers? Football’s “Casuals” subculture deliberately avoided club colours through the late 1970s and 1980s to avoid police attention on match days. Golf’s quiet, expensive leisurewear worked as camouflage.

How big is the golf apparel market right now? Roughly £3.76 billion globally this year, according to a Parmore Golf / LifeLabs study.

Is golf participation actually growing? Yes. Golf’s overall reach is up 30% since 2016, with the strongest growth among under-35s, per National Golf Foundation data.

Your own way in

If the fit is the reason you started paying attention to golf before the game itself gave you a reason to, you’re not the exception here, you’re most of the story. That’s true whether your route in was a football terrace forty years ago or a fashion job last decade.

I’d like to hear yours. Drop a comment and tell me what actually got you into golf, if it wasn’t golf. Someone reading this is one good excuse away from booking their own first round.

Sources: 1977 football-casual crossover history from Lyle & Scott’s own brand history and the Museum of Youth Culture’s “Casuals: Football and Fashion” essay, corroborated by FashionBeans, Lower Block, and 80s Casual Classics. Police-evasion detail corroborated across Museum of Youth Culture, Lower Block, and the Casual Hooligan Brands archive. Golf apparel market figure (£3.76bn) from Parmore Golf / LifeLabs study, 2026. Golf reach and under-35 growth data from the National Golf Foundation, 2026.

Subscribe now

I started Room 19 because I wanted golf writing that treated the game the way the culture magazines I actually read treat everything else, properly, not as tips, gear reviews and FOMO shots of golf courses. If you want the next one first, subscribe below.

Paul is the founding editor of Room 19, a golf brand telling the untold stories of the game for people who found it through culture, not the clubhouse. He took up golf at 37. Find Room 19 on Instagram and TikTok.

By Paul, Founding Editor, +21 Handicap

Issue 005 | The Timeless Walk

The short version: friendships don’t usually end, they run out of a repeating reason to show up. You don’t get that reason back by talking about getting it back. You get it back by booking something and doing it more than once. Golf isn’t special because it’s golf. It’s special because it’s four hours, it’s active, and it gives two people an excuse that neither of them has to explain.

There’s a friend I used to see every weekend. Nights out, five-a-side, someone’s flat after the pub shut. Then, without either of us deciding anything, it stopped. I couldn’t tell you the last big night out we had, because at the time it didn’t feel like the last one. It just became the last one.

For a couple of years after that, we existed to each other mostly as a name that popped up on Instagram or WhatsApp. A like here, a “we need to catch up” there that never turned into a plan. Then we booked a round of golf, more out of habit than intention, and neither of us was any good, and it never mattered. Four hours of catching up with nothing to prove and nobody keeping a score that counted. It wasn’t a big reunion. It was just two people doing something together again, badly, and that turned out to be the whole trick.

Why do close friendships fade even when nothing’s gone wrong?

Nobody has a fight. That’s the part people get wrong when they picture a friendship ending. Most of mine didn’t end, they thinned. Clubbing, big nights, after-work drinks that ran until 2am: that whole chapter of seeing people constantly tends to run out by the late twenties, and two or three years pass before anyone notices it’s gone. Nobody decides to see each other less. Life fills the gap that used to be theirs, and nothing steps in to replace it.

That’s a harder problem to fix than a falling-out, because there’s no moment to apologise for. You can’t repair a rupture that never happened. What you’re actually missing is a reason, something that puts you both in the same place on a repeating basis, the way school or a first job used to without either of you trying.

Does it really take hundreds of hours to become close friends again?

There’s research that explains why a text thread never quite does the job. Jeffrey Hall, a communication studies professor at the University of Kansas, tracked how people’s relationships actually deepened over time and found it takes roughly 50 hours together to move from acquaintance to casual friend, around 90 hours to become a real friend, and more than 200 hours to become close. Crucially, the hours that counted were spent doing something together, not just being near each other. Working in the same building doesn’t count for much. Hanging out, with an actual activity attached, does.

That’s the reason “let’s catch up soon” so rarely turns into anything. A phone call doesn’t bank hours the way an afternoon on a golf course does. You don’t rebuild closeness by talking about rebuilding it. You rebuild it by doing something together again, and doing it more than once.

Is golf actually a good way to reconnect, or just what I happened to reach for?

I’d like to say I chose golf deliberately, as some clever social hack. I didn’t. It was just the thing that was easy to book, and it turned out to have a property most catch-ups don’t: four hours where you’re stood next to someone with nowhere better to be and no phone in your hand. You talk about nothing for a while, and then, without planning to, you talk about something.

It isn’t just my experience. In a Golf Care survey of UK golfers, 87% said it wasn’t the game itself that kept them coming back, it was the people they played with. Golf gets sold as a game about swing mechanics and handicaps. For most people who actually stick with it, that’s not what they’re there for.

The format helps in ways that are easy to miss if you’re only thinking about the golf. Four hours is long enough that the small talk runs out and something real has room to surface. There’s no scoreboard forcing anyone to perform, unless you decide to make one. And it doesn’t require either of you to say out loud that you’ve drifted, which matters more than it sounds like it should. Nobody wants to open a text with “I feel like we’ve grown apart.” Nobody has ever had to. You just say “fancy a round Saturday,” and the rest takes care of itself.

Who’s the friend you keep meaning to call?

If there’s a name doing exactly this to you right now, someone who used to be a weekly fixture and is now a name you like posts from, that’s not a sign the friendship’s over. It’s a sign it’s waiting on a plan, not a conversation.

I’d like to hear who that person is for you, and what the thing is you’re going to ask them to do. Drop a comment. Someone reading this has a name in mind already and just needs the nudge to send the text.

Sources: Friendship-hours research from Jeffrey Hall, University of Kansas, published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. Golfer motivation data from a Golf Care UK survey.

I started Room 19 because I wanted golf writing that treated the game the way the culture magazines I actually read treat everything else, properly, not as tips, gear reviews and FOMO shots of golf courses. If you want the next one first, subscribe below.

Paul is the founding editor of Room 19, a golf brand telling the untold stories of the game for people who found it through culture, not the clubhouse. He took up golf at 37. Find Room 19 on Instagram and TikTok.

Issue 005 | Golf’s Biggest Barrier

The short version: golf isn’t elitist on purpose. It’s just structured entirely around the people who already know what they’re doing, and a nervous beginner holding up the group behind them is a real cost to the members who already pay for a good round. Nobody has to be unwelcoming for that to quietly push beginners out. That’s the fear nobody’s job is to fix.

I was 37, on the first tee of a well-known course, and I shanked it three times in a row. As I walked off, a better golfer, a member, the kind of person who’d clearly been playing since he was seven, turned to his mate and muttered that I should be going off the ladies’ tees.

Nobody else heard it. It didn’t matter. For the next year, I found ways to avoid that exact moment happening again. On plenty of first tees after that, I didn’t even hit my own ball. I’d drop one wherever my friend’s tee shot had landed, just so I never had to stand there again with people behind me, watching.

That’s not a story about a bad round. That’s a story about redesigning an entire year of golf around not being seen fail. Golf has never quite admitted that this is what it does to people.

Is cost really golf’s biggest barrier?

For a long time I believed the same thing everyone tells you: golf is expensive, and that’s why more people don’t play. Green fees, kit, membership. The whole apparatus of a sport that still, in places, wants a certain kind of person to feel at home in it. That’s a real barrier. It’s also the easy one to talk about, because it’s a pricing problem, not a structural one, and nobody has to examine how a course is actually built around its existing members to solve it.

It’s the number people quote because it’s the one that shows up in industry surveys of golfers. GolfNow’s research finds 43% of golfers who already play name cost as their main hesitation. But that’s people already in the game talking about affordability. Ask the people who never showed up at all, and the number that matters is different. In the National Golf Foundation’s own research on non-golfers, only about 36% say they’d feel comfortable around other golfers, and roughly half aren’t sure they’d feel welcome at a course in the first place. The people already playing worry about the bill. The people who never started worry about whether they’d belong.

Do you need your own clubs to start playing golf?

“They think golf is expensive,” says Natalie Goodall, a qualified PGA coach who works with those looking to improve their game. “Many assume they need to buy hundreds of pounds’ worth of equipment and join a golf club before they can even try the game.” Ask her what actually stops people booking a first lesson, and cost isn’t really the block, it’s not knowing where to start. Questions like whether you need your own clubs, or whether you can just turn up at a range, create enough uncertainty that plenty of people never take the first step at all.

What’s the real reason people avoid their first round?

What I’ve since learned, the hard way, on that first tee and every one after it for a year, is that the real answer is quieter than cost. It’s not “I can’t afford it.” It’s “I don’t want to be watched doing it badly in public, by people who look like they already belong.” Golf is one of the only sports where you fail in full view of strangers, slowly, for four hours, with no substitution, no timeout, nowhere to hide a bad day. Nobody built that fear on purpose. But nobody’s dismantled it either.

“Most new golfers I coach worry about how they are perceived by experienced golfers,” says Darren Timms, a PGA-qualified coach. “They worry about being too slow, holding everyone up or not being good enough. They don’t want to be put in situations where they don’t know what to do. There is definitely a stigma around new golfers vs experienced golfers and I’m sure that puts a lot of new potential players off.”

Why driving ranges solved a fear that golf courses never did

I used the range myself before I ever went near a course, the way most people do. It’s an easier place to fail. But it’s what I’ve noticed in other people since that says more. I know a few golfers who are genuinely good enough to play. They never book a round. Not because they can’t afford it, and not because they don’t want to. They stay at the range because they’re convinced that if they got on a course, they’d hold people up, and that the group behind them would notice, and mind. Their golf never fails in public because they’ve quietly arranged for it never to be seen at all.

That’s the same fear from a different angle. Driving ranges, simulator bars, Topgolf: places where you can be bad at golf and it doesn’t count, because nobody’s keeping score, nobody’s waiting on you, and the people next to you are there for the same reason you are. Those formats didn’t get more popular because they’re cheaper than a round at a private club. They got popular because they removed the audience. That’s the tell. The fear was never really about the game.

This is the gap I keep coming back to when I think about why I started Room 19 in the first place. Golf spent decades trying to lower the price of entry and largely succeeded: public courses, pay-and-play, cheaper kit than ever. It never lowered the price of being seen trying. Nobody wrote a headline about that, because it’s not a number you can put in a press release. It’s a feeling, and feelings don’t show up in participation reports until someone asks the right question.

So here’s the actual claim: golf didn’t get more expensive to be bad at. It just built its entire on-course experience around the people already good enough not to slow anyone down, and never had a reason to build anything for the person who isn’t. Most people who don’t play aren’t staying away because they can’t afford a set of irons. They’re staying away because they don’t want their first attempt to be a spectator sport, and no one’s job is to make sure it isn’t.

Your first tee is the story

If that’s familiar, if some version of my first tee is the reason your clubs are still in the garage, or the reason it took you until you were in your thirties to book that first lesson, you’re not the exception the data forgot. You’re most of the story.

I'd like to hear yours. Drop a comment and tell me about your first tee, the good, the bad, the moment you almost didn't go back. Someone reading this is deciding right now whether golf is for them. Your story might be the thing that gets them to turn up anyway.

With thanks to:

Natalie Goodall, PGA Coach at Parley Golf Centre, Bournemouth. Follow on Instagram.

Darren Timms, PGA Coach at Gravesend Golf Centre, Kent. Follow on Instagram.

Sources: Golfer hesitation data from GolfNow research on deterrents to play. Non-golfer comfort and belonging figures from the National Golf Foundation’s research on barriers among non-golfers.

I started Room 19 because I wanted golf writing that treated the game the way the culture magazines I actually read treat everything else, properly, not as tips, gear reviews and FOMO shots of golf courses. This is our first attempt at going longer than eight slides. If you want the next one first, subscribe below.

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Paul is the founding editor of Room 19, a golf brand telling the untold stories of the game for people who found it through culture, not the clubhouse. He took up golf at 37. Find Room 19 Golf on Instagram and TikTok.