Germany nearly has as many golf club members as England

Germany is on the verge of having more members of golf clubs than England for the first time in history according to major new research by professional services firm KPMG.

The milestone could be achieved within the next two years and has been driven by female golfers – 35 percent of golf club members in Germany in 2015 were adult women. In England the figure was just 14 percent.

England now has just 21,000 more members of golf clubs than Germany and in the last year the gap closed by nearly 18,000.

In total England has 661,805 members of golf clubs according to KPMG, a figure that has been dropping every year for several years. Between 2014 and 2015 England lost 16,567 members.

In Germany, the country now has 640,181 registered golfers. Between 2014 and 2015 it grew by 1,044.

The closing of the gap between the two countries is even more remarkable given that England had 1,923 golf courses in 2015, whilst Germany had just 727. Our friends at GolfPunk Germany will be loving this, but it surely points to a massive complacency in England.

There’s clearly a huge opportunity here, which has been missed for far too long. Women are so clearly the key to the future of the game. We hope that the R&A now it has merged with the Ladies Golf Union will get on and do something about this. We’ve all up for the promotion of the nine hole game, but surely here is the immediate problem that needs to be fixed for everyone's benefit.

For more on the R&A's new nine hole initiaitve click here or on the image below.