The golf operation market in France

With 29 million cubic metres of water consumed by golf operations in 2023 to maintain their greens, the market is faced with an environmental challenge that comes at a time of post-Covid recovery.

As a business, a golf course encompasses a wide range of activities, including personnel management, administration, finance, sales, teaching and grounds maintenance. Running a golf course requires in-depth knowledge of the world of golf and the management skills needed to balance the various constraints.

In France, golf courses cover 33,000 hectares, employing around 8,000 people and welcoming members, external players (green fees) and tourists. Depending on the owner's objectives, he or she may manage the operation himself or delegate it to a third party, with associative, commercial or public management modes.

The golf operation market encompasses all facilities dedicated to the practice of this sport, for amateurs, competitors and professionals alike. Some courses, located in resorts, target golf tourism in particular, creating a synergy with the tourism sector.

The French market, relatively poorly placed on a global scale, is nonetheless in a situation of continuous growth in sales, albeit relatively stagnant, which have been maintained for some time at around 1.5 billion euros. It's also a market that benefits from an ageing population, given that the typical customer is over 55, as well as relatively high barriers to entry and competition that is strongly limited by a geographical divide. All in all, this is a relatively solid market, whose only downsides are its weakness to widespread mobility restrictions, as experienced during the pandemic, and a longer-term, but no less worrying, dynamic: the market's exposure to the depletion of water reserves and waves of drought caused by global warming.