Golf Gets a Youth Surge: Kids Flock to the Fairways Thanks to New Initiative

Golf is officially cool with the kids again.

The National Golf Foundation just dropped some eye-popping stats: 3.7 million young people between the ages of 6 and 17 teed off on a course in 2024. That's nearly a 50% jump compared to five years ago. Apparently, the golf bug is biting hard among Gen Z and beyond.

Helping drive this surge is golf legend Annika Sörenstam, who's teamed up with Bank of America for a program called "Golf With Us." The goal? Make the sport way more affordable for young players. Sörenstam explains, "This initiative is close to my heart because it's a way to help grow the game of golf, and we're gonna do that by giving young kids the opportunity to make golf more affordable." Sign up for a yearly membership and you can play on thousands of courses for five bucks or less. Five dollars! That's less than a bucket of range balls in a lot of places.

Sörenstam is hoping that this kind of access will get more kids hooked on the game for life. But it's not just about putting balls in holes. As she puts it, golf is a masterclass in patience—a skill that comes in handy, whether you're stuck in a sand trap or waiting for your phone to update.

She also highlights how discipline, focus, and determination—all core to golf—are pretty handy off the course too. Maybe golf really does have more life lessons than a TED Talk binge.

For anyone curious about the "Golf With Us" initiative, you can swing by bofa.com/golfwithus for more details.