Golf Courses and Country Clubs (U.S.) — NAICS 713910

An investor's primer. NAICS = North American Industry Classification System, the U.S. government's standard code for an industry. This primer is written for both public-market and private investors.

1. Overview

This is the business of operating golf courses and country clubs — the "green-grass" venues where people play golf, together with the clubhouses, dining rooms, pools, and racquet courts that often come with them. It is a large, intensely local, and remarkably fragmented service business that blends recreation, hospitality, food service, retail, instruction, and — underneath it all — real estate. The U.S. has more golf courses than any other country by a wide margin, and no single owner controls even a tenth of industry revenue [3][7].

Two things make it interesting right now. Demand is at a generational high, new-course supply has stopped growing, and private equity (PE — investment firms that buy whole companies) has moved in to roll clubs up into larger portfolios [12][16][21]. Rising demand against fixed, shrinking supply is exactly what draws capital.

The catch for public-market investors is that there is no meaningful pure-play, publicly traded U.S. golf-course operator. The largest owners and operators are private or PE-owned. Public exposure is indirect and embedded in diversified companies — equipment makers, a couple of real-estate landlords, a resort operator, a maintenance contractor. Direct operating exposure is a private-market game. For private investors, the best opportunities usually turn on local demographics, water rights, zoning, course condition, and capital needs more than on national golf trends. Both routes are covered below.

2. What it is, and what it excludes

NAICS 713910 covers establishments primarily engaged in operating golf courses (except miniature) and country clubs, including the food-and-beverage (F&B), equipment-rental, and golf-instruction services those venues sell [4].

It excludes several adjacent businesses an investor might lump in:

• Driving ranges and miniature golf → NAICS 713990 (All Other Amusement and Recreation Industries). This is where standalone ranges and tech-enabled venues like Topgolf sit — not here [4].
• Golf resorts with lodging → NAICS 7211 (Traveler Accommodation) when the hotel is the primary business [4].
• Golf-equipment and apparel manufacturing (Titleist balls and clubs, FootJoy shoes), landscaping/maintenance contracting, real-estate development, and retail — all separate industries.

The operating models are diverse, and the economics differ by model:

• Daily-fee / public courses earn green fees, cart fees, range income, instruction, tournaments, retail, and F&B — anyone can pay to play.
• Municipal ("muni") courses are publicly owned, often run directly by a parks department or through a lease or management contract.
• Private clubs may be equity-owned by their members, non-equity clubs owned by an operator or developer, or amenities tied to a residential community.
• Resorts and destination facilities sell golf alongside lodging, dining, and events.
• Management companies operate courses for owners without necessarily owning the land or buildings.

Ownership mix. Roughly three-quarters of U.S. golf facilities are public-access (muni plus daily-fee), and about one-quarter are private clubs [7][8]. Most private clubs — on the order of 80% — are member-owned, not-for-profit entities rather than investor-owned businesses [9]. Some member-owned clubs qualify as tax-exempt social clubs under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(7), a status that limits how much revenue they can earn from non-members [10].

3. How big it is

Federal statistics for the private-sector operating slice of the industry (dollar figures shown here in billions; suppressed metrics are noted as such):

SBA = U.S. Small Business Administration. The $19.0M line is the ceiling below which a firm counts as "small" for federal contracting programs — a classification, not an estimate of the industry's total addressable market [5]. At that threshold the overwhelming majority of the ~9,100 firms qualify as small.

The undercount caveat — read this before quoting the numbers. These figures understate golf's true footprint for two structural reasons. First, County Business Patterns (CBP) covers employer businesses, and both CBP and the Economic Census largely exclude government establishments — so municipal courses run directly by city or county parks departments, plus most nonemployer and volunteer operations, fall outside the counts [6]. The National Golf Foundation (NGF — the industry's data body) counts roughly 14,000 golf facilities (about 16,000 courses) nationwide: on the order of 3,700 private, 2,600 municipal, and 7,800 other daily-fee/public — a much larger footprint than the ~10,076 employer establishments above [7][8]. Second, the ~$31.3 billion receipts figure is only the course-operations slice of a far larger golf economy. Golf's total direct U.S. economic impact was estimated at $101.7 billion in 2022 (about $226.5 billion including indirect and induced effects), but that headline bundles in equipment, apparel, real estate, tournaments, and hospitality — most of which lives in other NAICS codes [11]. Use $31.3B for the industry proper; use $102B only when you mean "golf" broadly.

4. The investable universe

There is no clean pure-play public table here, because the direct operators are private. Public exposure is adjacent or embedded in diversified companies; the operators themselves are reached through private markets.

Public-market (indirect) exposure

REIT = real estate investment trust, a company that owns income-producing property and passes most profits to shareholders as dividends.

Private / PE owner-operators (the real industry)

Family- and privately controlled destination owners include Pinehurst Resort (Dedman family) and Bandon Dunes (Mike Keiser's interests); these are broader resort businesses that are not always clean statistical matches for NAICS 713910 [33][34]. Note the "asset-light" distinction: Troon, KemperSports, and Landscapes mostly manage courses for a fee rather than owning the dirt [25][26][27].

5. How the money works

The central economic variable is putting a fixed, perishable capacity — tee times — to productive use. A tee time that goes unsold is revenue lost forever. Because a course carries very high fixed costs (land, water, turf maintenance, labor) that must be paid whether 20 or 200 golfers show up, the incremental round is close to 100% gross margin once the course is open and staffed. That operating leverage cuts both ways: a rainy season or a demand dip drops straight to the bottom line.

Daily-fee / public courses earn per round: revenue ≈ rounds played × green fee, plus cart rental, F&B, and pro-shop sales. What owners watch: rounds played, tee-sheet utilization, average revenue per round, course reputation/location/conditioning, and event revenue — against labor, turf, water, chemicals, fuel, insurance, and property costs.

Private clubs earn on two streams. A one-time initiation fee when a member joins is a capital inflow that funds the balance sheet and facilities; recurring annual dues fund operations. Average dues run around $10,700 a year (median ~$9,100); initiation fees range from a few thousand dollars to $250,000–$500,000 at elite clubs [14]. Dues typically supply 50–60% of a healthy club's revenue, with F&B minimums adding a meaningful chunk [14]. Key health metrics are membership count, the join waitlist (a leading demand indicator), member attrition, dues growth, and F&B/event spend per member. Initiation cash can fund growth but is not the same as recurring operating revenue.

Capital intensity is the hidden variable. Greens, irrigation, drainage, clubhouse renovations, and cart-fleet replacement can consume years of cash flow, and can make a superficially profitable course unattractive to own. Useful operating measures include same-course rounds, revenue per available tee time, member retention, maintenance cost per round, deferred capital expenditure, course-level EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization), debt-service coverage, and free cash flow after maintenance capital spending. For a private investor, the sharpest question is whether the thesis rests on operating cash flow, land value, or both — many golf deals are as much a bet on the dirt as on the game.

6. What drives demand

• Participation is booming. A record 545 million rounds were played in 2024 — the fifth straight year over 500 million — and total participation reached 47.2 million people (about 29 million on-course plus roughly 19 million who play only off-course at ranges, simulators, and venues like Topgolf) [12]. Growth has been broad-based: since 2019, on-course participation is up about 40% among youth (to 3.5 million), 27% among people of color (to 6.1 million), and 25% among females (to 7 million) [13].
• The off-course funnel. Tech-enabled venues (Topgolf, simulators) widen the top of the funnel — pulling in younger, more diverse, and female players who increasingly convert to green-grass rounds — even as they also compete for entertainment spending [12][13].
• Wealth and the cycle. Golf is discretionary and private-club membership skews affluent, so demand tracks household wealth, equity-market levels, and consumer confidence.
• Demographics and geography. Retiring, affluent households and Sun Belt population growth (Florida, Arizona, the Carolinas) anchor demand and draw destination play; corporate outings, charity events, and weddings add group revenue.
• Supply scarcity. Almost no new courses are being built — from scratch, an 18-hole course now costs roughly $8–40 million before land — so well-located existing courses capture the demand growth [21].

The most attractive demand is local and recurring: affluent households within a convenient drive, strong local employment and population growth, limited competing tee-time supply, and a membership base willing to pay for convenience and amenities. A national boom does not rescue a course in a declining or oversupplied local market.

7. Regulation

Regulation bites more at the property level than at the national-industry level, and the stack is distinctive:

• Water and environment. Courses are large water users, exposed to state water-rights allocation, groundwater limits, drought restrictions, and recycled-water requirements. Federal environmental rules apply directly: the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) governs pesticide registration and use [36]; pesticide or construction discharges to U.S. waters can require a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit, and construction disturbing at least an acre generally needs stormwater coverage [37]; and Section 404 of the Clean Water Act (CWA) regulates dredged or fill material in jurisdictional waters and wetlands, so expansions, ponds, and drainage work can trigger review [38]. Water access and cost are an existential issue in the arid West, and the U.S. Golf Association (USGA) has pushed irrigation efficiency, recycled water, and reduced irrigated acreage as resilience tools [39].
• Labor and immigration. Seasonal grounds crews lean heavily on the H-2B visa (a temporary non-agricultural foreign-worker program). Golf's H-2B requests jumped from about 10,000 in 2019 to roughly 15,000 in 2022, but the visas are capped and awarded by lottery, so demand routinely exceeds supply — a chronic labor headache [15]. Wage-and-hour law and OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) heat-and-chemical rules also apply.
• Access, alcohol, land use. Facilities must meet Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accessibility standards where they are public accommodations [35], hold liquor licenses, and navigate local zoning — especially when an owner wants to close a course and redevelop the land.
• Tax status. Member-owned clubs typically operate as 501(c)(7) tax-exempt social clubs, a status with IRS constraints on non-member revenue [10].

8. Competitive dynamics and consolidation

This is one of the most fragmented industries in the U.S. economy. Federal concentration data for 2022 show the top 4 firms holding just 9.0% of revenue, the top 8 11.6%, the top 20 15.0%, and even the top 50 only 19.4% — with a Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI, a standard concentration score) of 29.7 as reported by the Census Bureau, far below the ~1,000 level federal antitrust agencies treat as even "moderately concentrated" [3]. That is a picture of near-total national fragmentation, though individual metro markets can be far more concentrated.

Into that fragmentation, PE is consolidating hard:

• KSL Capital acquired Invited Clubs from Apollo in 2026 for roughly $2.6–3.0 billion and pairs it with its Heritage Golf Group — a combined platform of well over 150 clubs [16][17][18][24].
• Bain Capital invested in Concert Golf Partners (39 clubs) in 2025 as Clearlake exited — a deal reported around $1.3 billion [21][22].
• Leonard Green & Partners bought majority control of Topgolf for about $1.1 billion, with Callaway retaining 40% [19][20].

Scale helps with centralized membership sales and technology, procurement, agronomy expertise, brand and reciprocal-access marketing, data-driven pricing, and access to acquisition/renovation capital. It does not eliminate local competition — golfers still choose on travel time, price, conditioning, access, and club culture. Importantly, management consolidation outruns ownership consolidation: Troon, KemperSports, and Landscapes may run courses owned by municipalities, member groups, developers, or separate real-estate investors, professionalizing operations without owning the real estate [25][26][27]. Meanwhile, some cash-strapped munis are acquiring distressed private clubs to preserve them as public amenities.

9. Risks

• Cyclicality. Spending is discretionary; a recession or equity-market drawdown hits initiation-fee pipelines and dues growth first.
• Weather and climate. Rain, drought, heat, hurricanes, wildfire, and turf disease cut rounds while much of the cost base stays fixed.
• Water availability. Restrictions, rising rates, or loss of a water source can impair both course condition and property value — most acute in the West.
• Capital intensity. Deferred irrigation, drainage, greens, clubhouse, and cart-fleet spending can consume years of cash flow.
• Local demand and oversupply. A national participation boom does not protect a course in a weak or oversupplied local market.
• Membership affordability. Higher dues and initiation fees support revenue but can narrow the customer base and raise economic sensitivity.
• Demand plateau. Participation is at record highs after a post-pandemic surge; forward returns assume demand holds rather than reverts — an open question.
• Leverage. PE roll-ups add debt; a downturn plus high rates would pressure the most levered operators.
• Regulatory / land-use conflict. Wetlands, pesticides, water rights, accessibility, and zoning can delay projects; a course may sit on valuable land, but converting it to housing is often blocked by zoning, conservation restrictions, or community opposition.
• Data quality. Federal statistics do not fully capture government, nonprofit, nonemployer, and very small operators — size the market accordingly.

10. How to invest, and the outlook

Public-market routes (indirect). Treat this as a fragmented operating-and-real-asset theme rather than a conventional stock-market sector, and start by deciding which exposure you want: course ownership, course management, resort operations, golf entertainment, maintenance, or equipment. The listed options are:

• Direct course-ownership real estate — VICI Properties (VICI), the cleanest listed 713910-adjacent holding, though golf is a small piece of a gaming/experiential REIT [29].
• Equipment/apparel — Acushnet (GOLF) and Topgolf Callaway (MODG), which track golfer spending and participation, not course ownership [28][20].
• A landlord REIT and a resort operator — EPR Properties (EPR), whose largest tenant is Topgolf (entertainment, not greens fees), and Vail Resorts (MTN), where golf rides inside a much larger resort platform [30][31].
• A supplier — BrightView (BV), maintenance and irrigation exposure [32].

Valuation multiples and dividend yields on these belong to standard equity analysis; note that MODG's Topgolf split materially changes its story [19][20].

Private-market routes (direct). The real operating exposure requires private capital, and it splits into three distinct theses:

1. Buy a cash-flowing course or club and improve utilization, pricing, membership, and amenities.
2. Buy or build a management platform that earns fees across many owner clients (the asset-light model).
3. Buy the underlying land and treat golf as an income-producing use with long-term real-estate optionality.

Whichever the thesis, due diligence should center on course-level financials: rounds by month, peak/off-peak utilization, realized pricing, membership churn and dues collection, initiation-fee dependence, F&B losses, labor and water costs, environmental permits, deferred maintenance and capital plans, lease terms, property taxes, insurance, debt maturities, and competing facilities within the relevant drive-time market. For individuals, an equity membership at a member-owned club is a lifestyle asset more than a financial one.

Near-term outlook (forward-looking judgment). The demand setup is unusually favorable — record rounds and participation, a widening off-course funnel, and a course count that is flat-to-shrinking because new builds are prohibitively expensive [12][13][21]. That scarcity is precisely why PE keeps bidding, and further consolidation is widely expected. But returns are likely to be highly bifurcated: premium private clubs, destination courses, efficient munis, and well-located assets in growing markets look far better positioned than aging courses with weak demographics, high water costs, heavy deferred capital spending, or excessive leverage. The industry looks structurally healthier than it has in two decades — but superior returns will depend on paying a sensible price and executing locally, not on the game simply growing forever.

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Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau, "County Business Patterns: 2023," NAICS 713910 (establishments 10,076; employment 324,224; annual payroll ~$13.3B; Q1 payroll ~$2.72B), 2025. https://www.census.gov/data/datasets/2023/econ/cbp/2023-cbp.html
2. U.S. Census Bureau, Economic Census 2022, "Sales/Revenue Size of Firms," NAICS 713910 (firms 9,126; receipts ~$31.3B), 2025. https://data.census.gov/table/ECNSIZE2022.EC2200SIZEREVFIRM?codeset=naics~713910&y=2022
3. U.S. Census Bureau, Economic Census 2022, "Concentration of Largest Firms," NAICS 713910 (CR4 9.0%, CR8 11.6%, CR20 15.0%, CR50 19.4%; HHI 29.7 as reported), 2025. https://data.census.gov/table/ECNSIZE2022.EC2200SIZECONCEN?codeset=naics~713910&y=2022
4. U.S. Census Bureau, "2022 NAICS Definition: 713910 Golf Courses and Country Clubs" (definition and exclusions: driving ranges/miniature golf → 713990; golf resorts → 7211), 2022. https://www.census.gov/naics/?details=713910&input=713910&year=2022
5. U.S. Small Business Administration, "Table of Size Standards," NAICS 713910 ($19.0M average annual receipts), 2023. https://www.sba.gov/document/support-table-size-standards
6. U.S. Census Bureau, "County Business Patterns Methodology" (employer-only coverage; government exclusion), 2026. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp/technical-documentation/methodology.html
7. National Golf Foundation, "Golf Facilities in the U.S. — 2024" and U.S. golf supply updates (~14,000 facilities / ~16,000 courses; ~75% public-access, ~25% private), 2024–2025. https://www.ngf.org/member-publication/golf-facilities-in-the-u-s-2024/
8. PGA of America, "Minutes from the 108th PGA of America Annual Meeting" (facility breakdown: 3,674 private, 2,551 municipal, 7,808 other public — 14,033 total), 2024. https://resources.pga.org/uploads/108th-2024-pga-annual-meeting-minutes.pdf
9. RSM US, "Revenue recognition considerations for member-owned private clubs" (~80% of private clubs member-owned/not-for-profit), 2023. https://rsmus.com/insights/industries/private-clubs/
10. Internal Revenue Service, "Examples of Tax-Exempt Social and Recreational Clubs" (501(c)(7) status and non-member-income limits), 2026. https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/other-non-profits/examples-of-tax-exempt-social-and-recreational-clubs
11. Forbes / American Golf Industry Coalition & National Golf Foundation, "Golf's Economic Impact In U.S. Topped $100 Billion In 2022" ($101.7B direct; $226.5B total), 2023. https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikmatuszewski/2023/05/09/golfs-economic-impact-in-us-topped-100-billion-in-2022/
12. National Golf Foundation, "Golf Participation in the U.S. — 2024" / 2025 Graffis Report (545M rounds in 2024, fifth straight year over 500M; 47.2M total participants), 2024–2025. https://www.ngf.org/member-publication/golf-participation-in-the-u-s-2024/
13. United States Golf Association, "Golf's New Narrative" (since 2019: youth on-course +40% to 3.5M; people of color +27% to 6.1M; females +25% to 7M), 2025. https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/articles/2025/03/golfs-new-narrative.html
14. Private Club Marketing, "How Country Club Initiation Fees Really Work" and 2024 Club Leaders Perspective Report (avg dues ~$10,700, median ~$9,100; initiation $250k–$500k at elite clubs; dues 50–60% of revenue), 2024–2026. https://privateclubmarketing.com/how-country-club-initiation-fees-work-equity-non-equity-refundable-deposits/
15. Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA) & Global Golf Post, "H-2B Visa Program" (golf H-2B requests ~10,000 in 2019 → ~15,000 in 2022; lottery-capped), 2022–2024. https://www.gcsaa.org/what-we-do/advocacy/priority-issues/labor-and-immigration/h-2b-visa-program
16. Forbes, "Amid Golf Boom, PE Firm KSL Is Set To Buy A Top Course Operator For $2.6 Billion," 2026. https://www.forbes.com/sites/hanktucker/2026/04/22/ksl-invited-clubs-golf-course-acquisition/
17. Golf Inc. Magazine, "KSL reacquires Invited Clubs for up to $3 billion," 2026. https://golfincmagazine.com/content/ksl-reacquires-invited-clubs-for-up-to-3-billion-retains-existing-leadership-team/
18. KSL Capital Partners, "KSL Capital Partners Acquires Invited Clubs" (150+ clubs, ~300,000 members), 2026. https://www.kslcapital.com/news
19. Golf Digest, "Callaway sells Topgolf for $1.1 billion" (Leonard Green & Partners; Callaway retains 40%), 2025. https://www.golfdigest.com/story/callaway-topgolf-1-billion-private-equity-2025
20. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "Topgolf Callaway Brands (MODG) 2025 Form 10-K" (40% Topgolf/Toptracer stake retained after 60% sale effective Jan 1, 2026), 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/837465/000083746526000010/modg-20251231.htm
21. Front Office Sports / PE Hub, "PE-Backed Concert Golf" and "Golf expected to draw PE interest in 2026" (Concert ~$1.3B; new-course cost $8–40M), 2025–2026. https://www.pehub.com/golf-expected-to-draw-pe-interest-in-2026-after-topgolf-acquisition/
22. Clearlake Capital, "Clearlake Exits its Investment in Concert Golf Partners as Bain Capital Invests" (39 U.S. locations), 2025. https://clearlake.com/news/clearlake-exits-its-investment-in-concert-golf-partners-as-bain-capital-invests-to-support-further-growth/
23. Arcis Golf, corporate/press materials (88 private, resort, and public courses), 2026. https://arcisgolf.com/press-releases/cowboys-golf-club-unveils-multi-million-dollar-transformation
24. Heritage Golf Group, company site (~48 properties; part of KSL private-club platform), 2026. https://www.heritagegolfgroup.com/
25. Troon, "Golf Club Management Services" (900+ managed locations worldwide; largest management platform), 2026. https://troon.com/management-services
26. KemperSports, "Property and Experience Management" (200+ managed properties), 2026. https://www.kempersports.com/
27. Landscapes Golf Management, "About" (60+ properties across 24 states), 2026. https://landscapesgolf.com/about/
28. Yahoo Finance / MacroTrends, "Acushnet Holdings Corp. (GOLF)" (~$6.9B market cap, mid-2026). https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GOLF/
29. VICI Properties, "VICI Golf" (four championship golf courses operated by The Cabot Collection), 2026. https://viciproperties.com/portfolio/vici-golf/
30. Nareit / EPR Properties investor materials, "EPR Properties" (39 Topgolf venues; ~14% of rent), 2025. https://www.reit.com/news/articles/epr-properties-broadening-opportunities-under-reits-new-leadership
31. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "Vail Resorts 2026 Form 10-Q" (resort segment including golf), 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/812011/000081201126000014/mtn-20260131.htm
32. BrightView, "BrightView Expands Golf Course Management Partnership" (commercial landscaping, irrigation, golf-course maintenance), 2026. https://investor.brightview.com/press-releases/press-release-details/2026/BrightView-Expands-Golf-Course-Management-Partnership-with-The-Villages/default.aspx
33. Pinehurst Resort, "Pinehurst Resort to Open Pinehurst No. 11" (Dedman family ownership), 2025. https://www.pinehurst.com/news/pinehurst-resort-to-open-pinehurst-no-11-designed-by-coore-crenshaw/
34. Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, corporate/foundation materials (Keiser family interests), 2026. https://bandondunesgolf.com/golf-resort-info/bandon-dunes-charitable-foundation/
35. U.S. Department of Justice, "2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design" (golf-facility accessibility), 2010. https://www.ada.gov/law-and-regs/design-standards/2010-stds/
36. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, "Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA)," 2026. https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/federal-insecticide-fungicide-and-rodenticide-act-fifra-and-federal-facilities
37. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, "Stormwater Discharges from Construction Activities" (NPDES construction permits), 2026. https://www.epa.gov/npdes/stormwater-discharges-construction-activities
38. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, "Permit Program under Clean Water Act Section 404," 2026. https://www.epa.gov/cwa-404/permit-program-under-cwa-section-404
39. United States Golf Association, "$30M Commitment Will Drive New Water Resilience Efforts," 2023. https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/articles/2023/04/Water_Resilience_Golf_USGA.html