State of Asia Golf

An annual report on the numbers behind golf in Asia: how many courses there are, what they charge, and where the region’s golfers travel to play. Asia has more golfers than any other region and more than 6,000 courses, and no annual account of its own. This is our attempt at one.

What it will measure

Three counts, each with its own sourcing rule, and each published with the date it was taken.

The course count. How many courses are operating, under construction and announced, country by country. Counted from club and developer records rather than aggregated listings, because listings carry courses that closed years ago and miss the ones that opened last season.

The green-fee index. What a visitor actually pays for eighteen holes, by country and by season, separating the published rate from what the rate includes. A fee with a mandatory caddie and cart inside it is not comparable to one without, and most published comparisons treat them as if it were.

Golf-tourism flows.Where the region’s golf travellers come from and where they go, drawn from tourism-board arrivals data, operator volumes and airline capacity on the routes that carry golf trips.

How it will be sourced

Every figure will carry its source and the date it was checked, and the method will be published alongside the findings, including what we could not count and why. Where an estimate is an estimate, it will say so and show the range. Nothing in the report will be sponsored, and no sponsor of its launch will see a figure before publication.

A report the industry can argue with is worth more than one it has to take on trust.

Where the data stands today

Our own course files are the report’s foundation, and they are being built in public, every one of them readable now, on the course profile it belongs to.

That is 8 per cent of the 200 course files we consider the minimum for a first edition worth publishing. Until the count is defensible, there is no report: an annual that opens with a number nobody can check would be the last one anybody reads.

When it publishes

The first edition follows the first full review season, alongside the opening Asia Top 100. We are not announcing a date we cannot yet stand behind. When the edition is scheduled, it will be announced here and in the Asia Golf Business Brief.

Contribute data

Clubs, resorts, tourism boards and operators who want their figures counted correctly can send them to us directly: rates, opening dates, rounds played, visitor mix. Supplying data does not buy coverage, a score, or a place in any ranking; it makes the count more accurate, which is the only thing it buys. Write to editor@asiagolfreview.com.

To sponsor the report’s launch or license its data, see Advertise & Partner. Sponsorship covers the launch, never the findings.

Course-file figures on this page are read live from our database and change as coverage grows. Last edition: none, the first is in preparation.