How Much Does a Golf Course Make? #
The average US golf course or country club took in $3,107,844 in receipts. That divides $31.3 billion in 2022 Economic Census receipts across the 10,076 establishments Census counted in the same year.
It is a revenue figure, not an earnings figure, and the distinction matters more in golf than in most industries. A large share of US courses are private clubs organized as 501(c)(7) member-owned nonprofits, which are not run to produce a profit at all: they are run to break even against member dues. Averaging their economics together with a daily-fee public course produces a number that describes neither.
Revenue per Course, and Why the Average Hides Four Businesses #
$3,107,844 is a population mean across operating models whose revenue mix barely overlaps, so it describes the industry rather than any course in it.
| Measure | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Receipts per course | $3,107,844 | Census EC 2022 / CBP 2022 |
| Employees per course | 32.2 | Census CBP, 2023 |
| Average wage | $40,974 | Census CBP, 2023 |
Private member-owned clubs earn most of their revenue from dues and initiation fees, booked as membership income rather than greens fees. Many are 501(c)(7) entities run to break even against member dues rather than to produce a profit.
Daily-fee public courses live on greens fees and cart rental, with revenue that moves with weather and daylight.
Country clubs, as Census defines them, operate dining and other recreational facilities alongside the course, so a material share of receipts is food, beverage and events rather than golf.
Resort courses are often a department inside a hotel or resort company rather than a standalone business, and their golf revenue may never appear as a golf establishment at all.
Census publishes no split between these, so no federal source can tell you what a private club earns against a public course. Anyone presenting such a split is using a trade survey, which is legitimate but is not federal data.
What the staffing figure does tell you is that golf is labor-heavy for a facility business. At 32.2 employees per course it carries more people per site than any other mainstream recreation facility we track: a bowling center averages 20.2 and a fitness or racquet facility 17.0. The reason is agronomy, since 100 to 200 acres of maintained turf needs skilled, year-round greenkeeping. See the recreation benchmarks for where golf sits against the other 25 industries.
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What We Deliberately Do Not Publish for Golf #
Most industry pages on this site carry a profit margin. This one does not, and the reason is methodological rather than editorial.
The only federal source for industry profitability is IRS Statistics of Income, which reports at a "minor industry" grouping roughly three to four digits deep. Golf is not broken out: SOI aggregates it into 713, Amusement, Gambling, and Recreation Industries, together with theme parks, casinos, gyms, marinas and bowling. A margin taken from that bucket would describe casinos as much as courses.
Compounding it, SOI covers corporations filing returns. The member-owned clubs that make up a large share of US golf facilities are 501(c)(7) nonprofits, so they are structurally absent from a corporate profit series and their absence biases whatever is left.
So we publish revenue, payroll, employment and the payroll share, all measured, and we decline to publish a golf profit margin. Where you see one quoted at two decimal places, ask which population it was drawn from.
Where These Numbers Come From #
Receipts and payroll for 2022 are the 2022 Economic Census, the only federal source for industry revenue at this level. Establishment and employment counts are Census County Business Patterns, pulled directly from the Census API on October 5, 2026 for both 2022 and 2023.
Per-establishment and share-of-revenue figures use 2022 for both numerator and denominator. The wage figure is derived by dividing CBP payroll by CBP employment, so it is attributed to Census as a calculation rather than to BLS.
Two measurement caveats specific to golf. CBP counts employment in the March 12 pay period, which falls before the season opens across the northern half of the country, so staffing at a large share of courses is understated. And NAICS 71391 combines golf courses with country clubs by definition, so the industry average blends a pure golf operation with one carrying a dining and events business.
Related reading: how many golf courses are in the US and how to buy one.
Revenue projections, multi-year trends, concentration measurement and state-level breakdowns sit in the golf industry report rather than on this page. See Report →.