What Buyers Actually Borrow to Acquire a Golf Course #
Between FY2024 and the third quarter of FY2026 the SBA approved 153 loans to golf courses and country clubs: 111 through the 7(a) program and 42 through 504. Nineteen of them financed a change of ownership (SBA FOIA extracts, as of June 30, 2026).
The split between the two programs is the most useful thing in the data, because it tells you which door a golf acquisition goes through.
| Program | Loans FY2024-26 | Median, existing business | Median term |
|---|---|---|---|
| SBA 504 | 42 | $1,015,000 | 300 months |
| SBA 7(a) | 111 | $150,000 | 120 months |
504 is the acquisition route and 7(a) is the working-capital route. A 504 loan to an existing golf business runs a median of $1,015,000 on a 25-year term, nearly seven times the 7(a) median on a ten-year term. That is not two kinds of buyer, it is two kinds of debt: 504 finances real estate and long-lived equipment, and a golf course is 100 to 200 acres of land with irrigation and a clubhouse on it.
If you are modeling an acquisition on a ten-year amortization because that is what you have seen for other small businesses, the data says golf does not work that way.
The Range Is Wide and the Floor Is Low #
Across all 111 7(a) approvals the median was $252,500, the mean $676,160, the smallest $10,000 and the largest $5,000,000, the program ceiling. On 504, the median was $873,500 and the mean $1,357,286, also topping out at $5,000,000.
A mean far above the median in both programs means a small number of large transactions pulling the average up, with a long tail of modest ones underneath. The $10,000 floor is not a golf course purchase; it is equipment or working capital at an existing operation.
Of the 36 7(a) loans to businesses not yet trading, the median was $370,750. Opening a new course from scratch is rare in the United States, so most of those are likely acquisitions of distressed or closed facilities, or new clubhouse and operating entities on existing land. Federal data does not distinguish them.
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Golf Loans Perform Unusually Well #
On the FY2020 and FY2021 cohort, the most recent old enough to have been tested, 1 of 59 SBA 7(a) loans to golf courses and country clubs had been charged off, or 1.7 percent.
Set against the rest of recreation, that is near the top. Bowling centers, marinas, event venues and museums recorded 0.0 percent on the same measure; fitness and recreational sports centers 4.1 percent; amusement arcades 6.0 percent; and the performing arts industries between 6.7 and 13.3 percent.
The common thread among the strong performers is collateral a lender can sell. A golf course is land with a recorded title, which is why it finances through 504 and why a default does not leave a lender empty-handed. It is also why the asset can be worth more than the operating business, a fact that cuts both ways for a buyer.
What the Federal Data Can and Cannot Tell a Buyer #
It can tell you the revenue benchmark. Receipts averaged $3,107,844 per establishment in 2022, and 32.2 employees per site. If a seller's numbers sit far from those, that is a question to ask rather than a problem in itself, but you will know to ask it.
It can tell you the industry is not consolidating away from you. 9,126 firms operate 10,076 establishments, so the great majority of US courses are single-property businesses. An owner-operator is buying into the normal structure of the industry, not fighting it.
It cannot tell you a valuation multiple. No federal source publishes transaction multiples for golf, and the SBA file records the loan, not the purchase price or the equity behind it. A loan of $1,015,000 is consistent with a wide range of enterprise values.
It cannot tell you a profit margin. IRS Statistics of Income aggregates golf into NAICS 713 with casinos, theme parks and gyms, and covers corporations while many clubs are 501(c)(7) member-owned nonprofits. We publish no golf margin for that reason, and we would treat a precise one from any source with suspicion.
It cannot tell you about the course you are buying. Deferred greens and irrigation capital expenditure, membership attrition, the water rights and the highest-and-best-use value of the land are the four things that decide a golf deal, and none of them is in any federal dataset.
Where These Numbers Come From #
Loan figures come from the SBA's published 7(a) and 504 FOIA extracts, both dated June 30, 2026, filtered to NAICS 71391 and aggregated by approval fiscal year. The 111 7(a) and 42 504 approvals sum exactly to the 153 total reported in our sector screen. Nothing below the aggregate level is used, so no individual borrower appears on this page.
Change-of-ownership and startup status come from the SBA's own loan fields, using the strict category for a loan opening a business not yet trading. Charge-off incidence is measured on the FY2020-21 approval cohort, because later cohorts have not had time to default.
Receipts and payroll are the 2022 Economic Census; establishment, employment and firm counts are Census CBP 2023 and the 2022 Economic Census, pulled from the Census API on October 5, 2026.
Related reading: how many golf courses are in the US, what one makes, and the recreation and sports benchmarks comparing golf with 25 adjacent industries.
Concentration measurement, state-by-state course counts and revenue projections sit in the golf industry report rather than on this page. See Report →.