Features

200.000 Landmark

Spain now has 200,000 officially registered golfers. The milestone was reached during January, when María Mercedes Moreno, a 28-year-old Argamasilla de Alba (Ciudad Real) resident who plays at the Media Legua club, registered with the Royal Spanish Golf Federation.

The game has experienced exceptional growth over the past decade, becoming the third most popular sport after soccer and basketball – (i.e. on the basis of number of licensed players). In 1966, just 2,500 players were registered with the federation. This grew to 10,000 in 1974, 25,000 in 1983 and 50,000 in 1989, then a “boom” in the game doubled the figure to 100,000 within seven years (Alicante golfer Leandro Cerezo becoming the 100,000th “federado”) – and now to 200,000 (201.606 at January 31, to be exact: 200, 538 amateurs and 1,068 professionals). At the start of 2001, the number of registered golfers in Spain was 177,409.

Nevertheless, even taking into account the increase during 2001, Spain remained in 15th place in the international ranking of officially registered golfers at the end of the year. US led the way with more than 25 million and Japan was next with just over 20 million, followed a long way back by Canada (5.2 million), Australia (1.9 million) and the United Kingdom (1.2 million). Also above Spain - in Europe - were Sweden, Germany, France and Ireland.

In number of golf courses, Spain was 13th with 250. Again, the US led the way with nearly 17,000, followed by the United Kingdom and Japan (both over 2,000), and Canada and Australia (each with more than 1,000). Italy joined Germany, France, Sweden and Ireland with more courses than Spain.