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Survey: Kenya second in number of golfers in Africa
Mutahi Kibugu follows his tee shot during the Magical Kenya Open PGK qualifiers at Windsor Country Club on February 17, 2025.
What you need to know:
- This ranks Kenya as the second biggest golf playing nation in Africa. South Africa is in first position with 145,510 registered players. Nigeria comes a distant third with 11,000 registered players.
As the Kenya Open tees off Thursday at Muthaiga Club, an overview of the sport by independent monitoring firms show that the popularity of golf in Kenya is growing steadily.
Kenya has 12,099 registered golfers with Golf Kenya, and similar number of active players not affiliated to a club, says a report by the R&A Global Golf Participation Report for 2023. This compares to 10,000 in 2020 and 8,000 in 2017.
Of the registered players, 8,712 are male, 2,666 women and 721 juniors.
This ranks Kenya as the second biggest golf playing nation in Africa. South Africa is in first position with 145,510 registered players. Nigeria comes a distant third with 11,000 registered players.
“In the previous iteration of this report, we looked for the first time at all 9 and 18 hole golfers and not just registered golfers. Now, we are able to go further and look at all those who engage with golf beyond 9 & 18 hole formats,” said R&A CEO Martin Slumbers.