How Many Golf Clubs Over 100 Years Old Are There Per Country?

Golf is one of the few sports where the institutions themselves carry as much prestige as the game itself. A golf club founded in 1893 is not simply a place to play; it is a living piece of history. At The Centenary, we have spent considerable time mapping every golf club in the world that is 100 years old or older. The data tells a remarkable story about where the game took root, how empires and expeditions carried it across continents, and which countries are now sitting on a heritage most of their members have never fully explored.

Our database currently tracks over 1,850 centenary clubs worldwide. The figures below reflect our best current count per country for golf clubs with a confirmed founding year of 1926 or earlier. We update this data regularly as new evidence emerges. Founding dates are often buried in club archives, national federation records, or century-old newspaper reports.

Data by The Centenary. Includes only golf clubs with a confirmed founding year of 1926 or earlier that are still in operation today. Figures updated regularly as new records are confirmed.

England: 864 clubs. An empire of fairways.

No country comes close. England has 864 verified centenary golf clubs, more than the next four countries combined. The oldest golf club in our records dates to 1745. This is not simply because England is the birthplace of the modern golf club as a formal institution; it reflects how deeply golf became embedded in English social life across the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Every county town, seaside resort, and cathedral city seemed to establish its own club between 1880 and 1920. Many of these clubs are remarkably modest — nine-hole heathland layouts managed by volunteer committees — yet they have survived two world wars, shifting land use, and changing leisure habits. Their persistence is itself a form of institutional achievement.

Explore all English centenary clubs on our England country page.

Scotland: 328 clubs and the question of who invented the game

Scotland is, of course, where golf as we know it was played before it was formalised anywhere. The oldest golf club in our database with a traceable founding date is Scottish, going back to 1735. With 328 centenary clubs, Scotland punches far above its weight for a country of five million people. What is striking about the Scottish golf clubs is their geographic spread. From the Borders to the Highlands, from Fife's famous coastline to the industrial belt around Glasgow and Edinburgh. Many are community golf clubs in the truest sense: not elite private institutions, but places where miners, tradespeople, and farmers have played the same course for well over a century.

Browse Scotland's centenary clubs here.

Canada, Ireland, and Australia: the colonial generation

Canada has 165 centenary golf clubs, with its oldest dating to 1873. Ireland has 119 in total, with the first golf club established in 1858. Australia has 59 and Northern Ireland a further 40, with roots going back to 1881. These are the countries where British emigrants and colonial administrators carried the game as part of their cultural baggage. Golf arrived in these places not as an exotic import but as a familiar comfort: a way of recreating something that felt like home in a foreign landscape.

Canada's number is particularly striking and often underestimated. From Ontario to British Columbia, golf clubs were founded at a pace that matched the country's westward expansion. Many sit in cities that barely existed when they were established.

See the full picture: Canada, Ireland, Australia, Northern Ireland.

The United States: fewer than you would expect

The United States has fewer centenary golf clubs than most people would expect from the world's largest golf market. The reason is timing: American golf grew explosively in the twentieth century, with the majority of the country's golf courses built after 1950. The truly old golf clubs, founded between 1884 and 1925, are concentrated in the Northeast and in cities with strong British commercial ties. They are not the most famous names in American golf, but they are among the most historically significant.

Explore US centenary clubs here.

The rest of the world: a story written by the British Empire

Beyond the seven countries with dedicated pages, the table above tells a consistent story. France leads continental Europe with 28 clubs, the oldest from 1856 — an early adoption driven by aristocratic tourism and a large British expat community along the Atlantic coast. Germany has 16 centenary clubs, Spain and Argentina 12 each, the Netherlands 10, Belgium seven. Continental European golf was largely established in a single compressed window: the two decades either side of 1900, driven by British diplomatic networks, railway tourism, and a broader enthusiasm for outdoor leisure that was very much of its era.

India's nine clubs are notable for a different reason: the oldest dates to 1829, making it the earliest known centenary club outside the British Isles. Royal Calcutta is one of golf's most storied institutions, and its founding year predates clubs in most European countries. Malaysia and South Africa follow the same colonial pattern, with clubs established for British administrators and planters on land that often bore little resemblance to the Scottish links where the game began.

Japan's seven clubs, the oldest from 1903, represent a particularly rapid adoption. Golf arrived via British businessmen and within a generation had become a game Japan would eventually make its own. Argentina's 12 clubs reflect the large British communities settled in Buenos Aires and the Pampas — a reminder that the British Empire's reach was commercial as much as political.

What the data tells us and what it does not

The numbers above represent historic golf clubs that we could locate. Behind each entry is some kind of founding document, a club archive, a national federation record, or a contemporaneous newspaper report. We have not included clubs where the founding year is contested without supporting evidence (often the club itself). This means the actual number of surviving centenary clubs might be higher than our current count, particularly in countries where historical records are incomplete or where club archives were not preserved.

What the data does make clear is that golf's oldest institutional culture is concentrated in a handful of countries, and that concentration has shaped what most golfers think of as "historic" golf. The famous clubs like the Open venues, the great heathland courses, the championship parklands exist within an enormous shadow population of less-known clubs that are equally old and, in many cases, equally well preserved.

These are exactly the clubs that The Centenary was built for. Connecting them to each other, and giving their members a reason and a means to play across that network, is what we are here to do. If your club is part of this history — and your founding year is 1925 or earlier — we would be glad to hear from you.