Golf participation is on the rise, thanks in large part to a growing subsection of individuals who play miles from any course.
According to a Forbes report, the National Golf Foundation recently announced golf's consumer base as 32 million people, up from 31.1 million a year ago. That jump comes despite the fact that actual on-course participation declined 1.2 percent in 2016.
The difference reportedly comes from "off-course" areas of participation, which are now counting into golf's total participation numbers for the first time. Chief among those are indoor simulators and TopGolf, the nationwide chain of outdoor driving ranges that helped boost overall off-course participation by 11 percent last year.