America’s $100 billion golfing industry likes to sell itself as manicured perfection – but beneath the freshly cut grass, the sport’s image is slicing badly off course.
Once a symbol of tranquil civility, elite US golf is now grappling with sex scandals, alcohol-fueled excess, rowdy crowds, social-media exhibitionism and a bitter civil war over money that many fans say has exposed the game’s soul as being up for sale.
At the very top, joining golf’s most exclusive clubs has become an eye-watering exercise in wealth signaling.
Applicants can pay as much as $1.4 million just to get through the gates at ultra-luxury venues such as Florida‘s Shell Bay or New York’s Sebonack.
Annual dues routinely run into six figures and waiting lists stretch for years, with many of America’s nearly 50 million golfers now saying the sport no longer feels like a relaxing escape. Instead, it has become a pressure cooker of elitism, entitlement and excess.
Young women working as so-called ‘cart girls’ have flooded TikTok with accounts of harassment and assault.
Meanwhile fans of the sport have complained of it being over-sexualized by scores of influencers, who can often be found posing provocatively for selfies on the fairway.
Fans on modest budgets complain they can barely book a tee time, let alone afford a private membership, as clubs fill up with people seeking the luxury image of the game, as glamorized online.
Even the professionals are alarmed about the state of play. Tiger Woods acknowledged in 2025 that elite golf ‘has been headed in the wrong direction for a number of years.’
Paige Spiranac and other influencers are changing the face of a game traditionally associated with older white men
Cassie Holland, who works as a cart girl at a golf course in Las Vegas, Nevada, claimed on TikTok that a man tipped her three $100 bills that were ripped in half
Augusta National has faced allegations over online privacy practices. Pictured: LPGA players Cheyenne Woods and Brooke Pancake at the club in 2016
Once refined, golf tournaments have descended into raucous drunken brawls with bad behavior in recent years
Former Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley blasted what he called the ‘entitlement’ of modern US golfers, accusing them of being ‘one-dimensionally’ obsessed with money rather than growing the game.
For many fans, the low point came at the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black in New York. The famed municipal course became a cauldron of hostility as American spectators heckled European players, including Rory McIlroy.
A beer was reportedly thrown at the golfer’s wife and he branded fans’ behavior ‘unacceptable’. Organizers struggled to keep order, with police K-9 units brought in.
One furious Reddit user summed up the mood on a 1.7-million-member golf forum: ‘It disgusts me how disrespectful the crowds were… Just pathetic the way [McIlroy] was treated. No wonder [the Europeans] were so motivated to freaking thump us.’
It was not an isolated incident. At the 2024 WM Phoenix Open in Arizona, officials closed the gates and stopped selling alcohol after drunken fans ran across fairways, leapt into bunkers and screamed abuse at players.
Meanwhile, environmentalists have complained that courses rip up wildlife habitats, contaminate the ground with pesticides and fertilizers, and drain reservoirs to keep fairways lush and green.
On paper, the numbers look rosy. In 2024, Americans played a record 545 million rounds, far exceeding pre-pandemic levels. The sport generated $101.7 billion in economic impact and supported more than 1.65 million jobs in 2022.
The US hosts 45 percent of the world’s golf facilities. But success has fractured the sport.
Trump National Golf Club Bedminster (pictured) has been rocked by a lawsuit from a former employee
At Utah’s Glenwild Golf Club & Spa, a founding member reportedlysued the club over alleged financial mismanagement and ‘bootlegging’ alcohol. The club denies wrongdoing
Fans say Saudi Arabian money and a rival league has started a ‘civil war’ in their beloved game
The bitter feud between the merit-based PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf has left fans muttering about greed and hypocrisy. LIV, funded by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, lured top players with vast guaranteed contracts and flashy events.
Traditionalists recoiled. The PGA fought back. A proposed merger has dragged on, leaving two rival tours locked in what insiders openly describe as a civil war.
McIlroy said he was left ‘disappointed and sad’ by the division. Two-time PGA Tour winner James Hahn said professional golf had become ‘purely about money.’
Former PGA star Anthony Kim, returning after years away to join the LIV Tour, struck a philosophical note, saying there was ‘so much more to life than golf.’
Long-time golfers complain about such influencers as Grace Charis taking over their sport, complete with their revealing outfits
While the pros argue, elite clubs continue to jack up fees. Initiation costs north of $1 million are no longer unusual. Yet these institutions have been mired in controversy.
At Utah’s Glenwild Golf Club & Spa, a founding member reportedly sued the club over alleged financial mismanagement and ‘bootlegging’ alcohol, claiming he was punished for blowing the whistle. The club denies wrongdoing.
Augusta National has faced allegations over online privacy practices. Capital City Country Club in Florida has battled fallout after it emerged that a tee box sits above the graves of enslaved people on a former plantation. The club has got behind plans for a public memorial.
Trump National Golf Club Bedminster has been rocked by a lawsuit from a former employee alleging a ‘toxic’ workplace where female staff were treated as ‘props,’ forced into tight uniforms and subjected to routine harassment by managers and guests. The club has not yet responded.
Nowhere is the rot more visible than in the experiences of cart girls – young women paid minimum wage to sell drinks on sprawling courses. Their stories, shared with millions online, puncture golf’s genteel myth.
One former cart girl who worked in Connecticut from ages 17 to 19 told the Daily Mail she was routinely harassed while alone on the course. Men tugged at her shorts, hit her butt with golf clubs and made explicit comments.
‘The least of my problems was guys trying to get me drunk,’ she said. If a man behaved appropriately, she added, ‘it was super surprising.’
Holland said she wondered if the unidentified man had ‘ever done this before and if it’s worked’
The claims echo a lawsuit filed by Peyton Stover, a former beverage attendant at a southern California country club, who alleged wealthy members groped her and demanded she lift her shirt.
Her suit says management excused the behavior because members ‘paid a premium.’ She is seeking $15 million in damages. The club does not appear to have released any statements on the case, which is ongoing.
TikTok has turned these accounts into viral cautionary tales. Las Vegas cart girl Cassie Holland, who has more than two million followers, described a golfer tipping her with three $100 bills ripped in half, promising the remaining halves if she met him later.
‘So now I have this completely useless $300,’ she said.
Florida cart girl Molly-Anne Seymour recalled being asked, bluntly, what underwear she was wearing before a golfer tossed $50 on her cart and drove off.
Another ‘cart girl’ to tell her story of harassment on TikTok is Molly-Anne Seymour from Florida
In Maine, Ellie Dressler said a man tried to grab her backside. She twisted his thumb and dislocated it. He later claimed he ‘just wanted to give it a little squeeze,’ according to her video series called ‘Ridiculous But True Stories of a Golf Cart Girl.’
Female players face barriers too. Women across the US complain of entrenched boys’-club attitudes. The Plantation Golf Club in California is fighting a lawsuit challenging its long-standing men-only membership policy.
At the same time, golf’s image is being reshaped online. Influencers such as Paige Spiranac and Grace Charis draw massive audiences, delighting sponsors and enraging purists who say the sport has been over-sexualized. Critics grumble that clicks now matter more than clean putting.
Tiger Woods said elite golf ‘has been headed in the wrong direction for a number of years’
The president’s granddaughter Kai Trump is among the new breed of social media savvy young women golfers
Younger players are caught in the crossfire. Kai Trump, the president’s granddaughter and a University of Miami golfer, is among those trying to carve out a future for women in the game.
Gen Z players are redefining golf as a mental-health break rather than a status symbol, flocking to public courses and abandoning stuffy clubs. Many have ditched traditional broadcasts altogether, embracing ‘YouTube Golf,’ where trick shots, vlogs and comedy skits rack up millions of views.
Golf, it seems, is booming and breaking at the same time. Flush with cash. Riddled with controversy. Whether the sport can get back to basics – or whether it will continue to chase the highest bidder – is the question now hanging over the fairway.
