I came across a photo of Michael Jordan cleaning his golf clubs while wearing the Air Jordan 9 “Olive” recently, while reminiscing about my very first pair of Air Jordans. Though it’s not a photo I haven’t seen before, it led me down a path I haven’t been on for years, thinking about just how much the game has changed since Michael Jordan was all over our televisions, golfing in the early-to-mid 1990s.

The MJ Effect That Never Really Happened

Back in ’94, when Jordan was dominating with the Bulls and famously playing 36 holes before the Olympic games with the Dream Team, golf participation in the U.S. was estimated to be around 24-25 million people. Jordan’s golf obsession was legendary, the guy was literally pounding on Chuck Daly’s hotel room door at 4 AM, demanding rematches after getting beaten on the course. Despite all the MJ golf mania in the media, the sport’s growth was actually pretty modest through the ’90s…until Tiger Woods came along.

Fast forward to today, and even without the direct impact of MJ or Tiger Woods filling the news cycle, golf is absolutely exploding in ways that would make ’90s golf execs weep with joy.

The Numbers Don’t Lie: Golf in 2025 Is Insane

Here’s the stat that blew my mind: 47.2 million Americans played golf in 2024! That’s nearly double what we saw in Jordan’s heyday. But it gets even crazier when you factor in the off-course explosion. We’re talking 28.1 million people hitting actual golf courses, plus another 19.1 million exclusively doing the Topgolf/simulator thing.

The most fascinating part? More than one-third of the entire U.S. population over age 5 engaged with golf in some way in 2024, whether playing, watching, reading about it, or listening to golf podcasts. That’s up 45% since they started tracking this stuff in 2016.

Jordan’s attendance at events like the American Century Championship at Edgewood on the shores of Lake Tahoe (something I remember fondly, as I attended with my grandfather, who got me into golf originally) is said to increase attendance by upwards of 25%.

The Jordan Brand Paradox

This is where it gets really interesting, and honestly kind of ironic. Jordan sneakers today are more mainstream than they ever were in the ’90s. You can’t walk through any mall, school, or street without seeing someone rocking Jordans. The brand has transcended basketball and become a lifestyle staple that even non-sports fans embrace.

But Air Jordan Golf shoes? They’re sitting in this weird pocket of the sneaker world that feels almost…forgotten.

Thanks to my friendship with my Cars & Kicks Show co-host Jacques Slade, I’ve been paying more attention to the Jordan Golf releases. While they’re dropping some seriously clean models like the Air Jordan 14 Golf “Last Shot,” the Nu Retro 1 Golf in multiple colorways, and that new $280 Air Rev Golf shoe, which has actually sold better than expected so far, most releases are not exactly flying off shelves. To be honest, most are not even selling as well as their basketball counterparts, but still, the releases keep coming.

The Generational Shift Nobody Saw Coming

What’s really wild is how young golf has gotten. The 18-34 age group is now the largest group of on-course players at 6.3 million people. That’s not just surprising, it’s revolutionary for a sport that used to be dominated by older, country club demographics.

Meanwhile, 3.7 million juniors played golf in 2024, more than any year since 2006. And get this, 35% of those junior golfers are girls, compared to just 15% in 2000.

These kids aren’t learning the game the way Jordan did in the ’80s and ’90s. They’re starting at Topgolf, building confidence in simulators, and then migrating to actual courses. It’s like a completely different entry path into the sport.

The difference between 1994 and 2025 isn’t just about participation numbers. In Jordan’s era, golf was still fighting its stuffy, exclusive reputation. Today’s golf boom is being driven by social media, off-course entertainment venues, a fair amount of hype, and a generation that sees the game as both an athletic challenge and a social experience.

A majority of Gen Z (51%) now ranks mental health and self-care as their top reason for playing golf. That’s not something you would have heard about in ’94. In fact, back then, MJ would have been the anti-spokesman for mental health and just suggested drinking, cigars, and gambling as ways to find balance in your life.

Despite the age disparity between young golfers and the “olds” like me, who remember watching Jordan back in the day, Jordan Golf is still dropping products that seem to be heavily targeting the latter. As someone who is currently in the market for a new golf bag, I can’t deny the nostalgia of this one…

The Bottom Line

Michael Jordan helped make golf cooler in the ’90s, but he was ahead of his time. The sport wasn’t quite ready for the cultural transformation his celebrity could have sparked. Today’s golf boom is happening organically, driven by accessibility, technology, changing attitudes about what the sport represents, and most importantly, the diversity of the people playing the game.

And while Jordan Brand dominates mainstream sneaker culture these days, the Jordan golf shoes remain a weird anomaly. Technically impressive, stylistically bold, but somehow not quite capturing the mainstream magic of their basketball legacy (with a small handful of collabs that may be exceptions, ie, Eastside Golf).

Maybe that’s fitting, though. Golf in 2025 is writing its own story, one that’s bigger, younger, and more diverse than anything the ’90s could have imagined. Even without MJ leading the charge on the fairways, the sneaker game on the course is shaping up to be its best round yet.