In China, golf is becoming Gen Z and female

Texas-born brand Keypote, known for matching golf sets and polo-shirt minidresses, chose to open its first ever concept pop-up at MixC World in Shenzhen on August 21. The space runs until October 18. Its Xiaohongshu (also known as RedNote) hashtag has 501,100 impressions, a fraction of the platform’s wider golf conversation: #golf has 2.5 billion, #golfgear 159.9 million, #lovelifelovegolf 123.7 million and #littlewhiteball (#小白球), a common nickname for the sport, 114.8 million. Much of the content under these tags comes from women posting outfits shot on the course. China had about 5.4 million golfers in 2024, roughly 0.4% of the population, according to the China Golf Association’s first industry report, released in October 2025. About 4.06 million played on courses and 1.33 million at indoor simulator venues. The country had 335 operating courses as of June 2025, and the association said that shortage keeps the game expensive to play and to learn. Men outnumber women four-to-one on courses and seven-to-three at simulator venues, the association found, though it said more women and juniors are taking up the game indoors. Hashtag views measure clicks rather than people, but the difference in scale is the commercial point: golf’s audience on Xiaohongshu is far larger than the number of people who play it. “For this generation, a sport is an identity,” Ashley Dudarenok, founder of the China research consultancy ChoZan and a Jing Daily contributor, said in Jing Daily’s December 2025 report on Chinese Gen Z consumers. “Athleisure is the new streetwear, and communities on Xiaohongshu are where trends are born.” Fashion first, then sport Much of that content borrows from the old-money look. Pleated skirts, cable knits, quarter-zips and visors belong to the Ivy League and old-money styles that have been popular in China for several years. “Chinese Gen Z are a study in duality: unmistakably trend-driven yet fiercely self-stylizing,” said Wang Junjie, Chinese fashion expert and the founder of China Retail Watch. "They produce OOTDs and fit checks not to be background extras in someone else’s trend cycle, but to mine micro-trends and weaponize them for identity.” Wang said Xiaohongshu goes through five to eight short-lived trend surges a year, while broader aesthetics last for years. He places golf among the lasting aesthetics, so brands entering the category now are betting on more than a single season. At the elite level, Chinese women have the stronger record. Feng Shanshan (冯珊珊) and Yin Ruoning (殷若宁) have both been ranked world No. 1, and Feng and Lin Xiyu (林希妤) won China’s only Olympic golf medals, bronzes in 2016 and 2024. No man from mainland China has won a major championship. Li Haotong’s (李昊桐) third place at the 2017 Open Championship is still the best result by a mainland Chinese man. Two smaller Xiaohongshu tags show the same pattern. “Swinging girl” (#挥杆少女) has 284,600 impressions, and #daligolf, named for the courses around Dali in Yunnan province, has 342,300. Most posts under both show women in golf outfits on scenic courses. The apparel market is the real market In China, golf apparel is a fast-growing business — the market was worth $373 million in 2024 and is forecast to grow 8.2% annually through 2030 — and much of it takes its design cues from South Korean golfwear. Western golfers rarely know Biem.L.Fdlkk (比音勒芬), which Chinese trade media often call the country’s leading golf apparel company. The Shenzhen-listed group reported 2025 revenue of 4.31 billion RMB ($642.3 million) and ended the year with 1,400 stores. Both figures cover all five of its labels. Alongside its golf lines, the group owns the travel wear brand Carnaval de Venise and the menswear houses Kent & Curwen and Cerruti 1881, which it bought in 2023. Descente is another major player. Anta Sports runs the brand in China through a joint venture in which it holds 54%, and Descente sells golf apparel alongside the ski gear it is known for. Its China retail sales passed 10 billion RMB ($1.5 billion) in 2025, according to Chinese media reports on Anta’s results. Anta is also the largest shareholder in Amer Sports, which owns the golf equipment maker Wilson. Malbon, which opened its first China flagship at Shanghai’s Jing An Kerry Centre in March, operates at a smaller scale in China, as do J.Lindeberg and the Nike and Adidas golf lines. Li-Ning 1990, a premium sportswear label that Li-Ning Group launched in November 2021, is trying something imported brands cannot. The label pairs minimalist design with Chinese aesthetics, and its golf line presents the game’s discipline and restraint as expressions of composure and self-mastery drawn from Chinese tradition. That approach targets a gap in the market. China’s high-net-worth consumers want understated sophistication and a cultural identity of their own, and for two decades premium Chinese brands supplied the first by borrowing Western luxury codes. Li-Ning 1990 is borrowing from China instead. Below them sits a tier of smaller labels with followings on rednote, including Falcosia, Loveland, Golffee, Hotsuit Golf, Xtep Golf and Peacebird Golf. Xtep, a Hong Kong-listed sportswear company best known for running shoes, and Peacebird, a Ningbo-based fashion group, already have national store networks. For them, a golf capsule costs little and buys the look. Equipment is where foreign brands lead. Chinese club makers held 15% to 20% of the domestic market by value in 2025, according to estimates from market research firm IndexBox. On Xiaohongshu, the club brands with the largest hashtag counts are all headquartered in the US: Callaway has 2.7 million impressions, Titleist 1.9 million, Ping 1.7 million and TaylorMade 1.3 million. Ownership tells a different story for two of them. Titleist’s parent, Acushnet, is majority-owned by South Korea’s Fila Holdings. A group led by the South Korean private equity firm Centroid Investment Partners has owned TaylorMade since 2021 and is now looking to sell it. Acushnet and Callaway both operate their own trading subsidiaries in China. Honma is the clearest case of Chinese ownership. Chinese businessman Liu Jianguo (刘建国) bought the Japanese club maker in 2010 and listed it in Hong Kong in 2016. Its gold-plated clubs are status objects as much as equipment, which suits a market of occasional players. Of the 4.06 million people who played on Chinese courses in 2024, about 722,000 were “core” golfers, according to the China Golf Association. Physical retail is catching up with the online interest. Ping opened its first brand experience store, Ping House, on Shanghai’s West Bund in Spring 2026. The store pairs club fitting and simulator bays with a shop. Keypote’s Shenzhen pop-up is a smaller bet. The brand already sells in China through Tmall, rednote and golf-club pro shops, and the pop-up will show whether its online following turns into sales in a mall. Women remain a minority on China’s courses, but they account for much of golf’s content on Xiaohongshu, and more are taking up the game indoors. For apparel brands, that audience of new and would-be players is a larger market than the country’s 722,000 core golfers.

In China, golf is becoming Gen Z and female

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In China, golf is becoming Gen Z and female

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