8/84Number of holes-in-one American golfers claim to hit each day: 111

Link

2/86Price of a founding membership in the Beijing International Golf Club: $15,000

Beijing International Golf Club

4/87Number of indoor miniature golf courses built in 1986: 35

Lomma Enterprises (Scranton, Pa.)

11/88Average number of golf games Dan Quayle played each week last year: 3

Margaret Carlson, Time (N.Y.C.)

6/88Rounds of golf played in America each year: 400,000,000

National Golf Foundation (Jupiter, Fla.).

11/90Number of public telephones Southwestern Bell has installed this year that can be used while on horseback: 3

Southwestern Bell (St. Louis)

    Number that can be used while seated in a golf cart: 1

Southwestern Bell (St. Louis)

11/90Price of a set of “RN” golf balls from the gift shop at the Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda, California: $6

Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace (Yorba Linda, Calif.)

6/90Number of biodegradable golf tees ordered this year from Peat “T” of Edmonton, Canada: 300,000,000

Peat “T” (Edmonton, Canada)

5/92Number of U.S. universities that offer a marketing degree with a specialty in golf management: 3

Ferris State University (Big Rapids, Mich.)/Mississippi State University (Starkville)/New Mexico State University (Las Cruces)

6/93Average percentage increase in the bounce of a golf ball that has been passed through an electron beam accelerator: 5

Whiteshell Laboratories (Pinawa, Manitoba, Canada)

6/93Price of golf, dinner, beer, and a “cart dance” by a topless female caddie at Fort Worth’s New Orleans Nights club: $620

New Orleans Nights (Fort Worth, Tex.)

2/94Number of golf courses maintained by the Pentagon, worldwide: 234

U.S. Department of Defense

5/95Holes in one that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il reportedly shot in a single round of golf last fall: 5

International Herald Tribune (Bangkok)

5/95Average number of dimples on a golf ball: 415

United States Golf Association (Far Hills, N.J.)

6/95Rank of golf among sports generating the largest number of patents: 1

U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (Arlington, Va.)

6/96Amount the Pentagon will spend this year to equip Andrews Air Force Base with a third golf course: $5,100,000

Office of Representative Peter DeFazio (Washington)

5/97Amount Americans spent last year on golf clubs: $1,370,000,000

National Sporting Goods Association (Mount Prospect, Ill.)

8/01Estimated amount Tiger Woods’s caddie made last year: $1,000,000

Harper’s research

8/02Number of students at Illinois’s Aurora University who have earned academic credit for a course in “business golf”: 29

Aurora University (Aurora, Ill.)

9/02Percentage of U.S. corporate executives who admit to having cheated at golf: 82

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. (White Plains, N.Y.)

12/07Number of golf clubs a Phoenix tourism group is sending to troops overseas as part of its “Operation White Christmas”: 14,000

Greater Phoenix Convention & Visitors Bureau (Phoenix)

7/07Rank of golf and basketball, respectively, among the ten pro sports Americans view as the most “ethical” and “upstanding”: 1, 10

Zogby International (Utica, N.Y.)

9/08Estimated percentage change since last year in U.S. sales of golf carts for purposes other than golf: +215

Tomberlin Automotive Group (Augusta, Ga.)

9/08Percentage change since 1990 in serious golf-cart-related injuries: +132

Lara McKenzie, The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital (Columbus, Ohio)