Examining the beautiful smooth metal golf clubs in PGA Superstore with curved glossy heads displayed in front of him, junior Dylan Liao hesitates to turn over the price tag. Despite the bright red ‘On Sale’ next to them, he knows these sets of clubs would cost thousands to purchase. 

Liao said gear is a main reason for golf’s image as an expensive sport. 

“The clubs can cost, for a full set, $4,000,” Liao said. “You have specific clubs that can cost up to $1,000 for just one club. The balls you use can sometimes go upwards of $5 a ball.”

And Liao is not the only student athlete to be impacted by the high price of playing the sport they love.

“For skiing, the amount of driving has many accompanying costs, such as car maintenance and gas,” said junior Oliver Payne. “In addition, people need to pay for lodging, which can be quite expensive, and for actual ski gear. Some ski resorts have very expensive ski passes, too. Finally, being a part of a ski team costs even more.”  

Similarly, junior Kensie Pao, a former sailor, said sailing equipment is expensive.

“The gear (can be expensive), and also if you don’t have access to a public lake with rentable boats, you have to own your own boat and pay to use the lakes,” Pao said.

These prices, Liao said, can reduce the sport’s accessibility to only those with the means to afford these increased prices.

“It definitely does limit who can play golf and who can’t, but there’s a lot of programs today that offer significant discounts,” Liao said. “For example, PGA is partnered with TaylorMade golf brand, which allows its members who buy like $100 plaque (to) get a 40% discount on all items sold by TaylorMade. But for the most part, people who are not the top 1% (are) just not going to be able to participate in these high-cost sports.” 

Similarly, Pao said the price of sailing can limit who is able to take part in the activity.

“If you don’t have access or the means to be on a competitive sailing team (which) provides you with a boat and lake time, you can’t participate in the sport,” Pao said. “Additionally, regatas cost money to participate in, so that’s another factor”

Payne, who also plays soccer, said in comparison to skiing, she said soccer is less expensive.

“I do think that for skiing, there are very high costs that do limit who can ski and who can’t, but soccer tends to be much more affordable to play,” Payne said.

Payne said these price differences limit diversity in youth sports across the nation.

“I think that the rising prices of youth sports do decrease diversity of athletes in the sports world, because many minority families in the US are unfortunately in a worse financial position, and are therefore unable to put their kids into sports programs,” Payne said.

Liao said these rising prices can also be detrimental to current players and newcomers to the sport.

“I think that people coming into the sport will be less encouraged to keep on playing because of the high cost,” Liao said. “I think that the people (who had played) before will notice the higher cost and also leave the game. Those who can pay for it will be the only ones playing the game.”