Аннотация
Purpose: To assess whether State aid and European Union funds strengthened the sustainable-development potential of Polish golf clubs in 2008–2024. Methodology: The study combines 337 State-aid records for 27 beneficiaries (PLN 17.91 million) with 25 EU-funded projects (PLN 30.82 million). Descriptive statistics, HHI, correlations, three exploratory annual OLS models with Newey-West HAC(1) standard errors and specification diagnostics, and an original Composite Sustainable Development Potential Index (CSDPI) are applied. Findings: State aid was not significantly associated with total registered golfers or the female share after controlling for trend and COVID-19. A negative coefficient for the junior share is exploratory, while the female-share equation fails specification tests. State aid was unequally distributed across beneficiaries, while correlations between total support and the non-economic CSDPI component are treated as descriptive because of part-whole dependence and zero inflation. Implications: Public programmes should link funding to measurable social, environmental and innovation outcomes. The CSDPI is a transparent screening tool, but it measures support-based potential rather than achieved sustainability.