In 2010 adult women barely comprised 21 percent of the total golf population within the United States according to a National Golf Foundation Survey. This is a sharp decline from the a decade earlier when 1.4 million more adult women were golfing. What caused 1.4 million women to walk away from this game that I love so very much?
This is the second consecutive post where I find myself addressing the attitude toward women in the world of golf. It is not my intention in blogging to constantly go off on rants in the vain of Gloria Steinem pertinent to the misogyny. That's not who I am. I love golf and I happen to be a girl.
It is very hard for me to dismiss the statistics when I regularly encounter odd treatment simply because I am female. I delight in seeing other ladies out on the golf course, as infrequent as those encounters are becoming. Something needs to change within golf so that my 4.7 million fellow golf loving ladies continue to hit the course with regularity.
Among my female friends that I golf with, I notice two distinct commonalities, one,most are Type A personalities, fearless unbridled go getters and two, they most likely were athletic in their youth and/or continue to be athletic adults. Ladies that are of this psychographic set are going to be a little harder to deter from playing a game that they love. In short, speaking as a lady that has always been athletic and headstrong, I tolerate the idiotic chauvinism because I want to play. Walking away, means giving in and, giving in is condoning the misanthropes. Ideally, I would love the golf world and industry to evolve to be more embracing toward women. It's important to me that my Daughter that I take out on the course regularly and other girls that want to golf, feel welcomed.
You are probably wondering what sent me off on this line of thought, well, last weekend I had a tee time at a county course. Two of our foursome had to cancel and I called the course in advance to advise the course in case they wanted to pair us up with other golfers. I arrived early, as I am neurotically early for everything and realized that the course was fairly empty. I was watching people hit bad tee shots on the Par 3 9th hole; I may have actually seen a Shankopotamus Sunday.There were considerable gaps between the groups making the turn.
When I went into the clubhouse to check in, the Pro that knows me and my friends told me to go out early because things were slow. In fact his precise words were, "Go right up to the first tee box."The starter on the other hand was a guy that I was unfamiliar with and the stupidity began. I alerted him that we were playing as a twosome and that the the Pro told us to head to the first tee box. This knucklehead proceeded to attempt to find a foursome that was MIA to put out in front of us. This production took almost ten minutes,ten minutes that I could have spent playing the first hole which was empty. Why slow down the whole course by putting a foursome in front of a twosome?Oh right, this would be because we were a female twosome and therefore destined to slow down the entire course.
By the fourth hole we were waiting incessantly on the foursome in front of us, a complete waste of time. I accidentally hit into them on the second hole. Finally, on the fifth hole the foursome allowed us to play through and it was happy sailing from there on in. We finished our round in under three and a half hours.
As the week progressed I was mentally able to dismiss this incident after an hour long phone conversation with another female golfer who has had similar experiences. I felt great after this discussion, knowing that I was not alone and that this was a pervasive problem,not something I was imagining. I felt a kinship and I was relieved until yesterday.
There is a golf radio show that I like to phone into occasionally. I find this particular show highly entertaining,it is well produced, informative; the host is riotously funny and outspoken.As an aside, he also provides exceptional play by play coverage for the same radio network. I am a golf geek and appreciate all of the equipment and player related discussions. My friends understand this about me. I believe I have well formed thoughtful opinions. On Monday, I phoned into the show at a Twitter friend's prompting to weigh in on whether Alex Miceli's exchange with Tiger Woods in the pressroom had impacted his play at PGA National.
Yesterday,another regular caller to the show phoned in and advised the host of the show something to the effect of,"The only reason you care what she,(referring to me) has to say is because she's a hot chick." The whole commentary was very mocking as this character mentioned that I give,"dissertations." There are plenty of other regular callers to this show who have intelligent opinions but, I'm a hot chick giving a dissertation? Of course, I am going to have to a tremendous amount to say about something that I am passionate about. If I was uninterested why would I be an audience member of a show that is so niche?
These have been my experiences as a woman golfer the duration of the week thus far, and it's only Wednesday. I have a lesson scheduled Friday morning and will be playing a round this weekend. I might even try to squeeze nine in tomorrow if I can as it's supposed to be 70 degrees here.
