Supporting #womensgolfday today, our charity hopes all of our girl and women golfers can enjoy the best possible season in 2021. In the year ahead we want you to enjoy the game safely, as our team supports girls in schools, communities, clubs and leadership projects to make golf a more inclusive game.
The Golf Foundation introduces children to golf, from all backgrounds, creating golfers, and a key element of this mission is our continued focus on girls’ golf. Our team is following closely its stated pledge as a signatory of The R&A Women in Golf Charter, The R&A being the charity’s strongest supporter.
We are delighted to work with England Golf again on the Girls Golf Rocks programme this summer. Led by PGA-qualified coaches, Girls Golf Rocks is designed to promote the game as a fun and friendly experience for young girls new to the sport, and nearly 200 clubs spread over 35 counties are taking part in 2021. In 2019, 166 girl ambassadors were trained to support the sessions and ensured it was a highly successful campaign.
Our team is also looking forward to supporting more organised girls’ junior activity at our schools and golf clubs safely this season as Covid-19 restrictions continue to ease. Our ‘HSBC Golf Roots’ programme’s results pre-pandemic included a 48% increase in the number of girls visiting a golf club; the generation of 3,422 new affiliated golf club junior members, including 23% girls; while around 30% of GolfSixes League players were girls. Similar excitement is expected for GolfSixes League this year, reaching 400 golf clubs, with the aim to help promote golf as a fun, safe and inclusive game to new boy and girl players.
In our thriving national schools’ programme our charity requests that for the School Games, 50% of school teams are girls. Other areas of our work have focused on providing leadership training, and our recent online National Girls Leadership Programme attracted dynamic speakers including Sky Sports’ Inci Mehmet, PGA Trainee Professional and LET Access Series player Nicola Bennett, Fame Tate, former LET player and now owner of Stanedge Golf Club, and more.
This programme is part of a wider retention philosophy for the Golf Foundation which seeks to keep more girls in the sport and offer more girls genuine pathways in personal development as they move into adulthood.
Two of our Golf Foundation Ambassadors, Ladies European Tour stars Meghan MacLaren and Felicity Johnson, have also been great friends to this charity as we grow awareness and seek to inspire young players (and more news on a new female ambassador soon).
While we feel this work is progressive, we are very much aware that the game needs to continue to be more inclusive and appealing to new female players, and that’s why today’s #womensgolfday and similar awareness opportunities are worth your support!
See more on our work in girls’ golf here.
