June is Women’s Golf Month: that’s according to American Express’ campaign, in conjuncture with the PGA (Professional Golf Association). Held at thousands of golf facilities nationwide, American Express Women’s Golf Month offers free golf lessons and clinics at partner golf clubs throughout the month of June. This program’s goal is to help promote golf for women, who constitute roughly 20% of all golfers in the US.
But has it worked? According to the PGA and American Express, this program has introduced or re-introduced the game of golf to over 135,000 women from the years 2005 to 2010, about 2.7% of the roughly 5 million of the female golfer population. If you take into consideration normal attrition rates, the number of women who play golf in this country has remained the same today as it was in 1991—roughly 5 million.
Stina Sternberg, Golf Digest Global Golf Director, made an interesting argument as to why programs like the American Express/PGA program mentioned above have not helped increase female participation in “The Female Factor: Lessons we can learn from countries with high percentages of women golfers “ (NGF Dashboard, April 2014). In this article, Ms. Sternberg stressed how US female participation in golf compares poorly to other sports such as tennis (48 percent female participants), skiing (49 percent), billiards (40 percent), and fishing (31 percent). Golf’s female participation numbers are on par with ice hockey, paintball and mixed martial arts.
Compared to other countries, the US female participation is low: Canada (30%), Sweden (33%), Netherlands (33%), Switzerland (36%), Korea (38%) and Germany (39%) all have much higher percentages of active female golfers.
So what gives? Although the current US female golf population consists of roughly 40% beginners, many are not continuing to play after some time. Ms. Sternberg discussed how the other countries’ golf federations have done a better job of growing the game amongst women by removing gender biases within golf facilities; creating national accreditation programs for all golfers; offering nine hole tee times as opposed to only eighteen hole tee times and allowing for more relaxed dress codes.
It was this last point on changing the dress code for women that really struck me. Truly this is one of the reasons I started my company, Vivacity Sportswear www.vivacitysportswear.com.
When I started to play golf a few years back, I could not find anything to wear that met the strict dress codes of many private clubs and did not make me look matronly or worse. Maybe a boxy shirt and long, pleated Bermuda shorts would meet any country club dress code, but the outfit did nothing for my figure or confidence level!
Who designed these outfits anyway? I had a funny feeling that many golf clothes “designers” were men who attempted to reconfigure a typical male golf outfit for a woman. Hate to break it to them but we women are not proportioned as short men!
So I started researching and laying the ground work for my company. As I got to work with my amazing team to design our collection, I envisioned creating a line of fashionable and flattering pieces that could be worn on and off the golf course – comfortable, high quality, easy to wear tops and bottoms that would work with existing pieces in one’s wardrobe.
So far, so good: I feel the Vivacity Sportswear collection is a good move forward in helping to dress women golfers who want to feel comfortable, fashionable and confident on the course so they can play their best and help grow the game of golf.
Now if we can only get more traditional golf courses to shift gears and help make the great game of golf more accessible to women!
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Vivian Sayward is the Founder of Vivacity Sportswear®, a San Diego-based producer of women’s activewear featuring performance fabrics, Swarovski Elements® crystals and the finest craftsmanship from Southern California designers, pattern makers, cutters and sewers. The collection combines sport with haute couture; head-turning silhouettes with everyday comfort; and refined detailing with wicking, anti-microbial fabrics. Every piece is handcrafted in San Diego, and designed to comfortably go from course to office to cocktails.
