Dear R&A
I think it is a lovely gesture that the R&A along with multiple other National Golf Associations have decided to create a Women’s Golf Charter. (For those of you who don’t know anything about this check out: CLICK HERE )
It’s unfortunate that the associations I didn’t see included were any of the National Golf Course Owners Associations from around the world. For myself and many other golf courses owners and operators around the world, it re-enforces the disconnect that golf course owners and operators feel from the R&A and other National Golf Associations. There isn’t a golf course owner I know (and I know quite a few) that would turn away woman golfers (except of course those men’s only private clubs of which the UK famously seems to have).
I’m not really sure what the R&A really hopes to accomplish with this charter. By really accomplish I mean actually getting more women into the game of golf. To be honest I don’t believe there is anything that the R&A or any of the other National Golf Association can effectively do to grow golf with woman or anyone else without buy-in from golf course operators and owners. You see the point you continue to miss is that without the owners, everything you do is just pomp and posture. The real work for growing the game happens at local golf courses at the grass roots level. It doesn’t happen in the board rooms of your national associations.
If you want to grow golf and add more female golfers then you need to recognize the real issues that actually exist in this industry. I use the word industry because in reality over 80% (and I would actually gamble it’s more like 95%) of the golf courses that exist in the world exist for the purpose of making a profit. Golf courses that are interested in making a profit will take in as many golfers as they can (female, male, different nationalities, different cultures…). They are trying to build their businesses and stay in business. We need bodies on the golf course to survive.
Unfortunately, we have also seen that there are some really core issues in the industry to growing the game. In Ontario, Canada there are over 800 golf courses. During an “on the ground” survey of over 190 golf courses of all different types and sizes it was discovered by the provincial golf association that only 41% of the golf courses had ANY sort of Learn to Golf program and only 46% had ANY sort of junior program. That means that if someone is interested in trying out the game they have a 50/50 chance that the golf course close to them teaches golf. Our provincial golf association was quite shocked at these findings and is very slowly working to find solutions to deal with this core issue. Unfortunately, getting board approval for initiatives like these when board members do not have a vested interest in the business of golf is very difficult. I know many people who have gone through the PGA courses, but the focus and emphasis are not on creating new PGA’s to grow the game, but instead on how to run a Pro Shop and sell merchandise. That is contributing to a huge deficiency of grass roots, beginner teachers to the golf industry. At the same time organizations that are trying to create the needed teachers like the Golf Teachers Federation get snubbed by the National Golf Associations in favour of the PGA. Shouldn’t we be encouraging as much golf teaching as possible?
I find it interesting that National Golf Associations want to make golf more inclusive and grow the game yet they don’t include Golf Course Owners on their boards of directors (At least in Canada but I am guessing around the world). As an industry we get tired of hearing our National Golf Associations spending time and money on things like creating Charters for Including Women and Inclusiveness Policies when we as a golf course industry are already searching for more golfers regardless of a person’s gender, ethnic background or nationality.
I realize that I am just a small, mom and pop golf course in rural Canada, but I speak for many of us when I say that I hope you someday will realize the real issues our industry faces and you will use your prestige and prominence to help make real change.
Jason Harris
Small Mom and Pop Golf Course Operator in Rural Canada
R&A Response:
Dear Jason,
Thank you for your email and expressing your view. The Golf Course Owners Association were invited to attend the launch of the Women in Golf Charter. The purpose of the Charter is to galvanise the whole of the golf industry to play their part and make a commitment to change by determining their own individual actions and strategies. In doing so, they will hopefully be committing to actions that are realistic to achieve within their own individual context and geographic location and effect real change, as you express in your email.
It would be a pleasure to see a commitment from Orr Lake Golf Club in respect of a statement of intent and commitments to be made and actioned and we would share this on our website alongside all the other organisations that are becoming signatories. We fully recognise that Golf Clubs have a vital role, which indeed could be described as a turn-key role, in changing culture and having a huge impact in encouraging wider participation and supporting more women working and volunteering in golf. This is why we will continue to support national associations, where we can, to encourage golf clubs to commit to the Women in Golf Charter.
Kind regards
Jackie
Editor’s note: Since no last name was provided in the response letter, we believe the writer of the R&A letter is Jackie Davidson, Assistant Director – Golf Development at The R&A.
Final Response:
Hi Jackie,
Thank you for taking the time to write back. It’s great that the Owners Association was invited to attend. If they didn’t attend it might be important at some point in the future for the R&A to consider why they didn’t attend and what the R&A and other National Golf Associations need to do to engage the Owners of Golf Courses to make a real difference at the grass roots level where real change occurs.
I understand the purpose of the charter. Unfortunately, the charter just tells golf course owners that the R&A and other National Golf Associations may understand the game of golf but they still don’t understand the golf industry.
Orr Lake Golf Club is really not interested in providing a statement of intent and commitments. Instead we (as a small rural golf course) started up Ladies Learn to Golf Clinics 7 years ago. Last year we provided Learn to Golf Clinics to over 185 Ladies and we are setting up to beat that number this year. We also have 2 Ladies Leagues with over 80 Ladies in total. We offer 2 mixed Seniors Leagues with over 140 people, 40% of which are women. We have a female golf instructor and 3 years ago redid our Ladies Washrooms both in the clubhouse and on the course to make them more desirable for women. We did all this as a $30 green fee, mom and pop golf course with only 18,000 rounds a year. We did this not because of a Charter but because we recognized that in order to build our business further we needed to create more customers and Ladies were our greatest opportunity.
It’s wonderful that you recognize that golf course owners and operators have a vital role in the golf industry. Unfortunately recognizing this in writing and demonstrating this in practice are quite different. If the R&A and other National Golf Associations don’t actually have a significant number of golf course owners and operators on their boards to provide guidance on how to actually be effective in the golf industry, what is the point in verbally recognizing that golf courses have a vital role?
I apologize for my rambling but as a golf course owner who, through previous employment 15 years ago; personally, visited and talked to over 500 golf courses in Ontario and discussed the issues facing golf courses; was previously on the Advisory Board for our own National Golf Course Owners Association; was a previous board member of our Provincial Golf Association and who has been very actively trying to get golf course owners to become more engaged in Growing the Game. I find activities like this charter to very disappointing. Great intentions but unfortunately what I, and many other golf course owners view as a waste of time, money and resources that could be used to affect real change in growing the game of golf.
I hope that at some point organizations like the R&A and other National Golf Associations will do a better job of engaging either the Golf Course Owners Associations or Golf Course owners themselves before they engage in new initiatives like this. You will find that we are very interested in helping to provide real insight into practices that will create real change.
Sincerely (and with the best of intentions trying to grow our industry)
Jason Harris
Orr Lake Golf Club
