GolfStinks

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How Many Female Golfers Are There Anyway?

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Female golfers
Are women few and far between on the golf course?

In the spirit of Mother’s Day, I began looking into some statistics regarding female golfers.  I’m not really sure how I connected the two though.  My mother doesn’t golf.  Neither do my sisters.

Although growing up, I remember my mother owning a set of clubs, but I never actually saw her use them.  Much like my father, I think she gave the game a try only to find that it wasn’t for her.  But nevertheless, I somehow connected Mother’s Day to golf anyway.

Did you know, depending upon where you look and what stats you find, it’s reported that anywhere between 20-25% of amateur golfers are women?  So one out of every four or five golfers out on the course are female?  I don’t know about you, but those numbers seem a bit inflated to me.  I don’t know why they would be inflated because I don’t think there’s any reason to inflate them.  But either way, it seems a little high to me.

See, the thing is, I use my own experiences to compare to these numbers.  On the small scale of my personal experience, I have played golf exactly one time so far this season.  And in that one round, I saw one female golfer out on the course.  She was in a threesome, two groups behind me.  Certainly not anywhere near the 20-25% claimed.

But that’s only one round.  So it’s not fair to judge off of that.  But it seems like this situation occurs anywhere I play.  It’s very rare that I see women out on the golf course anywhere or anytime I play.  I can count on one hand how many times I’ve been paired up with women when I’ve shown up to the course with less than a foursome.  As a matter of fact, I can think of only three times off the top of my head – all three times I showed up as a twosome, and two of those three we were paired up with a husband and wife.  Only once were we paired up with two women.

What’s my point?  I have no idea.  It’s just a stat I found to seem inflated for some reason.  As mentioned, none of the women in my family are golfers, and I have no female friends who have done any more than try the sport once or twice and never took it any further.

But I guess now that I’ve seen it and used my golf experiences for comparison, it does dishearten me a bit.  What I mean is, one of the great things about golf is that it’s a sport that can be played pretty much equally by men and women.  Sure, for the most part, men hit the ball farther.  But that’s only one facet of the game, and certainly not always an important one.  Otherwise, there isn’t a whole lot of difference between male and female golfers.  There’s still a technique and a certain level of discipline and judgment required to play the game – and those things have nothing to do with physical strength or how far you can hit the ball.

I, for one, would like to see more women out on the golf course.  I would like to see the 20-25% as stated out there.  Heck, I’d like it to be higher!  Why not?  As I stated earlier, this sport has little to do with physical strength and much more to do with things that make the playing field much more level between men and women.  So I think the real issue here is, why is it that women only represent 20-25% of golfers and not closer to 50%?  Maybe that’s something I should look further into…

Swing ’til you’re happy!

First Time On The Golf Course

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Photo by Chris Chirico
Photo by Chris Chirico

A few months ago, late last golf season, I wrote about teaching the game to my oldest son. He purchased his own clubs with his birthday money and we hit the range a few times to get some work in before he hit an actual course. Unfortunately, there just wasn’t enough time left in last year’s golf season to ever make it out.So we hit the range a few more times, went to the indoor facility, and worked on our swings over the winter in anticipation of getting out on a course next season. Well, a few days ago, the time finally came.

However, I wondered where and when I was going to take him. Knowing his skill level, it didn’t seem like a great idea to take him out on a weekend morning where we were going to slow down everyone around us. Also, taking him to play 18 on a course with a few 500 yard holes didn’t seem wise yet either. I really wanted to avoid a par-3 course because I wanted him to have some variety on the holes and keep him from getting bored with the game. Then it came to me – an executive course! It’s perfect! I have one right in town. It’s nine holes, none longer than 290 yards but much more variety than a par-3 course. But now the question is, when do we go? Again, I’m trying to avoid slowing down all the golfers around us.

Fortunately, he’s not only a pretty good athlete, he’s also a pretty good student. So after receiving honors at school for the second time this year, I used that to reward him with a day off during the week and a round of golf. His mother wasn’t too happy about him missing a day of school for golf, but I explained that I’m taking him out no matter what. I told her the choices were either we golf or go to the “gentleman’s club.” OK, before anyone freaks out, that’s just a joke. So Friday morning around 11:00, we teed off for the first time.

Photo by Chris Chirico
Photo by Chris Chirico

His opening drive, of course, slices directly into the parallel fairway. We laugh it off and I tell him not to let it bother him – I promised he’ll get to see me do that a few times today also. And I delivered on my promise.

It was amazing to see him progress from hole #1 to hole #9. It was like he was improving right before my eyes. By the time we hit the seventh, his slice was almost gone! There wasn’t much distance to his shots, but they were pretty straight for the most part. His putting left something to be desired, but there’s plenty of time to work on that.

As the round went on, I made sure to teach him not only the rules of the game, but the unwritten rules of etiquette as well. Not wanting to overwhelm him, I tried to fill him in on as we moved along. Simple things like staying quiet during someones swing, not stepping in someones line, etc…

By the end of the round it was clear this is another sport at which, if he sticks with it, he will excel also. Obviously, I gave him some mulligans and didn’t count a drop here and there. But nevertheless his final score, not that it matters, wasn’t too bad. He even managed to beat me on the eighth hole!

The best part about seeing him play, for me anyway, was that he never took it too serious. He didn’t get upset with himself after a bad shot and he didn’t let a bad shot affect his next one. He smiled and laughed throughout the round. He played the game exactly as you would expect a kid to play it, while still trying to do well. As a matter of fact, the most serious I saw him the entire day was when I let him drive the cart for two holes!

We wrapped the day up by talking about the round over a large pizza and a few sodas. We both looked forward to playing again and will certainly do so for, hopefully, many more summers to come. Although, I did let him know, I’m not always going to be easy on him. Mulligans, believe it or not, aren’t an actual part of the game.

Truth is though, I’m going to have to be hard on him to keep him from beating me soon. But something tells me there’s not much I’m going to be able to do about that.

The Golf Channel’s Newest Offering is Really Nothing New

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Should Donald Trump have his own golf show? (photo by Michael Vadon / CC BY-SA 3.0)
Should Donald Trump have his own golf show? (photo by
Michael Vadon / CC BY-SA 2.0)

It can be argued in many different ways, but the simple fact is, golf is NOT a growing sport. The statistics show it. Even though there are currently about 450 more courses in the U.S. than existed in the year 2000, over the past several years, more courses have closed than opened. What’s more alarming is, despite these additional 450 courses, fewer rounds are being played every year.

According to reports from the National Golf Foundation, 2009 marked the fourth consecutive year in which total rounds of golf decreased from the previous year. As a matter of fact, it was the eighth year out of the past nine in which a decrease was shown. In 2000, roughly 518.4 million rounds of golf were played in the U.S. But by 2009, that number had dropped to 481.5. That’s almost 37 million fewer rounds (a little over 7%) per year. So where is this growth?

Yeah, you can blame some of it on the economy. But that’s really only that past two years. What about the seven years previous? That is another topic which can be debated. But I have my opinions – several of them (greens fees continuing to rise, cost of equipment, etc…). But right at the top of the list is simply the old golf stereotype – it’s a rich man’s game. For too many golfers in the new generation, as well as your average weekend hack, this decreases their overall interest. They see the game as too expensive and too serious. What they don’t see, and are sometimes never introduced to, is simply the fun of the game. But what is the golf industry in general doing to fix this? Apparently, nothing.

Example, The Golf Channel’s latest offering – Donald Trump’s Fabulous World of Golf. In a time where interest in the sport continues to decrease, the belief in the stereotype continues to rise, the biggest star in the game has lost some of his shine, golf courses are closing and people aren’t playing because they can’t afford to play…The Golf Channel gives us…Donald Trump.

As if we haven’t seen enough already, this show gives us more celebrities, more excess and more outrageously priced and/or private courses. Yeah, just what the sport needs right now. Fuel the stereotype why don’t ya? Do the good people at The Golf Channel think this is helping? Are they in the dark and don’t understand this is not what the sport needs? Maybe they don’t care and they’re just hoping for ratings.

Speaking of ratings, one of the funniest things I had seen and heard was on a promo video on the show’s website. If you can find it, there was a clip of The Donald sarcastically stating this show was going to raise The Golf Channel’s ratings. Isn’t that great? Even The Donald knows this channel needs help!

See, we’ve said it before, and we’ll continue to say it. This sport needs a shot in the arm. It needs a change. It needs to make itself relate to the average guy and girl who play the sport for no reason other than the fun of the game. It does NOT need more celebrities. It does NOT need to promote more private courses. It does NOT need to promote more rich guys playing the game in a place 99.9% of us (if not more) will never see.

As entertaining as I occasionally find him to be….the sport does NOT need Donald Trump right now.

Teaching Golf to the Next Generation

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It's on us to teach golf to youngsters...
Teaching golf shouldn’t only be about scoring low…

I don’t know about you, but I hate that guy who lives vicariously through his kid. You know the guy…he’s relentlessly pushing his kid to do something that he never did or never could do back when he had his chance. He played baseball in high school so his kid has no choice but to play also. And not just play, but play better than he did. The kid could throw a two-hit shutout and strike out fifteen batters, but all his father can say to him is, “What happened? How did you give up those two hits?”

This is the type of parent who is convinced that his son, if pushed hard enough, is the second coming of Cy Young. He’s the type of guy who helps you to understand why there are fights between little league coaches and parents. You just want to say to him “Hey buddy, you’re kid’s not the next Ted Williams. But he’s going to be the next Ted Bundy if you don’t let up on him a little!”

Being a big sports fan myself, I was excited when my boys started showing interest in competitive sports. We started with basketball, moved on to football, they both seemed to have ignored baseball for some reason, and are now back to basketball, at which they both seem to excel. I don’t push them hard and I don’t expect perfection. But I do expect them to try hard, listen to their coaches and show good sportsmanship. I keep in mind they are kids, and I let them be kids. And now my oldest (11 years) has shown an interest in golf.

For most of my life I lived within a couple minutes of a golf course, but I was never very interested in the game. It may have been because my father didn’t play. It may have been because I was interested in faster-paced, contact sports and golf was just too slow. Whatever the reason, golf just didn’t interest me. It wasn’t until I was in my mid- to late-twenties that my golf-playing buddies finally convinced me to give the game a chance, and I’m glad they did. I only wish I had started sooner. So a few months before his eleventh birthday, my oldest son was telling friends and family he wanted money in lieu of presents. He was planning on using the money to purchase his own set of golf clubs….which he did late in the summer.

It was a bit too late in the golf season here in the northeast to give him enough practice time to get him out on a course right away. But that didn’t deter my excitement, or his. We have spent plenty of time just working on his swing. We’ve spent a good amount of time at the local driving range. I’m sure by now he’s sick of hearing me tell him everything he’s doing wrong. But I try to explain to him there are so many things involved in a swing that so many things can go wrong. He gets frustrated because he is pretty athletic and he expects to get it right. But at the same time, he understands that it takes a lot of practice. I’m proud of him because, at this age, I know how I would have reacted at this point – I would have dropped the clubs and picked up a basketball. But to his credit, he hasn’t done that. He’s trying and he’s trying hard.

With the off-season just about upon us, I’m hoping to keep his interest throughout until the spring comes around again. There’s a pretty nice indoor facility where my buddies and I will head a couple times throughout the winter. I’m looking forward to taking him there and he’s looking forward to going. Granted, I had to mention the several golf simulators in the facility…but like I said, I want him to hold interest until the spring. If it takes a giant video game to help do that, then so be it.

I’m glad to see him starting early. I’m glad to see him trying hard. But most of all, I’m glad that he’s showing the interest to begin with. I’m happy to watch him hit a perfectly straight shot, and even happier to see his smile afterward. And in a strange way, I’m glad to see his reaction when he screws up his next one. It tells me that he’s taking it seriously and he’s serious about getting it right.

But I’ll tell you one thing I’m not too happy about…at this early start, one day soon he’s going kick my butt up and down the fairway. Then maybe I’ll wish he stuck to the other sports!

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