As the industry continues to drive women and girls’ golf participation, the Emerald Isle can report on a growing number of females enjoying the game.


Lisa & Leone Maguire

 

As the industry continues to drive women and girls’ golf participation, the Emerald Isle can report on a growing number of females enjoying the game.

By Lewine Mair

Ireland are doing rather well vis-a-vis the rest of the UK when it comes to the number of women with golf club memberships. Where, in the rest of the UK, the average figure is somewhere between 14 and 15%, the figure for Ireland is 22% - and it is not down to luck.

A lot of it, says Sinead Heraty, the Chief Executive of the ILGU, is about offering each generation what is right for them.

As much as anything, Sinead is proud of the Horizon Experience, a venture which is exclusive to the Irish and seems so eminently sensible that others need to know. The idea behind what is a two-day get-together for promising golfers and their parents is that families should understand precisely what is involved in becoming a globe-trotting professional. Coaches, trainers, psychologists, nutritionists and other experts are to hand to deliver the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

"Everyone’s welcome to attend,” said Sinead. What we do is to give would-be professionals a taste of what women’s golf at that level is all about, which is something they weren’t getting in the past. At the end of the Horizon Experience, they should have a much better idea of whether turning professional makes sense for them".

"They might, for example, think that it’s all rather more demanding than they thought. In which case, they need to know that there are options. For instance, our
‘career amateurs’, as we call them, are given the same opportunity as the would-be professionals to get as good as they can be. It’s all about how far the player herself wants to go…"

Sinead went on to say that whichever route a girl might choose, the ILGU strongly recommend that her first move should be to get an education. "Thankfully, most of them nowadays do."

 

You can read the rest of this article in the latest edition of Women & Golf, on sale from Friday 17 August. Find out more about Irish twins Lisa and Leona Maguire and their move into professional golf, and hear about Curtis Cup star, Maria Dunne.

 

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