We reached out to some of the stars of women’s golf to find out how the Rose Ladies Series has improved their year, and potentially their careers.
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We’re three tournaments into the Rose Ladies Series, and the competition just keeps on getting bigger and bigger.
With a three-day 54 hole final just confirmed and Georgia Hall now added to the line-up, we could talk all day (okay fine, all week) about how brilliant it is for women’s golf.
But, rather than keep banging on about how amazing we think the Series is, we thought we’d ask the players themselves what they think (after all, they’re the ones playing in it).
They tell us how Justin Rose and his team have totally turned around their years and, without any need to exaggerate, made a huge difference to their professional careers as a whole.
Nicola Bennett
Women’s golf in general is still very much falling behind the men’s and Justin Rose is great because he recognised this and realised it had to change. Having such a big player support us means so much and he’s already had a huge impact. I think he almost felt obliged to do something for us as he knew he would be able to make a difference.
The fact that all the women are playing together on one tour just shows how far behind the men we are; for the men there’s the Challenge, Jamega, European Tour - there's a lot of different levels to it. But for us we’re all together, you’ve got world number 25 Charley Hull playing with amateurs and your average golfer.
Ultimately, I would love to play more competitive golf and I know playing on Tour would lead to so many more opportunities centred around golf.
I’m playing in all the events in the Rose Series and I’m so glad that it is happening now because it has given me the opportunity to have a consistent schedule of tournaments to play in. I struggle with tournament golf and this is the perfect time to see what it is that makes me play differently and try and improve.
I think on the whole, if every female player had the same opportunities as the men do, the same consistency and tournaments then naturally everyone would improve and the standard of the women’s game overall would be raised.
Annabel Dimmock
Justin and Kate getting on board has made a lot more people show an interest in us and widen our audience, people are thinking that if Justin is interested then maybe they should be too.
You can see this on social media, it’s created a big buzz and it’s really great.
I hope this is evolving, and we can get a LET event back into the UK like there used to be at the Buckinghamshire. The Ladies European Masters [formerly called the Ladies British Masters] used to be one of the best weeks of the year for all the girls even if they weren’t from the UK. The crowds in the UK are always so brilliant.
All of us have been wanting to get back to playing for so long, the hard bit was just getting the first tournament going.
It was so good that Liz [Young] had such a good relationship with Brokenhurst Manor and she was able to do this. They were obviously amazing in supporting her and helping her start the whole thing off. Nobody wanted to be the first in case we got any backlash and people questioned if we should be doing it.
Liz is an experienced player and she has been around a long time on tour so she knows what she’s doing. She’s done an amazing job, too.
Alice Hewson
Following on from the men’s events in American like the TaylorMade Driving Relief I think Liz just just saw a really good opportunity to host a women’s event. And for Justin Rose to pick it up as well has made it completely snowball.
I really hope it will encourage more male players to support us. For Justin to be the first to step up and invest in women’s golf and acknowledge that he could see the inequality in the game and that women should have the same opportunities as the men do.
I do think it will open up a few doors for us all.
Meghan MacLaren
It’s hard to put into words what it means to us girls. It’s something that we have been talking about for a long time; the need for respect from other sources, especially male golfers. To have someone with the stature of Justin Rose get behind us, well it doesn’t get much bigger than that and we’ve already seen the companies who have got on board as a result.
It's not much that we’ve been asking for, we just want a bit of recognition and it’s that, much more than the extra money, that means so much to us.”
The timing works perfectly for me too as they are almost like a chance to trial a few things and see where I am with the areas I’ve been working on during lockdown. It means I can take a bit of a pressure off and just enjoy it; I know everyone’s in the same boat and feeling the same.
For more information about the Rose Ladies Series visit twitter.com/RoseLadiesGolf.
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