How Max Homa And Coterie Exposed The Blind Spot In Women’s Golf

Golf and sports advertising has taken a bit of a bashing in recent months, particularly from a female perspective. I don't need to elaborate on the Callaway x Good Good collaboration or the Sydney Sweeney sports betting ad; both generated significant reactions across social media. Luckily, I'm not here to talk about bad adverts. I'm here to talk about good ones, and in particular how a diaper brand advertising in a predominantly male golf magazine might offer some lessons for the future of advertising in women's golf.

In case you missed it, last month Coterie became the first-ever premium baby-care brand to advertise on the back cover of Golf Digest magazine. A diaper brand targeting a readership that is more than 75% male, with 90% of its customers being women, might seem a little odd, but a very important message came with it. When it comes to parenting, mums carry 71% of the mental load.

To highlight this unequal mental load of parenting and encourage fathers to take a more active role in the planning and responsibilities of family life, they also partnered with PGA Tour professional Max Homa. Rather than simply promoting its products, Coterie used golf and Homa's own experiences of fatherhood to start a wider conversation, taking its message directly to an audience it had previously done little to target. Homa’s Instagram post has been viewed over 653,000 times to date.

Quite apart from it being a monumental moment in golf advertising, it was seriously refreshing to see a brand thinking outside the box and talking to dads through the medium of golf. The overall strength of the campaign came from recognising that golfers are not defined solely by the sport they play. If this sort of marketing can happen in the men’s golf world, it makes you wonder whether brands are missing a trick when it comes to advertising in women’s golf.

When we look at women’s golf, we often see the same product categories advertised. While fashion and beauty brands have become important supporters of women's golf, focusing too narrowly on those categories risks overlooking the breadth of influence female golfers have as consumers and decision-makers. If you need convincing, Nielsen reported women are expected to control 75% of household purchasing decisions by 2028 – think insurance, travel, cars.

It’s also worth remembering that women and girls are the fastest-growing segment in golf; using the US as an example, more than 8 million women and girls now play on-course golf, a 46% increase since 2019. The rapid growth of women and girls in golf has fundamentally changed the makeup of the market, but it is less clear whether the way brands engage with it has evolved at the same pace.

Beyond female golfers, we also need to consider the fans of women’s golf. Although not female-specific, research from The R&A in 2023 showed that 77% of avid women’s golf fans said they were responsible for most financial household spending decisions. Amongst these avid fans, 70% felt more positively towards brands that sponsor women’s sport and 63% said they would actively purchase and/or use brands that support women’s sport over ones that do not.

In the wider women’s sport space, there is also solid evidence as to why brands might want to target the women’s golf market and, like Coterie, rethink their approach. Consumer research from Women’s Sport Trust in July 2025 revealed that 52% of UK adults believe brands should use their women’s sport sponsorships to drive positive social change, not just promote products. Whilst 30% of consumers think more favourably of companies or brands that support women’s sport through sponsorship (vs 20% for men’s sport).

Taken together, this builds a picture of the women’s golf market open to brands. Women's golf offers access to an audience with significant purchasing power, a positive attitude towards brands that support women's sport and an expectation that those partnerships stand for something beyond the product.

And this is all before taking the professionals into consideration. Coterie's partnership with Homa shows how athletes can use their profile and personal experiences to help brands communicate a wider message. There are similar opportunities in women's golf.

A growing number of female professionals, like Charley Hull and Nelly Korda, are building personal brands that extend beyond their performances on the course, sharing more of their personalities, interests and lives with fans. That creates opportunities for brands to develop partnerships that feel more personal, relatable and relevant to audiences. It could also help athletes achieve the impact many are seeking; research commissioned by UK Sport found that 72% of elite female athletes want to make an impact within society, yet only 39% feel they know how.

So what could and should advertising in women's golf look like? It starts by recognising the full potential of the people involved, from consumers and fans to the professionals themselves.

The Coterie and Max Homa partnership shows that audiences connect with authenticity. Perhaps it's time for brands to think more boldly about who female golfers are and what really matters to them. Rather than focusing solely on products, brands should be thinking more creatively about the experiences, interests and issues that matter to the people they are trying to reach. Because if I haven't convinced you yet, women's golf has the power to drive social change, and investing in it makes commercial sense.