One Year After Calling Out Golf’s Casual Sexism, I’m Finally Seeing The Tide Turn

A year ago, I wrote about the casual sexism that women encounter on the golf course. Not the big, headline-grabbing incidents, but the throwaway comments, assumptions and unsolicited advice that can make you feel, even for a moment, that you are somehow a guest in a game you have every right to play.

So, a year on, I wanted to know: has anything changed? Perhaps the more interesting question is whether we are seeing the beginning of a much bigger shift within the game.

Talking to women who play golf regularly, the overwhelming feeling is that the worst casual sexism behaviour is becoming less common. It hasn't disappeared, but increasingly it feels like an older way of thinking that is being challenged by a younger, more diverse generation of golfers coming through.

Are We Playing A Generation Game?

When it comes to issues with men, there does seem to be a pattern. The majority of the stories I hear involve men in their 60s and beyond. Part of me wonders whether we really are only one generation away from significant change.

Russ Chrystie, one half of the entertaining online duo “Couple a Golfers”, agrees that age plays a part. He thinks it will be hard to change the views of the older crowd and believes women need to be prepared to call out behaviour when they see it.

His argument is simple: it is much easier for one man to make an inappropriate comment to one woman than it is to make the same comment in front of a group of women who won't tolerate it. There is strength in numbers, and women are finding that strength and their tribes with so many communities of female golfers forming.

Beth Roberts, the other half of the duo, experienced dismissive behaviour from an older caddie when she played in a pro-am recently. The caddies didn’t have any time for her or her female pro on the team and went above and beyond to belittle them. They got their comeuppance, but it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.

The army of young golfers is growing in the background and becoming impossible to ignore. They are playing competitively, playing socially, taking up space on driving ranges, entering club competitions and, importantly, expecting to be treated as golfers rather than as women who happen to play golf. I suspect some of the dinosaurs won't know what hit them. For now, comments are fewer but still experienced on a daily basis and often put new golfers off.

Strength In Numbers

There are plenty of moments where golf feels lonely when you’re a solo woman. Walking into male-dominated clubhouses can be extremely intimidating - I know, I do this on a daily basis.

Some men deem it ok to be derogatory towards women just because they’ve paid their membership fees. Some women also feel the need to display their tail feathers and talk down to newer golfers, so this isn’t necessarily just a gender issue, but more of a traditional entitled members issue.

Throughout my career as a female coach I’ve got used to men being utterly gobsmacked that I even play golf let alone teach it. I’ve also come to expect such derogatory comments and block much of this noise out, though I have far more guts to call men out than I used to.

Even recently, I’ve had unnecessary banter from a group of my pupils’ golfing mates; they asked if he was paying me for my time and told him to “Stay out of the bunkers with her.” Let’s just say I choose where I coach carefully.

Staff at clubs often experience extreme levels of sexism. There have been many cases with cart staff in the USA reporting inappropriate behaviour from members and their guests. Peyton Stover, from Long Beach, worked at the Old Ranch Country Club in Seal Beach in Orange County for two years, where she provided drinks to golfers.

As reported by the Daily Mail, Stover says they would often grope her and ask her to lift up her shirt. Her suit alleges that after she complained to her supervisor and club manager, they defended the behaviour on the grounds that the golfers had paid a premium to become members of the club.

This behaviour leaves a huge imprint on these young women and their ability to trust men. Just because you pay membership never gives you the right to belittle women in this way. I often wonder what their wives would think - would they realise what a “boys club” some golf club environments are?

Recently at a friend's fairly modern golf club, the General Manager stood up and thanked all the staff after Lady Captain's Day, but then singled out a young woman working behind the bar and went on to say that if he were 20 years younger he’d be in the cellar with her. Plenty of men in the bar erupted in laughter.

The girl in question was visibly upset, a sentiment echoed by many of the women who are members. Why is it ok to make these kinds of comments in this day and age? Yet I hear them on a daily basis when attending golf clubs all over the country.

Patronising Assumptions On The Course

Liz Harwood experienced a textbook example of the behaviour that needs to disappear. Playing in a corporate event at The Grove, the celebrity in her group immediately told her to keep her head down and proceeded to coach her for seven holes without knowing her capability, even moving her ball. When he eventually asked if she minded him "helping," Liz’s response was brilliantly clear: he could carry on if it made him feel better, but she wasn't listening or changing her game.

Beyond that specific interaction, the behaviour remains insidious. Liz also remembers asking a male friend to play a mixed knockout, only for him to decline because he couldn't face the flak and innuendo from his male friends, proving how powerful club culture can be when simply playing golf with a woman is seen as a threat to social standing.

Ann Osman has found a different solution: refusing to take any nonsense. Playing at a small UK club full of "old guys and chauvinists," she rarely has an issue because everyone knows she is blunt and won't tolerate disrespect. Recalling a solo golf holiday where a male partner crossed the line, she made her disdain abundantly clear by the end of the round, refusing to shake his hand. "I think we should all be more Ann," I was told - and perhaps we should.

Broadcaster Naga Munchetty takes a similar no-nonsense approach. Not exactly someone who sits quietly and accepts being patronised, Munchetty rarely encounters overtly sexist comments. Interestingly, she finds some of her biggest frustrations actually come from other women at golf clubs rather than men. It’s a reminder that golf's old hierarchies and attitudes don't belong exclusively to men, and sometimes the barriers women face are perpetuated by the very people who fought their way through them.

Calling Out Mate Behaviour

But there is another group of people who need to step up too: the men who hear this kind of stuff and say nothing.

One of the most telling comments came from a woman who has played golf for 50 years. She said she regularly hears from her husband about disparaging comments made by men in their groups. When she asked him what he said in response, she got the proverbial deer-in-the-headlights look.

That matters, because silence can be mistaken for agreement. If the men who aren't sexist challenged their friends when they crossed the line, rather than laughing along or saying nothing, the culture would change much faster. We don't need every man to become an activist. We just need more of them to say: "That's not OK."

Teeing Up Equality

Inequality often stretches beyond interpersonal comments into everyday club operations. One contributor on the Facebook group Women Who Golf noted: "In a club competition recently, men over 60 were allowed to move forward to a shorter tee, while groups of women over 60 had no equivalent option."

When she mentioned it afterwards, a member of staff simply said: "I never thought of it like that." That sentence may be more encouraging than it sounds - sometimes change begins when somebody makes you see something you had simply never considered. Like the mixing up of ability with distance.

The same applies to the golf course itself. Not only should women be enjoying the same experience playing a hole, the tee boxes should have as much care taken over their condition. Women tell me about forward tees that are poorly maintained, uneven, or left on hardpan, while other teeing areas are looked after much better. Perhaps more men would notice if they played from them.

There are also the familiar complaints about women's competitions being pushed into less desirable times because, heaven forbid, the men might have to give up a Saturday morning. Yet another woman offered a wonderfully simple counterexample: her New York club allows its women's day to take place on a Saturday morning at 10am. It works. Women play. Women compete. Women enjoy the club.

The Future Of Golf

And that is ultimately what this is about. There is no shortage of wonderful men in golf; almost every woman I spoke to was quick to say that 95% of the men she is paired with are lovely and that courses are generally becoming kinder to women.

But good intentions aren't enough if the structures and assumptions around them haven't caught up.

The most encouraging thing I hear is that women are no longer willing to quietly accept the old rules. Young women are taking up golf in huge numbers. They are less apologetic about being there, expecting to play from the tee that suits their game, expecting decent facilities, and expecting to be listened to.

That doesn't mean sexism will suddenly disappear when the older generation leaves the game. Every generation has its problems, and young golfers are not magically immune to prejudice. But culture changes when the people coming through have different expectations.

The future of golf isn't simply more women playing it. It is women becoming an ordinary, unremarkable part of every aspect of the game: women in fourballs, on boards, running competitions, setting handicaps, designing courses, and taking up space on the range without having their swing analysed by a stranger.

Maybe the tide is beginning to turn. The comments haven't disappeared, and the old attitudes haven't vanished. But something has changed. The women coming through aren't waiting for permission. They're already here owning that first tee. That is the golf I'm seeing. Finally, I think it's the future.