The San Diego Union-Tribune - Golf made more appealing through teaching, camaraderie
OC Metro - Women on Course offers networking opportunities in a recreational setting.
The Wall Street Journal - Getting Women Into the Game
Accent on Tampa Bay - Women on Course Luncheon at Flemings

Group puts women on course
Golf made more appealing through teaching, camaraderie

BY TOD LEONARD

VISTA — Francie Murphy was a straight-A student in school and now owns a successful Del Mar public relations business. She speaks several languages and played tennis for 20 years.

When Murphy decided she’d take up golf a few years ago to be able to play with her husband while also improving her networking prospects, she figured she’d pick it up in no time.

“Ha!” Murphy said with a self-effacing laugh. “I couldn’t get it and it was horrible! I was so frustrated, I just quit.”
Murphy might have never come back if not for Women on Course, a national organization that encourages women from all walks to learn golf at their own pace and play a game that can benefit them in myriad ways.

A friend took Murphy to a Women on Course play day three years ago, and though the golf didn’t come any easier, Murphy enjoyed the camaraderie and had plenty of other women to commiserate with -- preferably, over a nice glass of merlot.

“Why shouldn’t we be out there? Why should it be all men?” Murphy said at a recent Women on Course gathering of 50 women at Shadowridge Country Club.
Despite golf’s tough times, Women on Course has been growing at a rapid clip. Founded in Washington, D.C., by Donna Hoffman, a television producer and mother of three, the organization has 1,500 members and 30 city chapters.

The San Diego group meets several times per month for play days dubbed “Nine & Wine” and “Fore & Pour.”

At the Shadowridge meeting, designated as a “signature event” by Women on Course, Callaway hosted an equipment demonstration and the participants – some of whom had only held a golf club a few times -- broke into small groups for individualized instruction. Others played nine holes.

“I want to meet women at my beginning stages,” said first-time participant Lindsey Smith, a real estate professional who had played only a handful of rounds.

“We’re professionals in a male-dominated world. There’s a commonality of being interested in golf, being professionals and being chicks.”

Debbie Keller, a former LPGA Tour pro who wrote a book, “Venus on the Fairway,” which humorously highlights the differences between men and women when they play golf, gave a spirited lecture to the group.

“You need to play this game,” Keller told the women. “In business today, it’s a prerequisite. Companies are sending women to golf camps so they can talk the talk. Taking a client out to lunch at a golf course – that’s a big deal.

“Women on Course isn’t about getting women into competition or leagues,” Keller added. “This is about networking. Women are good at networking. When they like something, they tell everybody.”

According to Murphy and other attendees at Shadowridge, there is much about golf that intimidates even the most confident woman. Murphy said she used to get anxious simply going up to the starter’s window at Torrey Pines. Others say they are uncomfortable because there are so many rules and possible breaches of etiquette.

“When I first started, I was really shy,” said Megan Chawathe, 30, a financial professional who lives in the UTC area and started playing golf to spend time with her fiancée. “Just to get out there, it was like, ‘What will people think if I play bad? What if people laugh at me?’

“With Women on Course, every time I come to events I have friendly faces. That really hooks me and makes me want to get out there.”

Many of the San Diego women, including Chawathe, take lessons from Del Mar resident Patty Atkins, the director of player development for Women on Course who also teaches at the La Jolla Golftec site.

Atkins’ own experience is an inspiration. She grew up playing golf in Omaha, Neb., and is the great niece of Johnny Goodman, the last amateur to win the U.S. Open, in 1933. Atkins chose a career in the medical field as a nurse and later was an award-winning administrator at Sharp Hospital before deciding in her mid-40s that golf was a passion she wanted pursue.

Atkins attended the Golf Academy of America in Carlsbad, eventually quit her job and earned her LPGA teaching credential last year. “I love golf; it’s in my blood,” Atkins said. “I feel most at home on a golf course.”

About 50 percent of Atkins’ clients are women, she said – well above the national Golftec average of 14 percent women. She said she wants to help “bridge” women to their comfort level in the game while also counseling that no one in golf is an overnight success.

Murphy understands that now. She laughed when asked how well she scores.

“I don’t keep score!” she said. “I plan on keeping score someday, but I’m not there yet. Men that I know make fun of me because I don’t keep score. Women don’t, because they know we’re out here to have fun.”

Group ‘Links’ Business with Pleasure
Women on Course offers networking opportunities in a recreational setting.

BY CAITLIN ADAMS

The golf course and clubhouse have traditionally been male-dominated bastions, but more women are discovering the benefits of golf as a means of exercise, socializing and, particularly, business networking.

The sport is still most popular among men, but more clubs are catering to women golfers, with women-friendly amenities, female trainers and staff, specialized equipment, clean and well-maintained ladies’ restrooms on the greens and a variety of women’s merchandise in the shops.

Women on Course – or WOC – is a national organization that coordinates golfing events in more than 20 cities across the country. Four are planned in Orange County this month alone – two in Aliso Viejo and one each in Mission Viejo and Rancho Santa Margarita. WOC members can also request Play Day events in a specific city.

The program was founded by Donna Hoffman, a self-described “golf widow” during her first marriage, who was converted to the game by her second husband. After discovering a newfound passion for the game, Hoffman wanted to share its benefits with other women. She drew on her experience in television – she formerly had a career as a producer – to create a women’s golf television pilot. While she didn’t end up with a TV show, Women on Course transformed into the national organization it is today.

WOC sets itself apart from other golf programs and organizations for women by not focusing solely on “putting the ball in the hole.” The local events are coordinated by the national management team, and geared toward engaging women with all aspects of the golf lifestyle, including fashion, fitness, travel, networking, socializing, and usually, a glass of wine to end the day.

Signature events usually take place every couple of months, are open to women of all levels, and might include a luncheon, golf experience with instruction or spa party. Play Day events are usually tailored to skill level and include short rounds of play, day trips, indoor practice, clinics, golf yoga and other fun outings.

Women interested in learning more about the game can pick up a copy of Southland Golf magazine’s March Women’s Issue, dedicated to female athletes changing the face of the game. Businesswomen will also be interested in OC METRO’s 20 Women to Watch March issue, featuring innovative female entrepreneurs and executives from all over Orange County.

Getting Women Into the Game
With Participation Stalled, Groups Try New Initiatives; Finding ‘Mommy Time’

By John Paul Newport

Heidi Tobias, a spunky 37-year-old online consultant to small businesses and nonprofits, has had a longstanding interest in golf, primarily because so many people she knows play the game and love to talk about it. She had played field hockey and figured, “I can do this. I can bust into this old boys’ club.” So three years ago she signed up with a girlfriend (who unfortunately later had to bail) for a one-day, soup-to-nuts golf clinic, which included a set of clubs for her to keep.

She wasn’t daunted by being the only female in the clinic. “I’m used to hanging out with guys,” she said. “But I walked away saying, ‘Whoa! What did you say?’” Too much information, too quickly. Moreover, she didn’t know any other beginners, in particular female beginners, with whom to pursue the game further. Her only subsequent golf activity was a round with her fiancé during which, as a joke, she played a few holes with a sign pinned to her back that read, “Play through. She’s new.”

Steve Hebert for The Wall Street Journal Jay Kennedy teaches Pam Lueders in a bunker at Wednesday’s Women’s Golf Month event in Kansas City, Mo.

Last Friday, however, she and another girlfriend attended a more laid-back golf clinic for women, topped off by a wine tasting, that has rekindled her excitement about the game. “We had a great time. There wasn’t any big agenda except just to have fun and hit some balls and do a little networking.” She and several other women from the event have already arranged to take a series of follow-up lessons together.

The event was sponsored by Women On Course, a three-year-old organization that takes a subtly different approach to connecting women with golf than do more traditional programs. The emphasis is on what founder Donna Hoffman calls the “golf lifestyle” rather than on instruction or the benefits of using golf as a business tool. This orientation coincides with a growing recognition that the golf industry’s efforts to attract and retain women players have not been very successful. The number of female golfers has remained flat in recent years, around 23% of all golfers, while the percentage of rounds played by women over 18 has actually fallen, to 15% from 18% a few years ago, according to National Golf Foundation figures. (Rounds for girls have risen slightly.)

Nancy Berkley, a leading consultant and writer on women’s golf issues, believes the game has been pitching itself to women in the wrong way. “It’s a 99% male-dominated industry, to start with,” she said. “And the emphasis has always been on selling products, mostly to men, more than on marketing the game itself. You can’t scold the companies. It’s worked for their bottom lines, because most golfers are men. But if you want to attract more women players, golf has to deliver a message that resonates better with women.”

That message, in her view, would focus on golf’s health benefits and the sense of physical well-being it engenders, as well as on its social and emotional satisfactions. “Golf is such a great game for women. Nothing beats being outdoors with good friends on beautiful day. But women aren’t hearing that,” she said.

Ms. Berkley, a longtime devotee of the game and chairman of the golf committee at her club in Florida, recognizes that many women are competitive about golf in the way men more typically are. “But most women in my experience aren’t looking for intense competition in the two to four hours they may have free. They’re looking for something else, something that has more personal meaning.”

Ms. Hoffman, a 50-year-old former TV producer who lives near Washington, arrived at roughly the same place through personal experience. A self-described “single mom” golf widow in her first marriage, she got hooked on the game after taking a golf trip with her second husband, a three-handicapper. “A lot of women never consider golf because they don’t understand its benefits,” she said. They schedule lunch dates, join book clubs and go to yoga classes and job-related networking events because they enjoy the contact with other women and believe they are getting something substantive from the experiences. “But golf offers the same things, if they only knew it. The most important thing at our events is being with other women, not the golf itself. The golf is something for them to bond around and have fun together with and use to de-stress.”

Of the 55 women at last week’s Women on Course event, 14 were “never-ever” beginners who first received some basic information about the rules and etiquette of golf (importantly including advice on what to wear) and then a bit of instruction. “It’s way harder than it looks,” said Allison Queensborough, a 29-year-old working mother of two who was in the beginner’s group. “But the teachers were great. They took their time and when we went out to hit balls, I felt very comfortable. It was really fun.” So was the extended wine-and-cheese portion of the festivities afterward. Ms. Queensborough and some friends from the event plan on following up with lessons, probably twice a month. A year from now, she said, she hopes they will have improved enough to play occasional nine-hole rounds. “This is going to be something for me, Mommy time, away from the kids and my husband,” she said.

Steve Hebert for The Wall Street Journal Julie Scriven and her daughter and playing partner, Chelsea, 17.

The oldest women’s-golf group, the 18,000-member Executive Women’s Golf Association, is evolving in the same direction. As part of a rebranding this year, it changed its vision statement from “The premier force promoting women’s golf” to the more touchy-feely “Enriching the lives of women through the game of golf.” In 1991, when the EWGA got started, “the hot-button issue was, how can golf help women break through the glass ceiling? Now it’s more about, what are women getting from golf?” said Pam Swensen, the group’s chief executive.

Some EWGA chapters are huge (the largest has 900 members) and provide opportunities to compete all the way to an annual national tournament. But the bread-and-butter mission of the organization, Ms. Swensen said, is to “cultivate a warm, nurturing atmosphere for women to become engaged with golf” and to connect them with other women.

June, in case you missed the memo, is American Express Women’s Golf Month, an initiative co-sponsored by the EWGA, the PGA of America and other organizations. An online listing of golf facilities offering special, often-free introductory programs for women is available through playgolfamerica.com. Some sound terrific. The kickoff extravaganza Wednesday in Kansas City, Mo., drew 274 women; the lineup at PGA Golf Club in Port St. Lucie, Fla., includes cocktail receptions and pro-shop discounts. But other listings are so sparse as to be laughable, such as free 10-minute lessons between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m., on Thursdays only, at a course in Denver. As if that’s really going to bring women into the game.

For all the golf industry’s good intentions, the biggest barrier now to women’s involvement is probably the same as it’s always been: the general sense of intimidation and outsider-ness that women experience at many, but by no means all, golf facilities. But that’s a topic for another column.

Women on Course Luncheon at Fleming's

Story and photos by Melissa Wolcott Martino
Accent on Tampa Bay

Women On Course held a fashion luncheon event recently at Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar in Tampa, hosted by MassMutual Financial Group, and sponsored by Callaway Golf, Mirassou Wines, and Cabot Cheese. The WOC organization was created for women to engage in the golf lifestyle by highlighting the social, business and fitness benefits of the game. Through creative event formats and resources, WOC provides a welcoming environment for women entering and active in the game. This luncheon was just one of the many events WOC holds. As members, women enjoy networking and social gatherings, special rates to WOC events, discounts on golf apparel, member gifts, and much more.

The women at this luncheon were not all powerhouse golfers, there were a lot of “newbies”. The WOC’s idea is for golf to be engaging and fun — not intimidating. Indeed, the ladies present were an energetic and friendly group. The hosts made sure everyone felt comfortable and knew how to make strangers into friends. Fleming’s is a national sponsor for the WOC, and holds these events across the county for the organization. Callaway’s fashion show proved that golf clothes can be “sexy”, and introduced some clothing that certainly updates the image. Their new golf shoes are quite slim and attractive, and they even added some new jewelry to the line.