Thousands flocked to Carton House yesterday for the KPMG Women’s Irish Open, including representatives of the 150 golf clubs that have attained the Gold Standard in the Golf Ireland Women in Golf Charter.
In 2018, the R&A, Golf’s World Governing Body, launched the Women in Golf Charter, which aims to increase women and girls’ participation and membership in golf, encourage more families to enjoy golf as a leisure activity and create more opportunities for women to work in the golf industry.
Golf Ireland was an early signatory, and in 2021, with the help of significant funding from Sport Ireland’s Resilience fund and the R&A’s Covid Support fund, Golf Ireland launched the Women in Golf Charter Awards.
Clubs that received funding had three years to implement the commitments in the Women in Golf Charter Gold Award, implementing a series of commitments that aim to deliver gender equality in golf clubs, from participation to leadership and everything in between.
These clubs are currently at the vanguard of delivering cultural and structural change by making golf a more equal and inclusive sport.
“Achieving the Gold Standard in the Women in Golf Charter highlights our clubs’ commitment to making golf more inclusive and accessible,” said Golf Ireland CEO Mark Kennelly.
“This milestone reflects our shared goal of ensuring golf is a sport where everyone can participate and feel welcome. We are proud of the progress made and look forward to continuing this journey towards greater equality.”
To achieve the gold standard, clubs needed to ensure full membership is available to both genders and equal access to time sheets and competitions based on membership categories, not gender.
There was also a minimum requirement of 30 per cent female representation on the club management committee and the One Club Model for proprietary clubs.
“Sport Ireland is a proud supporter of the Women in Golf Charter. Promoting gender equality across Irish Sport is a key pillar of our work,” added Sport Ireland Chief Executive Dr Úna May.
“The increase in women and girls’ participation and golf membership is fantastic news, and hopefully, it encourages more families to get involved.
Sport for Business Context
The Journey that Golf has taken regarding equality of opportunity holds many lessons for other sports. Bringing the Men’s and Women’s governing bodies, the GUI and the ILGU, together was evident in theory but required considerable complexity to get it right at every level.
This charter was crucial in giving clubs that wanted to be as good as possible the playbook to guide them in achieving that goal.
150 clubs up and down Ireland have attained the Gold standard, and all that it entails is a testament to the sport’s willingness to disrupt traditional old models and the administrators’ skill in getting the tone right about how to help.
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