Women in Golf Charter

Tadmarton Heath is dedicated to developing a culture that values women's involvement in playing, volunteering and working within the game. Through signing the R&A's Women in Golf Charter, we are committed to creating and maintaining an inclusive culture within the club.

Women at Tadmarton have always played an important role so it is without hesitation we wanted to make the commitment to the Women in Golf Charter. When the club was formed in 1922 women were admitted on equal terms with men, paying the same annual subscription and enjoying equal playing rights. A woman was appointed to the very first General Committee which took responsibility for the day to day running of the club, the course and its competitions. Although the club management has been restructured and the General Committee no longer exists, female representation has continued at Board level. In line with our commitment to encourage more ladies to start to play golf, we set up several innovative initiatives in 2019 to attract ladies and get them learning and playing out on the course. We identified that going from six to 12 lessons and then straight into 18 holes, buying golf clothes, equipment and membership was an expense that ladies did not want to commit to when just starting out. We therefore came up with the following solutions.

A new membership category “The Academy Membership”, where the ladies could pay monthly, only play six holes and after 12 o’clock when the course was quiet. We ran a taster in March followed by a package of 12 lessons over six weeks for £40.When the Pro felt the ladies were ready to go out on the course, they were offered the Academy Membership as well as all our other levels of membership. Existing lady members were involved in the taster day and helped with lessons and taking the ladies on the course. By October 2019, we had 13 Academy ladies and five full members who all came from the taster day in March. During the six-week lesson period we got together a few times in the club house to discuss progress and talk about the etiquette and some basic rules of golf over a glass of wine and nibbles. The Tadmarton ladies got a lot of enjoyment working with these ladies and bringing them into the game of golf, which we all love.

We have set up key objectives to grow our ladies’ section and show our commitment to the R&A Women in Golf charter. We have also appointed a lady member, Barbara Lowe along with our head professional John Stubbs and general manager John Prior as the Charter’s Champion’s to support and help new players and members.

Our aim is to:

- Recruit, retain and encourage more women and girls to golf and build on past successes. We are committed to run the Ladies Academy with at least two programmes every year.

- Recognise all ages and abilities of female golfers and the need to set up memberships and coaching programmes to accommodate this. We are running the Girl’s Golf Rocks campaign and continuing with six-hole competitions. We have also introduced new flexible membership options.

- Work closely with England Golf and the R&A on initiatives to promote women’s golf.

- Be committed to making Tadmarton a great environment for women to enjoy their golf and socialise. In 2020 we will also be introducing an additional 2 mixed competitions on top of the 10 we have already.

- Develop and implementing internal strategies to increase the numbers of women and girls into golf with support from Board level which is linked into the 5-year business plan.

- Promote family membership through a focussed marketing campaign and commit to two family open days per year.

- Continue female representation on the board and sub committees which has been in place for several years, continue promoting and building on this and commit to increasing Board representation over the next five years.

- Work to integrate women in all areas of the club, golf and business.

- Promote women’s golf via our club website, local news, social media accounts and local community groups.

- Set up a working party for the purpose of promoting women’s golf.

- Encourage and set up more social events.

- Appoint a champion/mentor to assist and support new participants and members., whilst at the same time working closely with the golf manager and general manager. Agreed by the Chairman on behalf of the board of directors and members of Tadmarton Heath Golf Club.