It’s an issue that many women happily accept as the norm, yet so many golf courses are still so challenging and simply too long.
Women come off the 18th tee feeling utterly exhausted, not because they’re unfit, but because they’ve hit so many more shots than their male counterparts. They’ve found themselves in hazards from great shots by all standards and feel somewhat beaten up after their rounds.
Women assume that the forward tees are designed for them to suit their needs and the way female golfers play, but this is not the case at the vast majority of courses worldwide.
Golf is a sport that should be a game for life, enjoyed with all the family and makes you live longer (on average 5 years), but in reality it isn’t being made available to everyone. Women and indeed any shorter hitters are being excluded and the industry, as much as it tries to include them, is failing these golfers.
I’ve recently played courses that are undoubtedly stunning and award winning on many levels. I played off the forward tees (admittedly in tough conditions) and honestly found it a slog.
Off the tee, I hit the ball over 240 yards on average, so I’m no short hitter, but I found a few carries a struggle into wind and hit some great long hybrids into many of the greens for them not to stick. I came off the course thinking, wow if I found that tough, how does somebody who hits it shorter than me fair out there?
(Image credit: Howard Boylan)
It’s not just off the tee, when faced with shots into greens, these require fairway woods. Greens designed to be hit with high spinning short irons due to the long tee shots hit by men. The assumption this has been considered and courses are set up for short hitters is a poor one. Simply moving tees forward to vaguely flat areas isn’t the fix.
During a round recently I noticed my playing partner needing to use a 5-wood on her second and sometimes third shots to clear fairway bunkers. As a result, on numerous occasions, she found her ball rolling out into the greenside bunkers from well struck shots. So having hit some great golf shots with a driver and then fairway woods, she was then punished.
Bunkers that are literally traps for the shorter hitter are often the end…
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