Being a woman in a male-dominated sport can be tough. It is easy to feel that we are an oversight or afterthought, especially when courses don’t cater for the basic everyday needs of life, like having adequate toilet and changing facilities. Golf clubs have come a long way in the last decade to improve the equality, but there are still things that could be done, as Carly Frost explores.
1. On-Course Toilets
The lack of toilets on some golf courses is one of my big complaints. Courses that have none are really doing their female members and visitors a disservice. We are expected to ‘make do’ with an emergency nature stop behind a tree, but it’s so indignant. What if a young woman is on her period and has to change her sanitary product? I remember it happening to one poor junior girl when playing with me in a national competition a few years ago. There were no toilets and we had no tissues or sanitary supplies in our golf bags, so she ended up having to wear her waterproof trousers over the top of her white cut-offs to hide her embarrassment.
I had this argument with the owner of the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, where I am an away player. There are no on-course toilets at all. His argument is that the golf course comes close to the clubhouse after seven holes. The truth is that from the 7th green back up to the clubhouse is further than walking a par-3, uphill and across the 18th green to get there. So, he’s expecting women to interrupt their round to make that trek and then back to the tee without holding up play behind – ridiculous – it’s impossible. What makes matters worse is that the club has recently had a redesign and stripped away massive areas of gorse, bracken, bushes and trees. You can now see clearly through across a massive expanse of holes, virtually unobscured. It’s spectacular scenery but also spectacularly inconvenient as the all-important hiding places for women caught short are virtually all gone.
2. Equality Of Tee Times
Can someone please explain to me why at the majority of golf clubs in this country men’s competitions are played on the weekend and women play theirs on a weekday? It’s clearly one of those antiquated club decisions that originates back to the days when men were the sole breadwinners of the family, working weekdays and women, who were fortunate enough to play golf, were just stay at home housewives. Nowadays, there are so many more working women and they are simply not catered for on the time sheet.
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