Encourage girls to play by being supportive.

Over the course of my early years playing golf, I had many great experiences.  Some of which I have shared with you already.  There will be many more to come in later posts, but for now I want to say it wasn't all plain sailing. 

Being one of the few junior girls playing at my club  I played in a lot of ladies competitions.  My game was improving quickly and this didn't go unnoticed by the lady members.  It was a case of handicap plateaus being broken. I would play to my handicap for a few months or so then all of sudden drop 5-10 off it in a couple of weeks.  This essentially meant quite a few 44 points in stablefords and net scores of  65 or better.  

This happened one lady captains day competition.  I can't remember the exact score but I remember clearly when the scores were posted on the board I had won the 1st place prize. 
Imagine my excitement when I realized the prize was a book signed by Tom Watson.  Sounds like a good ending right...

The prize giving was held after tea, normally sandwiches, cake and a cup of tea.  The 1st place prize was awarded last,  I expected my name to be called out.  Except it wasn't my name being called, but another Lady.  My first though was to wonder what I had done wrong.  Did I make a mistake on my score card? or maybe I looked at the score board wrong.  Neither was the case. 

Apparently the lady captain decided to award a different prize... a junior prize...one that wasn't even on display.  The Lady captain said that she would give it to me the following day.  Imagine how disappointed I was when I received a small duffel bag with the word sport written on the side.

 The Tom Watson book would have remained on my bookcase today.  I didn't use the sport bag.  To this day I can only wonder what her thought process was when she decided I wasn't old enough to win the book.  

One other incident sticks out in my mind as a bit of low point during my formative playing years. This is more shocking to me now than it was at the time however I do remember being fairly distressed at the incident.

One day the professional at the club caught me in the pro shop and asked to have a quick chat.  Sure I thought thinking it was about my swing or an upcoming junior match.  He started by saying, some of the ladies don't want to play with you as you are too competitive.  He suggested I try to be not quite so "competitive" 

How was I supposed to take it.  I felt like I was being told off for trying to play well.  After all isn't that the goal of playing.  I was 14 and still trying to get over my shyness.  I guess I must have conformed somewhat but it wasn't long before I joined another club closer to my home where I could be as competitive as I wanted.

This blog post is to try to get people to encourage the girls at your club to continue to be competitive and win club events.  As they will remember and they may end up going to college to play or play professionally.  No matter what, the goal is to grow the game and to make life long fans of golf.  Not turn them away by shortsighted comments. 

Apologies for the somewhat negative post,  but I think its good to give the whole story not just the brilliant stuff.  I am pretty hard headed and didn't let these two things get in the way of my love of the game....thankfully.