International Women’s Day yesterday provided the ideal platform for Golf Australia to share its latest milestone for MyGolf, the national body’s junior participation program, with registrations reaching more than 21,000 and an impressive 31 percent of those registered being young girls – a record for MyGolf.
The fact that almost a third of MyGolf participants are girls is encouraging and indicates the progress that is being made in golf to make the sport more accessible to girls and women. This has grown from less than 25 percent since 2018.
David Gallichio, general Manager of golf participation at Golf Australia, said it is exciting to see more and more kids, especially girls, getting involved in the MyGolf program and starting a lifelong journey in the game.
“Golf Australia developed the MyGolf and MyGolf Schools programs to provide the opportunity for young golfers to try golf in a fun and welcoming environment,” Gallichio said.
“And through fun, games-based learning the program builds self-confidence, enjoyment and skills that will encourage the kids’ ongoing participation in golf.
“We are lucky to hear so many great stories from clubs of kids becoming best friends through MyGolf and fostering a lifelong love of the game.”
“We’re delighted to have achieved the milestone of over a third of MyGolf registrations being girls, but our work is not done and we’re dead set on reaching a 50/50 split in the program as soon as we possibly can through continuous improvement based on participant feedback.”
Tiffany Cherry, Golf Australia’s head of women and girls engagement, said: “Golf, historically a male-dominated sport, has been on a huge journey, informed by the Australian Golf Strategy, of intentional and meaningful change in our industry to positively impact women and girls participation across the breadth of our sport, not just from a playing perspective, but from a career perspective as well.
“Today’s MyGolf milestones and International Women’s Day event, at the Australian Golf Centre, form part of our bigger celebration of Women and Girls Month. As an industry, golf is breaking down the barriers to women and girls getting into golf, and the positive momentum we’ve seen towards this, so far, is encouraging. We’re absolutely committed to continuing on the path to gender equity in golf and sport, in general.”
MyGolf is Australia’s junior golf participation program, providing lessons for beginners with a focus on games-based activities and fun, and supported by Golf Australia and the PGA of Australia. All MyGolf deliverers are qualified PGA professionals or community instructors and are pivotal to the ongoing growth and success of the MyGolf program.
MyGolf is providing a 15 percent discount on all programs during April, when registering from March 22 to April 30. Those keen to get involved can easily search for a program and register via www.golf.org.au/mygolf
