Introduction
The Ladies’ Golf Union (LGU) was founded in 1893 by Issette Pearson and her contemporaries as the first national governing body for women’s golf.
At a time when women’s sporting opportunities were limited, the LGU provided structure, recognition, and a voice — creating the foundations upon which all subsequent women’s golf organisations were built.
Purpose and Vision
The Union’s mission was simple yet revolutionary:
“To promote the interests of ladies’ golf and to arrange and regulate competitions.”
Through this, the LGU gave women the means to govern their own game —
- Setting standards
- Handicaps
- Championships
at a time when male authorities largely ignored women’s golf.
Founders and Early Allies
While Issette Pearson became the first Honorary Secretary and Blanche Hulton the first Honorary Treasurer, the Union’s creation was also guided by three progressive male allies who believed women should be free to govern their own sport:
- Laidlaw Purves *, member of Royal Wimbledon Golf Club and St Andrews and architect of the Men’s Amateur Championship, had earlier tried — unsuccessfully — to unite men’s clubs under a single body. Recognising the same potential among women, he encouraged Pearson to do so for ladies’ golf. It was Purves who suggested that all women’s clubs be invited to participate and share their views on forming a union.
- Talbot Fair (Vice President for the North of England) and H. S. C. Everard (Vice President for Scotland) lent organisational experience and credibility at a time when such public endorsement from men was rare.
- T. Gilroy represented Ireland, ensuring the Union was inclusive across the four nations from its inception.
* Laidlaw Purves, was instrumental in developing the handicap system initially setup by Issette Pearson, when she setup the LGU, and later adopted by the British Golfing Union for men. Laidlaw was the course architect for both Royal St George’s and Littlestone on Kent, the hosts of the 2nd Ladies British Amateur Championship.
A Spirit of Comradeship
Issette Pearson understood that sport was not only about competition, but about connection and community. In her 1899 book Our Ladies of the Green, she captured the heart of the LGU’s purpose:
“Indeed one of the most important effects that the Union seeks to have is to increase that sense of comradeship which should exist among all true golfers.
In all games and sports this is an essential quality if the best results are to be expected.
The Union certainly does its best to draw all golfers together and to give them common aims and ambitions.
In every way it is important to encourage this feeling; for in games, as in most other things, women are prone to lose sight of the general good through a certain smallness of outlook.
Anything that narrows down a conception, whether of a game, of a theory, or of conduct, must tend to decrease its usefulness; conversely, anything that helps to broaden out that conception is to be unreservedly welcomed.”
— Issette Pearson, Our Ladies of the Green (1899)
Early Achievements
- 1893: The first British Ladies’ Championship was held at Royal Lytham & St Annes, marking the beginning of organised women’s competition at a national level.
- 1894: The LGU established a handicap system for women, enabling fair play and inclusion across differing abilities — a model that would influence golf globally.
- By the early 1900s, the LGU was coordinating competitions across Britain and Ireland, inspiring similar organisations abroad, including the USGA Women’s Committee (1895).
- 1927 – LGU reaches 1,000 UK affiliated clubs and 400 overseas clubs
A milestone of global growth: women’s golf takes firm root across the Empire and the Commonwealth.
Leadership and Influence
The LGU was not just a rule-making body — it was a community of women leaders who shaped golf’s moral and cultural identity. Figures like Issette Pearson, May Hezlet, and Joyce Wethered embodied a quiet professionalism and sporting integrity that set the tone for women’s golf for generations.
Transition and Decline
By the mid-20th century, the LGU’s influence began to wane — not because its ideals failed, but because the social fabric of women’s golf changed. The early founders had built a visionary organisation, but few women of the next generation were positioned to continue its evolution in the same way.
The Union continued to run a wide programme of championships and international matches, but its financial model remained largely unchanged from the early days: income was drawn mainly from subscriptions paid by affiliated clubs and their women members. There is no clear record of regular external funding or grants from the R&A or government bodies prior to merger, suggesting that the LGU operated for much of its history on modest means — sustained more by loyalty than by resources.
As women’s social roles shifted after the Second World War, the rhythm of women’s golf moved increasingly toward senior and weekday play. Many of the women who organised or competed in LGU events were retired, financially independent, or working part-time, while younger working women found it difficult to access golf’s administrative structures or play competitively at weekends when men dominated tee times.
Over time, this created a quiet generational divide: the weekday world of senior women’s golf flourished, while younger women’s pathways into the game stagnated.
By the early 2000s, the LGU was struggling both financially and structurally. Reports at the time describe declining membership and growing challenges in maintaining its championship calendar. The Union was supported almost entirely by the subscriptions of its four remaining national affiliates — England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales — a narrow base for a national governing body.
In 2017, after more than 120 years of independent governance, the LGU merged with The R&A. The merger was presented as a unifying step for the game, but also reflected the financial realities of an organisation whose model could no longer sustain the demands of a modern global sport. It marked not an ending, but a continuation — ensuring that the heritage and work of its founders would live on within a broader, more secure structure.
After the Merger
The merger of the Ladies’ Golf Union with The R&A in 2017 brought women’s amateur golf under a single governing structure for the first time in history. It secured funding, administrative stability, and international reach — but it also marked a shift in power and perspective.
Where the LGU had been a women-led body grounded in lived experience — shaped by players, captains, and volunteers — the new framework placed women’s golf within a predominantly male administrative culture.
While The R&A has invested in championships and the visibility of elite women’s golf, much of the grassroots and senior women’s landscape remains outside its field of understanding. Many of those who built and sustained women’s golf through local, county, and veteran networks feel that their expertise and community-based traditions are now consulted less and represented less directly.
The merger, though organisationally successful, has revealed the distance between policy and practice — between the formal governance of women’s golf and the lived experience of the women who continue to play, organise, and preserve it.
Epilogue – Continuity and Custodianship
Across more than a century, the Ladies’ Golf Union carried the voice of women who believed that golf could be both competitive and compassionate — a game governed with integrity and care.
Though its structure has changed, its spirit endures in the senior women and quiet custodians who continue to organise, mentor, and preserve the game.