1. What History Teaches Us About Participation Today
Understanding the Present by Seeing the Past Clearly
Overview
Participation in women’s golf has never been a straight line. Across 135 years of historical records, competition reports, club archives, and personal accounts, a striking pattern emerges: women’s participation rises in youth and early adulthood, collapses in the middle years, and resurges later in life.
This pattern is so consistent—and so enduring—that it can no longer be interpreted as individual choice or lifestyle preference. It is, instead, the legacy of a structural framework built for a world that no longer exists.
This page reveals how the past shapes the present, and why understanding these patterns is essential to designing the future.
Why This Matters
The modern participation landscape cannot be solved without recognising one essential truth:
The mid-life gap is not new. It has repeated for 135 years.
Women have been leaving the game during their 20s, 30s and 40s since the foundation of organised women’s golf in the 1890s. The reasons have changed in form—but not in function.
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In the Edwardian and interwar eras: marriage, domestic expectations, and limited mobility.
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Post–World War II: childcare, work, and lack of competitive routes.
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Today: dual-career households, weekend scarcity, and the total disappearance of a progression pathway for women aged 25–49.
Across every era, the outcome is the same: a loss of mid-life continuity that men do not experience.
What the Historical Record Shows
1. The LGU’s competition structure embedded early-life play and late-life stability.
The early LGU competitions—county matches, inter-club fixtures, open meetings—were designed for women who were available on weekdays. This favoured:
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younger unmarried women
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older women with grown children
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women of private means
Mid-life women, burdened with work and domestic responsibilities, were effectively excluded.
This pattern persists today.
2. Interwar athletes show the same participation dip we see now.
Profiles of Joyce Wethered, Cecil Leitch, Wanda Morgan, and others reveal consistent narratives:
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high participation in teens and 20s
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withdrawal during marriage
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return in later years (if possible, often at club level)
Their stories mirror the experiences of 21st-century women.
3. Post-war participation stabilised only in senior years.
From the 1950s onwards, club diaries show:
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low female competition entries during mid-life
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strong numbers among women 50+
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high engagement in weekday competitions, opens, and inter-club matches
Senior women have always been the bedrock of women’s golf.
Modern Relevance
Today, women enjoy far more freedom, education, mobility, and opportunity than their predecessors—but the participation curve has barely changed.
Why?
Because the structures governing women’s golf:
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still assume weekday availability
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still provide no regional pathway
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still do not support mid-life competitive continuity
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still rely on cultural patterns of older women sustaining the game
This is not a behavioural problem.
This is historical inertia.
And history shows: until the structure changes, the pattern will not.
Future Implications
To build a future where women stay in golf throughout their lives, we must:
1. Acknowledge historical continuity—not blame individual women.
Participation gaps are structural, not personal.
2. Redesign pathways for a world where women work, parent, and live differently.
The 1890s assumptions of time and gender roles cannot guide 2025 policy.
3. Protect and elevate senior women as the custodians and engines of the game.
History proves their irreplaceable role in sustaining participation and culture.
4. Build bridges for the mid-life years, not just entry points for youth.
This is the missing link in women’s golf globally.
The Core Insight
History does not just illustrate the problem—it predicts it.
Every era of women’s golf shows the same participation rhythm.
Understanding this rhythm is the first step to breaking it.