Walton Heath Golf Membership, venue for the 2023 AIG Girls’s Open, hosted the primary Girls In Golf Summit on March 31, with the gathering bringing collectively girls from throughout the UK golf business with 4 keynote audio system.
The summit, which was arrange by Walton Heath Golf Membership Chief Govt Officer Alex Woodward, was hailed a terrific success by greater than 75 girls who attended.
Woodward mentioned: “Whereas the general variety of girls within the golf business continues to be too low, the variety of leaders in our business who simply occur to be girls may be very wholesome. This summit served to focus on these leaders, community and showcase them formally to as many extra girls as attainable with the objective of facilitating an even bigger wave of involvement sooner or later.”
In attendance have been girls from membership administration, occasion administration, participant administration, TV & broadcasting, golf structure, agronomy, greenkeeping, gross sales & advertising and marketing, sustainability, county governing our bodies, nationwide governing our bodies, worldwide governing our bodies, golf tourism, golf professionals, golf style, golf membership manufacturing, golf diet, perception assortment, journalism, charities, skilled excursions and extra.
Zoe Ridgway, R&A Championship Director of the AIG Girls’s Open, was one of many summit’s keynote audio system. With a profession spanning 20 years, Zoe shared tales about her time working within the golf business, highlighting the significance of girls progressing into senior management positions.
The viewers additionally heard from Vicky Cuming, Vice-President and Head of Golf Shoppers at IMG EMEA; Sky Sports activities Golf presenter Inci Mehmet, and Nicole Wheatley, founder of selling and public relations firm Medi8 Golf, with the whole proceedings offered and hosted by The Jazzy Golfer.Ridgway mentioned: “Walton Heath’s Girls in Golf Summit was a wonderful alternative for girls working throughout the golf business to return collectively. It actually highlighted what alternatives are attainable inside golf and I hope that it impressed these in attendance to proceed to aspire in the direction of lengthy and profitable careers.”
Vicky Cuming, who has guided the careers of Dame Laura Davies and two-time European Solheim Cup Captain Catriona Matthew, together with present standouts Georgia Corridor and Charley Hull, shared a few of her experiences from managing skilled golfers. Vicky mentioned afterwards: “The power within the room was implausible. Though there’s a regularly rising variety of girls working within the golf business, we have to give attention to attracting extra, after which allow them to climb the ladder to grow to be leaders. Everybody was eager to contribute and discuss how we hold the momentum going and methods to arrange a assist community for girls who work within the golf business. Watch this house!”
Sky Sports activities persona Inci Mehmet was impressed by the initiative of Walton Heath Golf Membership gathering such a proficient group of girls from the golf business. She mentioned: “I used to be honoured to share my story with the room, however even prouder wanting up understanding I used to be standing alongside different unbelievable feminine leaders and specialists of their area”.
Nicole Wheatley who co-founded Medi8 and launched final yr’s Girls in Golf Awards shared: “Visibility has at all times been an necessary constructing block within the mixed efforts to encourage extra girls to embark on careers in golf. Being given the platform by Alex and the group at Walton Heath is an actual honour. I hope that I’ve been in a position to encourage one or two extra folks to embrace their variations as a result of golf must mirror extra various opinions as a way to meet the wants of the communities it serves.”
The Girls in Golf Summit is one in all various initiatives Walton Heath Golf Membership is delivering forward of the AIG Girls’s Open. The membership has grow to be the host membership for the AIG Girls’s Company Academy, and it has additionally instigated a proper invitation program to contain extra skilled feminine greenkeepers to assist ship the course through the AIG Girls’s Open along with The R&A and BIGGA.
