Women in Golf
Today
it
might be true to say that as many
women play golf as men, and even if it is not, golf
is a popular and accepted sport
for women. This has not always been the case. Mary,
Queen of Scots, was condemned for
"playing golf in the fields by Seton" only a few
days after the murder of her husband, Darnley. There
are pictures of Japanese courtesans playing a game
similar to golf several centuries ago. It was not
until 1860 that a group of women led by Mrs Robert
Boothby, wife of a scratch golfer and member of the
Royal and Ancient Club, was discovered playing golf
on a caddies' course near St Andrews.
As
might have been expected, given the period, a tidal
wave of masculine
condemnation
engulfed the lady golfers. It was not just that
ladies were not expected to take any exercise at
all but that the posture required to swing a golf
club while dressed in long skirts was deemed to be
indecorous and unseemly.
The links was not a
place for women
-
even as spectators
they talked, their
dresses rustled in
the wind, they did
not stand still. However, ladies' golf persisted.
The first ladies' golf club was formed at Westward
Ho!, Devon, England,
in
1868 and around the same time the ladies
of
St Andrews found a piece
of land which was made into
a putting course.
Dalliance on
the tennis court and the croquet lawn was all very
well but it paled into insignificance compared with
the freedom and opportunities offered by a
three-hour golf match on the links. It also helped
enormously that the game could be played
competitively between the sexes and also between
players
of
vastly different abilities.
The first British
Ladies' Championship was played at Lytham St Annes
over nine holes in 1893. The winner was Lady
Margaret Scott,
daughter
of
Lord Eldon, who had had the advantage
of learning how to play on her father's private
course. From then on, golf became not only socially
acceptable but a sought-after
accomplishment. The
Ranelagh Club
in London promoted golf as a social
event under the
auspices
of
the Ladies'
Golf Union,
which had been formed in 1893 by
Miss lssette
Pearson, a member
of
the Royal
Wimbledon Club. Two years later, in 1895, the first
Women's Championship took place in the USA. It was a
stroke-play event
and
was won by Mrs
Charles S.
Brown.
Women in Golf
