How Eastern Golf Club in Melbourne attracted 220 women to its fairways.
It’s always been one of golf’s biggest conundrums: how do we get more women playing the game?
What you want in a club membership or a social round of golf with friends hasn’t always matched the multi-faceted approach many clubs have taken to address the sport’s barriers to entry. Thankfully, through a global health pandemic and some proactive people now running the sport, many golf clubs have a completely different view on things – and the numbers prove it. Golf Australia’s 2021-2022 Participation Report revealed the number of women and girl members rose to 79,704, up 4 percent from the previous year. It’s a significant swing for a sport that had been in decline for so long, and a reflection on the many progressive clubs across the country that have seen an opportunity post-COVID and taken it.
One of those clubs is Eastern Golf Club on Melbourne’s north-eastern fringe. The Greg Norman-designed course – that even has its own par-3 layout – has seen its fairways inundated with more than 200 women wanting to give golf a try. We caught up with the club’s outgoing assistant general manager, Tegan Bennett, to find out how.
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Australian Golf Digest Women: Let’s cut straight to the point – how did Eastern Golf Club attract 220 new female members in such a short time?
Tegan Bennett: We came up with the idea of introducing a free membership, where they only paid the insurance and affiliation fee and then the actual membership was free for 12 months. So, that was the first way to attract them. We went out to our members first to offer the deal to any of their family and friends. We instantly had a lot of feedback from members saying, “You know what, our wives want to come and join but there was always that barrier of making it happen.” Eastern is a private golf club and it’s a bit scary for new women to just join when our membership base is predominantly men. So, we went out to them, offered it as a free membership and then tried to make it fun. It wasn’t about the golf, it was about fun, friends, social, and golf was a secondary thing in that regard.
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What’s the secret to making golf more appealing to women?
We’ve been very big on creating a welcome and inclusive environment. And for us, just touching on what I said before, we wanted to make it more about golf being fun and inviting and removing that fear factor of the sport. We made it clear you don’t have to be in a competition and you don’t have to submit a scorecard. Removing that competitive fear factor solved a lot of problems.
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What’s the feedback been like from these new members?
Well, after the past 12 months, we’ve had more than 39 percent of the women continue into five, six, and seven-day membership categories, which has been a fantastic result. We’ve had some overwhelming responses to the membership. The simple act of saying “Hello” is a great way to make people feel welcome. Almost everyone I come across at Eastern follows the simple, yet increasingly rare, greeting of a hello with a smile. The pro shop staff have been amazing. We’ve just had amazing feedback, all round. Staff and other participants have been very welcome and friendly. Everyone goes out of their way to be friendly and inclusive, so I think that really captures what we were after, trying to make it more of a social, fun and friendly environment to be a part of. A lot of our women now come to the club for a cup of coffee, whether or not they’re actually playing. Some of them have got little group chats on WhatsApp that they organise to come and play golf with people that they don’t necessarily know.
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What is Eastern Golf Club’s greatest asset when it comes to marketing itself to a new demographic?
I think our greatest asset, in terms of something a bit different, is our par-3 course: Shark Waters. It’s been a fantastic way to attract some of these women and juniors out on the golf course or those that are a little bit time-poor. They can play a quick round of nine holes, come back into the club and have a cup of coffee or a glass of wine with friends. So, it’s a little bit more social. It removes that competition, again going back to that fear factor, and making it more fun and inclusive.
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Have you run any clinics or utilised your golf pros to help encourage more women to get the Eastern experience?
Yes. During the 12 months of our “Get into Golf” promotion, we ran clinics on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays. We do two clinics on a Thursday because that’s now becoming the day that everyone is around. They come in, do their clinic over at the driving range, or they might go down to Shark Waters, play nine holes, and then come back into the clubhouse and have a drink with the girls. That’s worked really well. We also do lots of school-holiday clinics and junior clinics to keep those juniors involved. So, with the junior pennant team, we’re actually doing two groups, which is fantastic. Our assistant pro Jake Fullerton runs all of the junior clinics, and he’s currently doing the women’s clinics on a Thursday as well, which has been fantastic.
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How large a growth opportunity is the women’s market for Australian golf clubs moving forward, in particular at Eastern?
I think there’s a huge opportunity, especially touching on the Golf Australia strategy where “all golf is golf”. I think that’s a really valuable lesson, and something that will certainly bring a lot more people to the game. So, whether they’re time-poor or juniors, even if they’re just going across to the driving range. We’ve recently launched a new driving-range membership, which basically they get to play golf, play at
the driving range whenever they like, and then they can also go down and make use of the par-3 course. So, it might just be that they’re wanting to join a club just to hit golf balls, or come in for a drink afterwards. They don’t necessarily have to go out and play 18 holes of golf. It’s just getting them involved and getting them to…
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…It’s like a stepping stone?
Yeah, a stepping stone. Pick up the golf club and off they go. So, there’s no pressure on purchasing or playing for the time-poor.
Our thoughts are with everyone at Eastern Golf Club after a major fire destroyed its architecturally designed clubhouse just hours before this edition went to print. Still coming to terms with the closure of nine holes due to local flooding, members and staff were forced to evacuate on October 16 as firefighters tried valiantly to extinguish the blaze sparked by charging lithium-ion batteries in the club’s golf cart storage facility.
— Editor’s Note
