She Loves Golf, why wouldn’t she?

By Mathilda Andersson

Getting more women into playing golf has been proven a struggle for the golf industry. In November last year, New Zealand Golf launched the award winning initiative – She Loves Golf, in a bid to encourage women of all ages to give the sport a go, and to break down female’s perceived barriers to playing golf.

The wrongful reputation of golf being a sport exclusively for men is so entrenched that it has even led to the urban myth that the word golf was in fact an acronym for ‘Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden‘.

NZ Golf aimed to crush this long-standing notion by undertaking a national drive to promote the game. By engaging high profile female celebrities as key influential golf ambassadors, She Loves Golf introduced and welcomed young women into the sport in a non-intimidating environment, on and off the course.

The organisation leveraged its relationship with the country’s prime golf asset, Lydia Ko, to further engage four other female celebs, (TV presenters: Amber Peebles, Toni Streets and Laura McGoldrick, and You tube sensation Jamie Curry), all with a wide range of golfing skills and a large social media presence.

“Research around the world highlights the female market as relatively untapped with a lot of opportunity for getting more girls involved in the game,” said NZ Golf Marketing Manager Jan Rowsell.

“With the success and profile of Lydia Ko there was no better time to capitalise on this and encourage girls to give the game a go.”

The limitations of a small promotional budget put an onus on NZ Golf to create a multi-platform approach, using primarily social media and user generated content to reach as many new prospective female golfer as possible during the campaign duration.

The female ambassadors documented their golf journey of free golf lessons and visits to the driving range and golf courses with family and friends, profiling golf in a fun, social and youthful light.

“Having key female personalities who everyday NZ women can identify with and relate to, be the ones to tell our story, provides an authentic voice and gives our key message integrity and realness, rather than it coming from the national body,” Rowsell explained.

“Females perceive the game as boring, for old men and very unwelcoming being ridden with strictly enforced dress codes and many confusing rules and regulations. We need to change this to showcase golf as being welcoming and fun, a great game for life.

“The audience was able to see these female role models naturally enjoying their experiences with golf.”

Click here to read full story in GIC E-mag Winter issue