Canadian women taking up golf, challenging corporate stereotypes

TORONTO –

Gina Izumi was in her first company job out of college and informed a male colleague her boyfriend loved hitting the hyperlinks. If Izumi stayed with him, her colleague mentioned jokingly, Izumi would develop into a “golf widow” — spending her weekends alone at dwelling taking care of the youngsters and taking up chores whereas he performed yet one more spherical.

Izumi was so decided to buck the stereotype that she and her boyfriend went straight to Golf Town to choose up golf equipment and footwear, then headed to the driving vary.

“I didn’t know if I’d like it. I didn’t know if I’d be any good at it, but it didn’t matter … I just wanted to prove that man wrong and never put myself in a position where I let myself be held back unfairly because I was a woman,” she recalled.

More than 25 years later, Izumi is way from a “golf widow.” The senior vice-president of buyer success and progress markets at software program firm SAP Canada is now a seasoned golfer married to the person who taught her the best way to golf. The couple take golf-centric holidays and have a son who bought his first golf equipment at age 4 and a daughter who routinely beats her mother on the course.

But most significantly, Izumi is working to construct a company Canada the place no girl feels excluded or put down as a result of she hasn’t realized to play golf — nonetheless a closely favoured pastime among the many world business group, which makes use of the game to lure in purchasers, signal offers and even establish future expertise for promotions.

Inspired by her colleague (whom she misplaced contact with way back) and others who positioned golf as a person’s area, Izumi began Tee Up for Success, which runs classes educating ladies driving, chipping, placing and golf etiquette, adopted by 9 holes at Lakeridge Links in Whitby, Ont.

After golf, there’s networking after which, a themed dialogue — matters have included impostor syndrome, mindfulness and the best way to construct a expertise pipeline of girls — over dinner.

SAP Canada, which partnered with Deloitte, PwC and Illumiti, is overlaying the prices this season, the third since Tee Up for Success started in 2021 with digital classes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Tee Up for Success moved to in-person classes because the well being disaster eased up.

Roughly 65 ladies from 24 corporations have joined classes thus far, however ladies and ladies stay outnumbered amongst Canada’s 5.8 million leisure golfers, making up 31 per cent of gamers, Golf Canada mentioned.

“There’s this idea that golf is not a place for women. Well, yes, it is,” mentioned Lisa `Longball’ Vlooswyk, an eight-time Canadian lengthy drive champion and ladies’s golf college proprietor.

She estimates 75 to 80 per cent of attendees at most golf tournaments are males — and that is not all the time as a result of ladies do not know the best way to play.

Vlooswyk noticed many choose up golf in the course of the pandemic as a result of it was a safer sport to play as than one thing indoors or high-contact. It allowed them to spend time with family members, problem stereotypes and reap profession advantages.

“Women are excelling in all aspects of the corporate world, but they don’t want to be left out,” she mentioned.

Women’s golf has grown by 150,000 extra gamers during the last decade, Golf Canada estimated.

However, many will not play in tournaments, particularly work-related ones, as a result of they really feel they are not adequate to compete towards males.

“Some of the worst swings you’ll see are from the guys, but they don’t care if they cold top it, buck it into the trees,” Vlooswyk mentioned.

“They realize it’s about the relationships and that’s where the women need that shift.”

Others keep away as a result of they’ve by no means been taught the game, do not perceive the principles or, like Javeriah Farrukah, have been intimidated by how bodily they understand golf to be.

“I’m a petite person and so I’ve generally not been very good at sports that require a lot of athleticism,” mentioned Farrukah.

Farrukah, who moved from Pakistan to Toronto in 2020, solely held a golf membership as soon as earlier than she signed up for Tee Up for Success, which ultimately taught her that golf is a sport of technique somewhat than power. Now she’s grown assured sufficient to enroll in tournaments with purchasers and linked with colleagues she’d by no means have met earlier than as a result of she did not golf.

Some even hyperlink the game to increased earnings and job titles. About 90 per cent of Fortune 500 CEOs play golf and CEOs who repeatedly play golf are paid 17 per cent extra on common than those that don’t, the Professional Golfers Association has mentioned.

Brooke Henderson, who holds essentially the most skilled victories of any Canadian golfer, mentioned the business and networking advantages ladies have just lately seen from leisure golf are “amazing.”

“A lot of the women that I play pro-ams with, they say that exact thing, that they’ve gained a lot from being able to play the sport and connect with their male counterparts on a golf course, too,” she mentioned at Shaughnessy Golf and Country Club in Vancouver, the place the CPKC Women’s Open is being held this week.

“If we can continue to grow that, I think that’s great.”

— With recordsdata from John Chidley-Hill in Vancouver