From Pebble Beach to St. Andrews, Women Golfers Are Coming to the Fore

I’m too klutzy to play golf. But I’ve always envied travelers who carry clubs because they know exactly how to spend their vacations. Cindy Crawford favors Ping putters, Celine Dion plays on her own 36-hole course near Montreal and these days 22% of the 26.5 million golfers in America are women--which, more than anything else, makes me wonder what I’m missing.

Mona Vold, a golf pro and author of “Different Strokes: The Lives and Teachings of the Game’s Wisest Women” (due in May from Simon & Schuster, $21), believes golf attracts women for all sorts of reasons, from the sublime to the ridiculous. “Some women play because of the great clothes,” she says. “But if you pay attention, the game can teach you about life.” Peggy Kirk Bell, one of the golfing greats featured in “Different Strokes,” says that putting taught her confidence. And Steve Cohen, president of the not-for-profit Shivas Irons Society, which promotes the deep virtues of golf as revealed in Michael Murphy’s popular 1972 golf fable, “Golf in the Kingdom” (Penguin Arkana, $13.95), says, “Women have known about the mental and spiritual sides of the game for years.”

Lately, though, it isn’t the inner game of golf that has attracted women. It’s the realization that men have been getting ahead in business while playing 18 holes, bonding with clients and making deals in the clubhouse afterward--while their non-golfing female colleagues are cut out. This is partly what motivated Nancy Oliver to found, in 1991, the Executive Women’s Golf Assn., with 13,000 members and 90 chapters nationwide, which sponsors clinics to teach women everything they need to know about the game, followed by cocktails and networking.

“It’s a little bunny slope for beginners,” she says. The EWGA sponsors weekend events at golf resorts and a big annual conference (held this year Nov. 11 to 14 at the Doral Golf Resort and Spa in Miami), while local chapters organize their own getaways. The idea is not only to have a little fun, but to help women get comfortable enough to golf with business colleagues.

Golf resorts like The Boulders, north of Scottsdale, Ariz., have started focusing on women as well, trying to make courses less intimidating to them. As Mike Surguine, a vice president of Grand Bay Hotels and Resorts (the parent company of The Boulders), says, “Golf has historically been an old boy’s game.” Women’s locker room facilities are sometimes inadequate, most golf pros are men, on certain courses women can’t tee off at prime times or drink in the bar, and some male golfers view women with disdain.

To make courses at five Grand Bay properties more welcoming to women, the company instituted a program called “Women to the Fore.” It gives women equal access to tee times, offers special packages, makes sure that plenty of high-quality women’s equipment is available for purchase or rental, and has at least one female pro at each resort.

Wendy Hudler, who teaches at The Boulders, starts novices with the basics like chipping and pitching before moving on to full swings and playing holes. More importantly, she tries to boost their confidence by preparing them to play golf in more general ways, teaching points of etiquette such as how to tend the flag, suggesting what to wear and cluing them in on simple things most male golfers already know (like the fact that you don’t have to lug your clubs in from the car at courses with bag drops by the front door).

Beth Burk-Ramos, coordinator of the Pebble Beach Golf Academy, which offers full-day and two-day schools for corporate women, takes a similar all-round approach. Video analyses, guest speakers and seminars on subjects such as “How and Why to Use Golf for Business” are part of the program, as is the chance to play on two of the most renowned courses in the country: Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill. “Simply mentioning that you just came back from Pebble Beach is a tremendous business credential,” Burk-Ramos says.

Playing in golf’s ancestral home, St. Andrews, Scotland, would be just as impressive, as for that matter, would be honing your skills with Shirley Spork, a founding member of the LPGA and director of instruction at the School of Golf for Women at the Singing Hills Resort near San Diego. Here are a few ways and places to get on board:

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The School of Golf for Women at Singing Hills Resort, El Cajon, Calif., telephone (800) 457-5568 or (619) 442-3425, offers three- and five-day schools for $1,235 and $1,980 respectively (based on double occupancy, including lodging, meals, airport transfers, instruction).

Pebble Beach Golf Academy on the Monterey Peninsula, tel. (831) 622-8650, holds golf schools for corporate women lasting a full day ($525) or two days ($2,595, based on double occupancy, with three nights’ accommodations at the Inn at Spanish Bay, continental breakfasts, lunches, two rounds of golf and two days of instruction).

For information on “Women to the Fore” golf packages at Grand Bay Hotels and Resorts, call (888) GRAN-BAY. They range in price from $1,039 to $1,994 at The Boulders, Carmel Valley Ranch, The Peaks in Telluride, Colo., The Lodge at Ventana Canyon in Tucson and Isla Navidad near Manzanillo, Mexico.

The Old Course Hotel in St. Andrews, Scotland, tel. (800) 263-7397, has “For Women Only Golf Retreats” priced from $510 to $785 per person (double occupancy). They include two nights’ lodging, a round of golf on the Duke’s Course, a one-hour golf clinic, a spa treatment, a 60-minute massage and four meals.

For information on the Executive Women’s Golf Assn., call (800) 407-1477.