In celebration of International Women’s Day, we highlight of outstanding staff that help grow the game for women of all ages.

On International Women’s Day, Golf Town Athlete Brooke Henderson can’t help but be happy to see how many women have taken up golf over the last two years. As one of the stars of the LPGA Tour, Brooke has seen first-hand how powerful an image it is to have the best women in the world inspire another group of women to play the sport she loves so much.

“To see so many strong women on Tour always pushing each other to be better, sometimes I just think back, think about that, and it’s pretty cool,” says Brooke. “And to have the fans come out and to see young girls and women of all ages enjoy watching us play… hopefully we can inspire and motivate them to be better too.

“It’s important as a woman to realize the strength in other women and try to use that as momentum to push us all forward and reach bigger and higher heights.”

Brooke, a 10-time winner on the LPGA Tour, is often involved at many women-in-business outings at golf courses across Canada and says it’s so fun to able to look down the driving range at just women who are celebrating their successes on and off the course.

While so many Canadians have been able to celebrate the gold-medal wins of our Women’s soccer team at the Summer Olympics and our Women’s hockey team at the Winter Olympics (record-setting TV numbers for both!) golf season across Canada is inching ever closer. Golf Town Athlete Lisa ‘Longball’ Vlooswyk says she has a waitlist of 300 people for future golf schools.

“In the last 18 years I have honestly never seen such buzz and excitement, and especially from women,” says Lisa, who ran such a fun series of videos on Golf Town’s Facebook account in the early days of the pandemic she still hears from people who fell in love with her, and golf.

“That got them excited about golf. It was a safe place to learn or re-learn about golf from the comfort of their own home. Now they can get out, see a PGA of Canada professional, and they have these basic skills. They want to learn and invest in themselves.”

Women at corporate jobs across Canada, Lisa says, are taking afternoons off to play golf with clients, customers, or friends – something she hasn’t seen before.

“The ladies are talking to me… they want to golf with their families and get their young kids into the game. Long gone are the days when just the guys are teeing it up and women are left at home. You’re seeing the whole family out there and playing together. That’s really cool,” says Lisa.

There are plenty of women who now take up senior roles in golf across Canada. The president of Golf Canada along with the presidents of five other provincial associations are women. There are five women on Golf Canada’s Board of Directors – the most ever – and women are in the C-Suite of places like the National Golf Course Owners Association, the Canadian Golf Superintendents Association, the Canadian Society of Club Managers, and RBC (which sponsors two events on the PGA Tour’s schedule, including the Canadian Open).

At Golf Town, there are so many great stories of female employees who are helping to get more women to play, and love, golf.

Colette Lerat, who works at the Burlington store, says when she was just starting to play golf there wasn’t really ‘girls’ clubs, especially as a junior. Now there are tons of options for boys’ and girls’ clubs, plus apparel for both, too. She says that representation is making younger girls feel more comfortable to start and stay with golf.

“If we can keep them going, keep them inspired, that’s how we’re going to grow the game with women,” she says.

Lauren Gridley, who works at the store in East Toronto, agrees. She’s noticed the junior apparel department is growing, especially on the girls’ side. It’s exciting, she explains, to build the game for them.

Victoria Pallotta and Laurie Flear, who work at Woodbridge and Barrie, respectively, are both passionate about helping more women get the right product.

Laurie says she tries to have as much fun as possible with the customers and show that at Golf Town, we’re family and we’re truly there to help. Victoria, meanwhile, acknowledges it can be intimidating at first to come into a Golf Town store as a first-time shopper in what has been, for so long, a male-dominated activity. But she approaches female shoppers calmly and makes them as comfortable as they can be in the Golf Town environment.

“There are so many women out there who are playing golf, so that has to be represented in the industry,” she says. “And show the equal playing field with women playing courses, playing tournaments, and having more representation when they’re shopping.”

It’s a celebratory time for women in golf, and both Golf Town Athletes Brooke Henderson and Lisa Vlooswyk are so excited to see the ongoing efforts by those in golf to keep up the momentum for women to feel welcomed in the golf space.

“Because we have so many new women coming to the game – if you can see it, you can be it,” says Lisa. “That’s what women are starting to see now.”