This project presents a history of women’s golf built from participation, competition, and community. It brings together narrative and evidence to show how the game developed through organised play long before formal institutional structures were established.
The material is designed to be read in more than one way. You can follow the narrative from beginning to end, or move between the chapters and the supporting evidence.
How the Project is Organised
The site is structured in three connected parts:
The Book
The narrative history. This follows the development of women’s golf from 1867 to the present, showing how participation created structure, continuity, and belonging over time.
The Evidence Base
The supporting material. This includes archival sources, press records, club and competition data, and structured appendices. These sources sit behind the narrative and allow the history to be examined in detail.
Participation Today
The contemporary context. This section connects the historical system to the present day, showing how patterns of participation continue to shape the game.
What This Project Does
This work is based on a simple but important observation:
Women were participating in golf in organised, repeatable ways before formal institutions existed.
From this starting point, the project shows that:
- participation created structure
- competitions and clubs sustained continuity
- governance emerged to coordinate, not to originate
The history presented here is therefore not built around single events or founding moments, but around systems that developed over time.
How to Navigate
There is no single correct way to use this site.
You may wish to:
- begin with The Book and read the chapters in sequence
- move between chapters and the Evidence Base to follow specific examples
- explore individual clubs, competitions, or themes through the appendices
- use Participation Today to connect the historical system to current structures
The chapters include references to supporting material, allowing the narrative and evidence to be read together where needed.
Sources and Method
The project draws on a wide range of material, including:
- press coverage and period publications
- club and competition records
- governance documents and archival sources
These are organised and interpreted through a structured approach designed to identify patterns of participation, continuity, and organisation across time.
This work has been developed through a human–AI research process, in which archival material has been gathered, structured, and analysed to support the narrative presented.
Interpretation and conclusions remain the responsibility of the author.
A Note on Reading
This is a history built from accumulation rather than from a single defining moment. Its structure reflects the way women’s golf developed: through repeated play, local organisation, and shared expectation.
The aim is not only to tell the story, but to make visible the system that sustained it.
Julie Walker (2026)