This book traces the history of women’s golf from its earliest recorded competitions to the present day. It follows the development of a participation system built through play, organisation, and continuity.
The book is structured as a sequence. Each chapter builds on what comes before it, showing how women did not wait for formal permission, but instead created and sustained their own structures of participation across clubs, competitions, and associations.
The Introduction begins at St Andrews in October 1867, where the first recorded women’s medal competition provides a clear starting point: organised play, committee oversight, and a repeatable format already in place.
From there, the book moves through five parts:
Participation First
Establishes that women were already playing, organising, and competing before formal governance structures emerged.
Organising at Scale
Examines how coordination developed, including the formation of the Ladies’ Golf Union in 1893.
Expansion and Tension
Explores how participation grew and adapted through periods of social and structural change.
Visibility and Narrative
Considers how women’s golf was represented, recorded, and, at times, reframed.
Continuity
Traces how participation has been sustained across generations through local practice and shared structures.
The final sections bring the argument together.
The Conclusion returns to the central insight of the book.
The Afterword looks forward, placing the history within the present and considering what it means to sustain participation into the future.
Each chapter is supported by evidence drawn from contemporary sources, including newspaper archives, club records, handbooks, and memoirs. The appendices provide access to this material in full, allowing the history to be followed, tested, and verified.
Start Reading
→ Introduction: Saturday, 5 October 1867
→ Explore the Evidence
→ View the Timeline