I was delighted to open my copy of Sports Illustrated last week and find something better than the usual warmed-over articles about Peyton Manning, LeBron James and Tiger Woods.
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The “Golf Plus” edition of SI included a terrific piece by Jeff Silverman called “Grass Ceiling” that focuses on successful female golf course superintendents. The impetus for the story was Candice Combs of Torrey Pines (who helped to host the Buick Invitational last weekend and who’s preparing the South Course for the 2008 U.S. Open), but several other women in the profession were interviewed, including Patty Knaggs, Patty Reedy and Andrea Bakalyar.
Read the story, but allow me to cite one stunning fact: According to GCSAA, there are only 79 female superintendents in the United States.
Folks, there are more than 16,000 golf courses in this nation. That means, theoretically, that 99.5 percent of all golf courses in America are managed by men. Is there any other industry – other than professional football or male prostitution – where women are so dramatically underrepresented?
As the article notes, females in the industry face sexism and perception problems. Duh. Yet, women overcome these challenges in other “manly” businesses such as construction or landscaping to carve out a respectable piece of the job market. Why, then, do so few females become superintendents?
I’ve researched and written about this issue for 20 years and, when I’ve asked women about the disparity, the one consistent comment I heard was that the biggest hurdle they faced wasn’t in the work force. Instead, it was in college.
They told me turf professors actively discouraged them from pursuing a career in golf course management. Essentially, they were informed by their university advisors that women could go into horticulture or some related “chick” field, but golf wasn’t right for them.
That, my friends, is crap.
I hope this attitude has changed throughout the years as the younger breed of turf professors has taken over from the old guard. But, I have my doubts. Why? Because about 15 years ago I researched the GCSAA database to attempt to find out how many female superintendents there were. It wasn’t a perfectly scientific approach, but I reached a relatively conservative conclusion that there were about 100 women who held the title of golf course superintendent.
In short, I wonder if we’ve gone backwards.
Is the world’s smallest sorority actually getting smaller?