Women's golf - right to play main competitions at weekends

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putsch

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I'd be really interested in feedback from women golfers in different courses on what their rights are to play on week-ends in the main weekly competition.

The background to the question is that, even though I'm a full member, paying a annual premium for full membership (and a premium joining fee) and notionally entitled to play on a Saturday as an alternate to the traditional weekday "ladies day", in practice, the Saturday alternate is not working. I'd particularly like to hear of clubs where full membership really means fully equal playing rights in practice.

thanks
Putsch
 
I'm a member in Killeen, Co kildare. AFAIK women are entiteld to play all competitions every weekend
 
I joined a club that was approx 40 mins drive from where I lived and I was a full member and we got equal rights on all time sheets. Competitions were on saturday and sunday and you could play on the time sheet no seperate times or limited times for ladies, all was well. A club opened in the town where I lived ,I paid a substantial joining fee and full member sub and when they started running competitions it was gentlemen first and they wanted to have ladies in the afternoon, competitions were on sunday. I really objected to this and got on the the ladies committee and said I was a full member and was entitled to put my name on the main time sheet. I said it was against the law to treat me different than any other full member which we were. It was in the constitution of the club that all full members were to be treated equally.The ladies club did not want to know as they were happy with time mid week or sunday evening as they did not want to go on the course when the men were out We would all be killed we would get hit with a ball ,it would be too dangerous for us these were all the arguments used. A number or us got together and wrote to the ladies club and the mens club stating our rights but we got no where. We then contacted the equality authority and they looked at our case and felt we were being discriminated against just because we were female. A number of letters to the management from the equailty pointing out the law and still no move we still could only play in limited times. We kept pushing for a full 3 years and when we told the club that the only option left to us was to take a case against them and that we were about to issue proccedings we finally got an open sheet for competitions on Sunday's. It works well nobody got killed and the few of us who want to play earlier are doing so. It created alot of bad feeling for a while and the ladies who were againsted it were worse that the men but we felt it was well worth the hassle to get it . Why should I pay the same fee as a man and get limited access. It is 2007 so if you are a full member you are by law entitled to put your name in main competition sheet and play in the ladies competition. We also contacted the ILGU who did offer some advice but do not really get involved. Only 3 of us kept pushing and now lots of the ladies are using it but did not stand up with us as they did not want to be seen as causing trouble. It is out dated to expect women who work all week and pay full money to take lesser times Can you imagine if you joined a gym paid the same money as males and were told after joining that 5pm - 10pm is for males only and you can come at 11pm or 3pm there would be uproar.
 
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Well done Coleen - on a separate note I can't understand the women who think it's ok for their husbands to join a club that is discriminatory to women.
 
Coleen

Thanks a mil for outlining your experiences - I can see it would take an enormous amount of comittment and persistence to change things and get equal rights - I'm not sure I want spend so much time on it!!!! But well done you - take a bow.
Putsch
 
most golf clubs now are a business..Fair enough if you ladies are paying the same annual fees but would you not agree that women are alot slower than men at the game,apart from the pros,so if a group of ladies go out and play on a sat morning,they will hold up the players coming on behind.
Which will mean less people getting to play during the course of the day ,which then is a loss of comp fees.

I believe thats why ladies might get an hr or 2 in the afternoon.
 
that is a seperate issue and has to be dealt with as that. There are equally as many slow men as there are slow women golfers and anyone either male or female who holds up the course should be call in by the club and told they cannot hold up play. In my experience men spend alot more time searching for a ball than women do, but you cannot discriminate against any full member just because you think ladies might be slower.
 
Nope would not agree that women are slower than men as a rule.

On the few occasions when we do get out on a Sat. we are usually held up by slow men players - they can be slow for all kinds of reasons such as age, lack of experience, insistence on looking for long lost balls, focusing on the internal fourball (sometimes this seems to require lying down on the green lining up the putt as if playing in the Ryder Cup) rather than the competition on the day.

Just to clarify I'm asking for specific examples of clubs (names if possible and preferably member owned) where those women who are full members and paying the full sub (usually c. euro1,800 p.a.) can or cannot get full playing rights to the main competitions at the week-end. This would be very useful for comparison purposes.

thanks
 
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