The milestone event was a chance to reflect on a decade of progress, share ideas, and explore fresh innovations to engage and retain more women in the game.
Since its inception in 2015, love.golf, supported by Syngenta, has introduced thousands of women to the sport, replacing traditional instruction with a more empowering approach, one that encourages exploration, confidence-building, and connection with like-minded women.
At the heart of the programme are its passionate coaches – led by founder and Head Coach Alastair Spink – who came together for two days of powerful discussion, thought-provoking presentations and idea sharing at CitizenM on London’s Southbank.
Spink, whose academic research into how women best learn golf led to the creation of love.golf in 2015, said: “Our annual coaches’ conference is always one of the highlights of the year but this one was extra special. There was an incredible energy in the room and it was a fantastic opportunity to reflect on all we have achieved, as well as think about how we can continue our progress over the next 10 years. It’s been a brilliant journey so far but we’ve only scratched the surface. There’s so much more we can do to improve female participation and retention rates in golf.”
Mark Birchmore, Syngenta’s Global Head of Marketing, who has been closely involved with love.golf since its inception, also joined the event. “I first met Alastair around the same time as Syngenta published a groundbreaking study into female golf participation, which revealed women could add $35 billion to the global golf economy. It also highlighted that 29% of non-golfing women and lapsed players were either interested or very interested in taking up golf.
“The creation of love.golf was designed to put research into action and help showcase to the golf industry that the latent demand could be satisfied by a more female customer focused pathway into the sport. By openly publicising our learnings and experiences within love.golf, I hope we have helped shape thinking in the industry to provide a better experience for women coming into golf.”
Birchmore added: “Spending time with the coaches was enlightening. Their passion for making golf more accessible to all is inspiring. I would encourage any other coaches wishing to learning more or become involved to get in touch. Likewise, all our research and learning are published on syngentagolf.com.”
Several of the coaches were invited to present, including Molly Moore, a love.golf coach in Surrey, who shared a video about her journey as a female coach. “The conference is a great opportunity to network with other coaches, there’s a lot of interaction and discussion,” she said. “I love the collaboration and idea-generation that comes from these events.”
Another coach, Gill Hansom from Yorkshire, added: “I’ve come away with loads of ideas, the possibilities are endless and I’m really excited about putting them into practice.” A highlight of the event was a social media task, where coaches were set the challenge of heading into the city in small teams to create an Instagram reel, with the best effort winning a prize.
Spink concluded: “There was such a buzz in the room as we all watched each other’s efforts. The coaches fully embraced the challenge with a lot of humour. It embodied everything love.golf stands for: learning in a positive environment while having fun.”