Life Circumstances

Our research found that life circumstances affect how people engage with golf, including playing golf, joining a golf club and volunteering.

Volunteers often spoke about family commitments including partners or spouses, children, grandchildren and elderly parents. These family commitments affected how much time they could spend at the golf club.

Work commitments similarly affected the amount of available time. Where work commitments were flexible, members could more readily find time to play golf and volunteer.

For many volunteers, it was a change in life circumstances that created the space for greater engagement. Some interviewees talked about children growing up and how this left them with more time. Older golfers often talked about how retirement was a catalyst to greater engagement.

Although other life commitments act as a constraint on volunteering, it doesn’t make it impossible. During the research, we spoke to several golfers with extensive work and family commitments that were still able to volunteer. It wasn’t always easy for them, but if volunteering could be fitted in and around their other commitments it was possible. Indeed, we spoke to several younger volunteers that were having a significant impact on their golf clubs.

If golf clubs are unable to engage younger adults as volunteers, there is a risk that club governance will remain the preserve of older members.

Importantly, this research challenges assumptions that non-participation is due to selfishness or apathy. Rather, non-participation is often due to a combination of other competing life commitments and a lack of convenient opportunities . While not much can be done about the former, golf clubs can provide more accessible opportunities to participate.

A board member described how he had few opportunities to participate earlier in life: An interviewee described how with some adjustment, he was able to be club captain:

“I had a young son at the time who had some pretty significant health issues. I was working away in the week. I was travelling all over the place. The last thing I could do is come home and spend five hours playing golf before I left home on a Monday morning at five o’clock and saying ‘see you’.”

“I could only be there at weekends, not often during the week. Not with work and having a baby daughter and a partner I actually wanted to spend some time with….I say to anyone that will listen, “Look, if I can be captain of this golf club anybody can.”

Recommendations

We recommend that golf clubs take practical steps to encourage participation among all members, including those with work and family commitments. Opportunities to participate need to complement members’ other life commitments. Busy people also need to be assured that they won’t over-commit themselves. Providing some accessible time-limited opportunities to get involved may lead to more substantial volunteering.

Golf club actions

Create accessible volunteer opportunities

• Offer a range of different participation opportunities some of which should be less time-intensive (e.g. time-limited working groups to address a particular issue, one-off bite-size volunteering activities).

• Organise and manage meetings effectively Arrange meetings at times that people can attend. Hold short, structured and wellmanaged meetings. Support chairpersons to conduct productive meetings by offering them training on effective chairing skills.

• Use technology to involve members with busy lives (e.g. use online meeting technology).

A volunteer described how meetings were time-managed to avoid putting off younger adults:

Help members to integrate competing life commitments

• Reduce gendered organisation within the club. Reduce tee-times set aside for a single gender. Host more mixed competitions.

• Offer more family participation activities that involve both adults and young people (e.g. offer family tee-times, family tournaments or family volunteering activities).

• Allow people to stay connected whilst at the golf club (e.g. allow mobile phone use, provide WIFI, hot desks and meeting room space).

“ We limit each section to 10 minutes. No one filibusters or anything like that at these things. It’s 10 minutes and then that’s it. If there’s any questions that they need answering thereafter then we do it in the bar.”