Golf: Pga Breaks Barriers With Woman Captain

One hundred and four years after the foundation of the Professional Golfers' Association the organisation that governs club professionals in Britain and Ireland finally acknowledged that the world has moved on since the days of Edward VII when it yesterday appointed a woman to one of the most prominent figurehead positions in European golf.

Beverly Lewis, a former women's European tour player and current member of BBC television's golf-coverage team, was installed as the PGA's first female captain and promised she would do everything she could to attract younger players, and girls in particular, to a sport long encumbered by a reputation for being run by middle-aged men.

"Unfortunately it is true there are not many girls taking up golf right now, for a whole variety of reasons. Hopefully my appointment to this post will show young girls especially that golf is a welcoming sport, an exciting sport and a sport they can grow to love," Lewis said.

"In my experience some clubs are very welcoming to young people, while others are not so welcoming. We have to target this second group and make them realise that, without new golfers taking up the sport, there will be no golf clubs."

Lewis will have little control over the day-to-day running of the organisation but said her role would be as a figurehead at PGA events for club professionals and as an ambassador at major events around the world.

As a product of municipal courses around Essex and a founder member in 1978 of the women's PGA, she is also a living, breathing example that upper echelons of the game are not the preserve of men.

Nevertheless she eschewed any attempt to paint her as a pioneer and struck a conciliatory note with those clubs which refuse women members, such as the sport's governing body, the Royal & Ancient.

"My role isn't to change the constitution of golf clubs," she said. "As I travel around I see that golf isn't like the R&A or Muirfield; the new golf clubs especially are much more membership friendly."