love.golf, the pioneering group golf program for women supported by Syngenta, marked its 10-year anniversary with a special coaches’ conference in London. 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 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 program 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 ten 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 per cent 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.”
