5 Step Guide for Beginner Women

Golf is a great sport for health, wellbeing, social and family life.

Check out these steps and get into golf:

1. Try Golf

• Visit one of our Kent driving ranges. If you have a friend that plays golf get them to take you to the driving range. Borrow a golf club – 9, 8 or 7 iron are good to start with. Or just visit the driving range and ask if you can hire a golf club.
• Some Kent golf clubs run one-off taster sessions for women, ‘Putting and Prosecco’ is an often used title.

2. Learn to Play

If you want to go further, don’t just hit balls at the range for too long without getting proper instruction. Otherwise, you could seal in bad habits that will be tough to change!

• With Kent Golf – look out for ‘Get into Golf’ or Academies for Women. These are designed for beginners.
• Nearly all our Kent golf clubs and driving ranges have options for giving you lessons – you don’t have to be a member. See our list of clubs here and talk to them about what they offer for you.
• Look out for the Kent Golf Women’s Fun Events and Women on Par events.

3. On the Course

When you are ready to play on a golf course, there are several options:

Play as a visitor
Most of our Kent golf clubs have a website with a section for visitors. You can ring up and book a tee (start) time. If you are in the early stages of your golf, public courses tend to be a bit cheaper and more suitable for beginners.

Play as an academy member
Some golf clubs have academies that will allow you to play on their golf course at specific times such as afternoons.

• Visit the Kent Golf Clubs Initiatives section on our Get Into Golf page for current offerings
• Work towards getting your golf handicap – as a rough guide, if you can play 9 holes of golf in 65 shots (or less) then you are good enough for an official handicap. You can do this through joining a golf club (see next step) or through England Golf’s igolf scheme if you don’t want to join a club.
• You will still want to improve. Make sure you keep up your lessons with our Kent PGA accredited coaches.

4. Join a Club

• Joining a Kent golf club will take your enjoyment of the game to a new level. You get to meet other golfers like you, play for fun together, play in competitions, improve, socialise and enjoy drinks and meals usually in lovely surroundings.
• It’s your golf club that will administer getting your official handicap sorted.
• Kent Golf has over 70 clubs that are members so there is one near you! Many clubs have friendly and welcoming women’s sections – that’s a question to ask when you are considering where to join. Many clubs are ‘Women in Golf Charter’ accredited, and several more are working towards that.

5. Compete and Win!

• When you have your handicap and have joined a club then you can join in Kent competitions. These are for all golfers – not just the elite. They are an affordable way to play other courses. Check out our competitions page and check your diary!
• To play in competitions, you will also need to know the rules. Kent Golf run rules sessions. And you can use the R&A YouTube channel to get you started.

Other Tips

• Sign up to the Kent Golf newsletter and follow us on social media.
• If you want to find people to play with there are lots of women’s golf groups on social media.
• Like with any sport, there’s lots of jargon in golf! There are a few ‘glossaries’ online. Here’s one on Wikipedia.