Interest and participation in golf among girls "is actually growing," as Girls Golf, a girls-only program for golfers younger than 17 run by the LPGA and the USGA, "is booming," according to Matthew Futterman of the WALL STREET JOURNAL. Girls Golf enrollment "has increased" tenfold since '10 to around 50,000 participants. Girls and women "account for about 20% of golf participation" overall, but girls "now represent 25% of junior golfers." That is up from 23% in '11. Like "most successes in women’s golf these days, the recent surge among girls circles back" to LPGA Commissioner Michael Whan. In addition to "luring back corporate sponsors, Whan decided to invest heavily in the sport’s future." He realized if more girls in the U.S. "didn’t start playing golf, there might not be many fans" of the LPGA a decade from now. The LPGA now "invests more than $500,000 a year in Girls Golf, helping to spawn some 300 programs around the country." Girls Golf instructors "actually soft-sell the game and its stodgy rules and traditions, turning golf into a tool for socializing." Before the LPGA’s JTBC Founders Cup tournament last Phoenix in March, a Girls Golf gathering "included the requisite swing clinic but also a Fun Run through the course and a session-ending dance competition." Girls Golf instructor Nancy Bender said, "The game is dying. What the LPGA is doing here is being proactive rather than reactive" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 6/12).
