Understanding My Ignorance

by Colin Bell | Gather Co-founder
FIVE MINUTE READ

Little old me:

• Born into a comfortable middle-class family.

• Fortunate to have a golfing mother and father.

• They loved it so much Mum played while pregnant, with Dad putting the ball on the tee for her. Probably destiny I would play…

• Grew up a10min walk from a golf course, in a very safe area.

• Being born male, meaning my first years in golf were experienced as a male junior member at the club.

• Probably realising only recently (as I approach my big 4 – 0 birthday…gulp) just how ‘lucky’ I was to have all those factors in my favour as a boy, teenager, young man.

• I could be a case study of “environment” direct from Matthew Syed’s excellent book ‘Bounce’.

Some formative experiences:

My club had, like many other clubs around it, a history of some of the misogynistic, racial and cultural crap we have thankfully finally eradicated from many parts of our great game.

I grew up as a teenager hearing tales from previous years of any people of colour being spotted entering the golf club car park, being met and turned away before they reached the front door.

(Even writing this line I had the uncomfortable pause of wondering which terminology to use. My first draft read “non-white people” before I realised how silly that sounds. I’m much more comfortable with POC having read this helpful article and reminding myself that actually, the terminology matters less than the impact of our actions).

Casual racism was joked about in the clubhouse.

Women’s locker room tiny, inconvenient and with dilapidated shower facilities compared with the men’s – well into my 20’s.

The shameful practice of premium tee time slots only available to men.

Thankfully, I can say these elements were eradicated by the time of my latter years at the club.

My recent conclusions

So why after 20 years in that club environment experiencing and hearing what I heard, then after transitioning into working in the industry for 13 years (particularly in a mass participation programme for five of these years), then developing the game most recently on an international scale – am I only now questioning my ignorance to this topic?

The answer can only be….comfort.

The comfort of what John Amaechi most recently eloquently described as white privilege. I highly recommend his recent BBC video if you haven’t yet seen it. 

Yes, but why write about this now? Because of the Western world’s media in recent months?

No. Actually because I was recently interviewed by an Asian friend about a range of topics in golf development and from a very enjoyable recorded video conversation, I came away feeling really disappointed that I had no real answer for one of his questions:

“Is there anything specific being done within the golfing industry that is focused on increasing minorities participation in the sport?”

I was embarrassed to not know. I was kind of ashamed to regard myself as someone “experienced” in golf development on a fairly global scale and yet not know the answer.

I bumbled through, explaining that there are such a wide range of countries across the world offering initiatives to get people into the game of golf and they cover a wide range of cultures. This is true of course but was still little old me sitting on the fence and playing it safe.

Although in the same interview I did also reference one of the observations of my younger self at my golf club mentioned above, I didn’t go far enough and expose that situation for just how horrendous it was.

But also, I wasn’t honest in that moment to admit just how ignorant I have continued to be on the topic of inclusion in golf throughout my career in the industry, despite these earlier experiences.

It never previously occurred to me that there might be a problem, because if a young Asian kid turned up to a junior golf programme once in a while, I never viewed them differently (thanks Mum and Dad for raising me to view people as equal).

Why isn’t there much discussion about this in the golf industry I wondered? Shouldn’t there be?

Following my musings, recently Iain Carter on BBC Sport posted a really insightful and interesting article accompanied by a BBC Five Live Sport Podcast on golf and race which started to answer some of my questions, improve my knowledge and my understanding. This is encouraging to see, but shouldn’t there be next step(s) from the industry?

I urge you to consider the final comments in the article from Golf Channel presenter Damon Hack – these really hit home for me.

"I do want to see more people of colour on the PGA Tour, but I also want to see more in the hallways of the R&A and in the hallways of the PGA of America.

"The accessibility is not there, the investment in the community is not there.

"It's one thing for us to be kept up at night thinking about these things. The people who have the power have to be passionate about this as much as we are.

"This has to be as important to them as picking out Open venues for the next five years. These issues have to be important to people other than the folks that look like us.

"Why do Zane, Jas and I have to have all the answers? Clearly we don't and it can be exhausting. I think it's a global multi-cultural, multi-layered attack that's needed.

"My default is to be optimistic. My hope is that this is a movement and not a moment. I believe that there are a lot more allies than we have ever had in this type of complex issue."

In the same way that I recall the eloquent words of Annica Lundstrom from the Swedish Golf Federation when describing how they can possibly aspire to 50/50 participation between females and males in golf in Sweden:

“You can’t always expect the people who are underserved in that problem to be the solution to the problem.”

I wonder who else is listening in the Gather community and across the industry?

So what am I gonna do about it?

It’s time for me to better educate myself on this topic within our industry and it’s time to explore if the learnings could prompt collaborative discussion and solutions.

I’m very hopeful that the Gather community can assist my education on this. 

If this article prompts any thoughts, advice or suggestions for sources of information please drop me a note and let’s explore. Maybe you know of someone Gather could speak to and bring their insights to the community. Do you have ideas for what the industry should be doing?