Ashley Zibrik: “There’s been a couple of individuals who have informed me that they haven’t tried golf earlier than. I inform them ‘what a time to attempt it.’”
Article content material
Ladies’s golf in B.C. is flourishing and Ashley Zibrik hopes the CPKC Ladies’s Open will likely be an additional enhance.
Commercial 2
Article content material
“I believe we undoubtedly obtained a couple of individuals ,” stated Zibrik, who’s the director of golf and head professional on the Shaughnessy Golf and Nation Membership, which is internet hosting the LPGA event this week.
Article content material
“I’ve been strolling the grounds and I’m assembly individuals day by day and there’s been a couple of who’ve informed me that they haven’t tried golf earlier than. I inform them ‘what a time to attempt it.’ It’s a sport that you would be able to hopefully play ceaselessly.
“Any person informed me this week that golfers dwell 5 years longer that non-golfers. If that’s not a incontrovertible fact, I’m going to go forward and consider it anyway, as a result of it looks as if a ok purpose to get into golf.”
COVID-19 was one purpose why some individuals obtained into golf, which was comparatively secure and social through the peak of the pandemic restrictions.
Article content material
Commercial 3
Article content material
Golf Digest reported in January that the World Golf Report — an financial examine of the worldwide gross sales of golf gear and attire performed by Golf Datatech and the Yano Analysis Institute of Japan since 2015 — listed the golf business as rising to $20 billion in 2021 earlier than coming in at $19.7 billion in 2022. That’s greater than a 30 per cent improve since 2019.
Golf Canada says about 150,000 extra ladies have registered than the quantity from a decade in the past. Golf Canada chief advertising and marketing officer Tim McLaughlin says there’s been a “concerted effort on the a part of the business to make the game extra inclusive.”
“Organizations like Golf Canada and all of the provincial associations have centered on driving participation with ladies,” he stated.
Commercial 4
Article content material
Zibrik says there are golf execs in B.C. who’re considering “outdoors of the field to get ladies engaged and it’s largely together with social parts.” She pointed to issues similar to Birdies, Babes and Beats, a category designed for ladies by professional Courtney Campbell-Leveck of Gleneagles in West Vancouver.
“If individuals are having enjoyable, they’re going to return again,” Zibrik stated. “There’s added leisure to the programming. It’s not come out for an hour, hit, after which go dwelling.”
McLaughlin says the CPKC Ladies’s Golf offers Golf Canada a possibility to “showcase the wonderful energy of ladies’s skilled sports activities,” on the similar time they will “create numerous impression on the grassroots degree for ladies in golf.” They held a ladies’s management convention earlier this week and additionally had a youngsters clinic with American rookie sensation Rosie Zhang on the Musqueam Golf and Studying Academy.
Commercial 5
Article content material
Zibrik notes the 15 Canadians who began within the area this week on the CPKC Ladies’s Open as proof of the expansion of the game.
Zibrik was named president of the PGA of B.C. in February, changing into the forty second particular person to tackle the roll within the affiliation’s 92-year historical past however the first lady. She’s been in her present job at Shaughnessy since 2019 and is the primary feminine director of golf and head professional within the membership’s 112-year historical past.
“Among the gamers this week are shocked assembly me. I can see it of their faces. They’re anticipating the pinnacle skilled to be a person,” she stated. “I can’t inform what number of lady head execs there are throughout the nation. It’s not very many. We now have 90 per cent males within the business, I consider. We’re slowly rising our numbers.
Commercial 6
Article content material
Zibrik had a profitable taking part in profession at Boise State and is a two-time winner of the PGA of B.C. ladies’s championship.
“You all the time dream while you’re youthful of taking part in on the LPGA Tour. I will not be taking part in at this event, however I’m serving to host it. There’s numerous pleasure in that,” she stated.
@SteveEwen
Summer time subscription sale: Our in-depth journalism is feasible because of the help of our subscribers. For a restricted time, you may get full on-line entry to the Vancouver Solar and The Province, together with the Nationwide Publish and 13 different Canadian information websites, for simply $40 for one 12 months or $1 every week for 52 weeks. Help our journalism by subscribing at this time: The Vancouver Solar | The Province.
Feedback
Postmedia is dedicated to sustaining a energetic however civil discussion board for dialogue and encourage all readers to share their views on our articles. Feedback could take as much as an hour for moderation earlier than showing on the location. We ask you to maintain your feedback related and respectful. We now have enabled e mail notifications—you’ll now obtain an e mail for those who obtain a reply to your remark, there may be an replace to a remark thread you comply with or if a consumer you comply with feedback. Go to our Group Pointers for extra data and particulars on how one can regulate your e mail settings.
Be a part of the Dialog