It feels odd to me to talk about anything golf related right now with everything that’s going on. So I’ll do both, the current climate and golf are not mutually exclusive from my personal experience. Racism in golf may not be obvious or explicitly said, sometimes it has been but

more often than not it’s in a look, a judgemental tone of voice, a question of “are you lost?” Or “can I help you?” At the check in that means “You don’t belong here.”

It unfortunately is prevelant and pervasive in its subtlety throughout the golfing world but also I have experienced the beauty of golf, the people in it and the coming together of those people and places. It is a great leveller of a sport like no other.

I don’t want to beat down on golf as it’s a sport that I love to my core so I will offer a suggested action - We all have friends or groups of friends who we invite to certain things or activities that we think they’ll enjoy or feel comfortable doing, that’s normal.

So if you have someone in your friendship circle who is black or in a minority group - invite them to golf! Include them. Let them know that you acknowledge the biases. That golf is a wonderful game that should be enjoyed by ALL and that you will stand by them.

So that they too can feel comfortable and enjoy the game we all love. We all need advocates, as a woman and as a mixed race woman I recognise that better than most. I urge you - Be someone’s advocate to feel included.

This may seem minor with everything going on, but we all too often feel we can’t do anything meaningful to tip the balance. Golf saved my life, it made my life and who knows - a small action that you make might just bring joy to someone else’s life too.