Women's statue in Irish golf: Part 1: In a major survey of Irish golf's progress on implementing equality law, Shay Keenan finds there's still much to be done

Emily Pankhurst and her hardy bunch of suffragettes may have helped get women the vote back in 1918, and then only if they were over 30 years of age, but they would have found getting a round of golf on a Saturday morning a much tougher proposition.

The golf club has often been seen as a bastion of male domination, where men are men and women are . . . well, non-existent. But while men will continue to dominate golf club committees for the foreseeable future, simply because of the greater numbers in the clubs who have voting rights, the last 15 years has brought a dramatic change in the standing of women in the golf clubs of Ireland.

In almost every facet of modern life, it has been assumed that women stand level with their male counterparts. Politics, the military, sport, the business world are all seen as veritable hotbeds of equal opportunity but golf, up to the early 1980s, suffered an image problem.

While many clubs had started the process of equal membership for women in the 1980s, the creation of the Equality Authority and the enactment of the Equality Act of 2000 pushed full membership for women in golf clubs a major step forward.

"The Equality Authority is committed to realising positive change in the situation of those experiencing inequality by: promoting and defending the rights established in the equality legislation and providing leadership in, building a commitment to addressing equality issues in practice, creating a wider awareness of equality issues, celebrating the diversity in Irish society and mainstreaming equality considerations across all sectors."

Discrimination is described in the Act as the treatment of a person in a less favourable way than another person is, has been or would be treated on a number of grounds.

In 1991, a survey by the Irish Ladies' Golf Union showed that only 26 per cent of the clubs in Ireland offered full membership to women, but five years later that number had risen substantially to 95 per cent in the West, 79 per cent in the Midlands, 74 per cent in the South, 46 per cent in the East and only 36 per cent in the North.

While the Northern District is still some way short of full membership for all women, the rest of the clubs affiliated to the ILGU and the GUI have now changed their constitutions allowing for women to take up the offer of full voting membership. Some have made the transition easily while in other clubs the process is still ongoing - some clubs have given women members up to two years to decide on the change.

Our recent survey shows that all clubs who replied to our enquiries in Leinster, Munster and Connacht have now offered full membership, while in Ulster some clubs have yet to take it on board, offering, variously, not enough interest by the women in transferring, it not being an issue or "the women are happy with what they have" as the excuses.

And while the take-up has been quite substantial in some instances others, where women have enjoyed seven-day playing rights for many years, have seen little interest as the women see no reason why they should pay a larger fee just for a vote at the agm.

Another area where there is a reluctance for change is in family memberships. This is much more prevalent in rural clubs than in city clubs - where family membership is seldom offered - and offers family the opportunity of playing golf at a very reasonable rate by modern standards.

The changes in the constitution has resulted in clubs being forced into forming three committees - the men's club, the women's club and the management club in order to comply with the constitutions of the ILGU and the GUI. In time this structure may also disappear and we will see only one committee to run the club with sub-committees to run the respective areas of the game for men and women.

Some clubs have made the transition easily by simply transferring all the women to full membership, as happened in a number of clubs in the west of Ireland, while the move in the bigger cities such as Dublin, Cork and Belfast has been more complex, with a number of obstacles having to be overcome before agreements were reached.

While, in the west, associate membership is almost completely a thing of the past, with nearly all the women moving into the full category, a number in Leinster and Munster have opted to remain in this category. However, in these cases the associate category is no longer open to new members and will in time fade out.

The model of equality is certainly Glencullen Golf Club in South Dublin where there are 250 men, 250 women and everyone plays in total harmony.

If only it was like that in the rest of the country.

The survey also revealed major differences in the needs and demands of clubs across the country. For example at Adare Manor in Limerick there are, by choice after the offer was made some years ago, 400 lady associates and no full members.

Just down the road in Castletroy GC all the women took the option of full membership when it was offered.

In Ulster at Dungannon, full membership was offered but no women took up the option and it was the same in Newtownstewart Golf Club.

Ardacong in Connacht have no women members while the large majority in the rest of the western province have availed of the opportunity, while in some cases the membership just decided to transfer all the women into the full category.

The game has evolved over the years but change doesn't happen overnight, it takes time. In another 20 years attitudes at clubs will be different again and people will look back and wonder what all the fuss was about.