New documentary celebrates golf’s Iron Women

Created by award winning independent production company purpleTV, Iron Women celebrates some of the little known female pioneers of the sport.

The documentary is the latest by filmmaker Margot McCuaig whose slate includes Elena Baltacha, Tommy Burns, Rose Reilly and Jim Baxter.

From the early pioneers of the eighteenth century, to formidable role models who challenged the patriarchal constraints of male dominated golfing arenas, this story hails the trailblazers who put Scottish women’s golf on the world map.

The story begins in the 18th century in Musselburgh, with recorded evidence of fishwives playing golf and competing for the prize of a creel and silk handkerchiefs.

The game gathered momentum among the Victorian ladies of St Andrews from 1863, albeit under the watchful gaze of husbands and fathers who controlled the spaces women frequented, and how they used them.

Over the centuries, while some women were open about their love for golf, their space was often severely curtailed and distinctive male and female spheres came into play.

Transgressors such as Issette Pearson and Agnes Grainger developed strategies to create opportunities for women and thanks to their determination the Ladies Golf Union and the Scottish Ladies Golf Association were formed in 1893 and 1904, formalising the sport and creating competition, and fundamentally, a handicap system before men.

Professional golfer Karyn Dallas gives a shocking account of arriving at a club to play a tournament and there was a sign that said No Dogs or Women Allowed.

Dr Fiona Skillen says men supervised women to make sure they behaved appropriately when they played golf in the 19th century and land was gifted to the St Andrews Ladies Putting Club.

Dr Skillen said: “It’s interesting that the land the women are gifted to play on is straight beside the Royal and Ancient clubhouse so there’s an argument there that this is in order for the men to be able to keep a watchful eye on what the women are getting up to.

“The men check to see if the women are behaving themselves in a circumspect manner.

“They are being encouraged to play but a very specific kind of golf, it’s putting, it’s not challenging.”

She also shares memories of being in a golf club as a child.

She said: “I remember my dad getting very antsy if I ever went near the painted line or if I tried to step over the painted line, it was hugely controversial, and I was very aware of the gendered behaviour and the difference.”

Dr Fiona Reid had a similar experience and recalls a white line in the golf club where her mum played.

She said: “Only the men could go over that line.

“There’s a place that the men can go and a place that the women can go.”

Iron Women was produced by Glasgow based purpleTV for BBC ALBA and aired on Saturday, January 2 at 9pm.

If you were unable to watch the first broadcast, it remains available on the BBC iPlayer for 30 days afterwards.

Some of the ladies featured hail from the Home of Golf and include St Andrews based Elaine Moffat who joined St Regulus aged 12 before winning the Scottish Ladies Championship in 1988.

Also included are Hannah Fleming, a women’s golf historian at the British Golf Museum who is based in Crail and St Andrews and St Andrean Claire Hargan who has caddied for Belle Robertson and has also played against the ‘formidable’ Marjorie Fergusson in a county golf tournament.