By Keila Doyle, Founder of Golf Hero | Guest Contributor
Golf in the UAE is having a genuine moment. With six world-class Dubai Golf clubs, a packed DP World Tour calendar, and venues like Five Iron reshaping interest in the sport among alternative demographics, the Emirates has quietly become one of the most dynamic golfing markets in the world. And yet if you spend any time in that world, as I do, a persistent question lingers: where are the women?
The data offers a partial answer, and it is more revealing than the headline numbers suggest. According to the R&A’s 2024 Global Participation Report, women make up 31% of adult golfers across the sport’s nine biggest markets, but a full 50% of golfers who engage through alternative formats like simulators, driving ranges, and adventure golf are women. Read that again. Women are not absent from golf. They are showing up in vast numbers wherever the environment feels welcoming, social, and low-stakes. It seems that the traditional on-course experience is where golf is losing them. This should be a signal to clubs, academies, and communities in the UAE that this is not a talent pipeline problem but a design flaw to be corrects,, and one that they should be well placed to solve.
Women are not absent from golf. They are showing up in vast numbers wherever the environment feels welcoming, social, and low-stakes.
Kelia Doyle, Founder of Golf Hero
The entry point needs redesigning
For many women considering golf in the UAE, the first barrier is psychological and not logistical. Walking into a club environment as a beginner, where unwritten codes of conduct and an assumption of prior knowledge can feel quietly exclusionary, is an experience that turns away more potential players than any green fee ever could. To change this, there needs to be a deliberate change to how we approach beginners and women in such establishments. Reserved beginner tee times, introductory clinics where enjoying yourself is the stated objective, and social competitions that prioritise laughter over leaderboards are all key to building a more inclusive atmosphere. Dubai Golf’s Get Into Golf programme reflects this approach, using affordable group lessons at Jumeirah Golf Estates and Top Golf to create a more welcoming introduction to the game.
Representation is not optional
There is something quietly powerful about walking into a space and seeing someone who looks like you in a position of authority. In golf, that experience remains rare for women. The coaching workforce, the academy ambassadors, the voices that shape what a club feels like skew overwhelmingly towards males, and that imbalance communicates something no welcome brochure can undo. Female coaches and ambassadors do not just teach technique; they signal belonging. Clubs in the UAE that are serious about growing female membership should be investing in female coaching pipelines with the same urgency they bring to course maintenance, because the return on that investment shows up directly in retention numbers.
Meeting women where they actually are
A five-hour round is not the entry point for most women navigating careers, families, and life in the city. This is not a complaint about commitment; it is a statement about reality, and the sport needs to respond to it honestly. Research shows that alternative formats are gateways, not detours: over a third of on-course golfers in both Canada and England first came to the game through a simulator, a driving range, or a shorter format. The UAE already has proof of concept in Topgolf Dubai, which has recorded over 95 million golf balls hit since opening in 2021, many of them by people who had never picked up a club before. The question is whether traditional clubs are paying attention to that pipeline, and actively converting that curiosity into membership.
Starting earlier, starting with families
The most durable participation in any sport comes from early introduction, and golf is no exception. A girl who is handed a club at seven years old and allowed to swing it badly, with no consequences and plenty of encouragement, carries a relationship with that sport into adulthood that no adult beginner programme can replicate. The Emirates Golf Federation’s 2025/26 season has introduced new junior pathways and expanded the Ladies’ Order of Merit to include Ladies European Tour starts, which is a meaningful signal that the federation understands the importance of progression routes. But those routes need feeding at the grassroots level through family programming, girls-specific junior clinics, and school partnerships that introduce the game before adolescence makes trying new things feel like a risk.
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Keila Doyle, founder of Golf Hero, believes creating a more welcoming future for women’s golf starts with rethinking how women and girls are introduced to the game. Photo: Golf Hero
Community before competition
Building Golf Hero has taught me something I now consider foundational: women’s relationship with golf, particularly in its early stages, is built on belonging long before it is built on performance. The clubs and communities that understand this do not treat social connection as a bonus feature of their women’s programme. Events that prioritise conversation, confidence, and enjoyment retain players through the difficult early months when technique is still frustrating and the scorecard offers little reward. Research finds that the rapid growth of women’s golf in the region is being driven precisely by this focus on community and belonging. It is a strategic insight that the sport’s decision-makers should be building around.
The appetite among women in the UAE for a sport that respects their time, reflects their presence, and welcomes their families is real and growing. Golf has the venues, the federation structures, and the cultural moment to meet that appetite properly. The only question is whether the people running clubs and academies are willing to design for the players they want to attract, rather than the ones they have always assumed would show up.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Mettleset.
About Keila Doyle
Keila Doyle is the founder of Golf Hero, a UAE-founded golf technology platform designed to make the sport more accessible, social and easier to understand. Inspired by her own experience learning to play golf, Keila created Golf Hero to help players track their progress, improve performance and connect with other golfers through simple, data-led technology.
