May sees the return of National Golf Month.

The primary focus of 2017's awareness raising campaign for the sport is Get Women Golfing. This is a great idea as according to the organisers, currently only just over one in ten UK golfers are female (14%) compared to one in four in Europe (25%), which makes the proportion of female golfers in the UK the lowest of the top ten markets in Europe.

As clubs across the country have had somewhat of a hard time of it in recent years in terms of boosting membership, targeting a massively under-represented sector of their potential marketplace, seems highly sensible.

The campaign which is orchestrated by the British Golf Industry Association will feature a National Golf Month website that will be promoted to women across the UK with a high-profile advertising, PR and social media push, including major radio, print and online advertising with National Golf Month partner, Bauer Media.

A core element of the month's activities will be the provision of 50,000 free one hour taster sessions offered exclusively for women. The BGIA is calling on clubs and pros to commit to offering a minimum of two of these sessions during the month. In addition, they are encouraged to develop their own initiatives to attract more women onto the course, all of which will be showcased on the website.

Doug Poole, project director of National Golf Month said in a statement, "There is a real business case for golf pros and clubs to help girls get golfing. That’s why want to break down the barriers to ensure as many women and girls as possible are introduced to the game in May."

In a clever use of social media to target those who might not usually find information about golf through regular channels as part of the push, clubs and pros are also being encouraged to use the hashtag #GirlsGetGolfing across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter in the lead up to May to help showcase some of the opportunities that will be on offer.

And giving some timely extra relevance to the campaign recently has been the high-profile news that Muirfield Golf Club has reversed its long standing ruling and will now be allowing women to join as members. When members voted against this a few years ago it didn't do the wider game any favours in how the sport must be perceived amongst large swathes of the general public.

Doug Poole welcomed the move from Muirfield saying the decision, "..sends the right signal to women that the game is becoming more open and less stuffy. We can’t grow the game as long as it is seen as a male only bastion."

A question which springs to mind from this campaign for the greenkeeping and wider turfcare profession is, are they seen as a male only bastion?

It did jump out at me somewhat that in the story featured in today's Weekly Briefing about the BIGGA support team announced for the BMW PGA Championship at The Wentworth Club, amongst the 52 names of greenkeepers selected, only one of them is female.

Now of course the argument that only the best people should be selected for the job, regardless of filling any supposed gender quotas, holds true here as much as anywhere. But just one woman? That does seem like a remarkably low percentage.

Or is this level of female participation in turfcare activities simply indicative of the industry as a whole? Are clubs, colleges and trade associations doing enough to adjust the gender imbalance? Should they have to?

It certainly seems to me that a campaign like the BGIA's one but to encourage more women to consider a career in turfcare would only be a positive move.

But what do you think? Please feel free to leave a comment below.