Advertisement

Condoleezza Rice on diversity: 'Golf needs to look more like America'

SAMMAMISH, Wash. – Talk to any major player in the golf industry and they’ll tell you the three biggest problems facing the sport of golf: Lack of time, lack of money, and lack of diversity. If golf wants to grow and attract more people to the game, it simply needs to broaden its tent.

The last of those three — golf’s lack of diversity — is arguably the problem that has plagued golf the most throughout its history. Donald Trump’s divisive run for president (Trump owns a number of golf courses that host PGA Tour and LPGA Tour events) has only increased the perception. But now, Condoleezza Rice is trying to change that.

Rice became one of the first female members of Augusta National when she was inducted alongside Darla Moore in 2012, and she’s been a prominent figure in golf ever since.

At the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship on Tuesday, Rice and KPMG launched the KPMG Future Leaders Program, an initiative designed to inject more women leaders into the business world. She’s also hoping the effects will leak into golf, though, an area Rice is particularly about. On Tuesday, after playing in the tournament’s Pro-Am with Lydia Ko, she talked about the game’s need for change, and

“When you’re on a golf course a couple of things are very interesting. No matter who you’re with and who you’re playing with, people want each other to do well. You can see it in a group like today. People try to be honorable. They tell the truth about their scores. They work hard at the game and it can be frustrating. But the people who are really most successful at it are the people who can sort of put that aside and move on to the next shot.”

She continued.

“I hope by elevating the women’s game and the way that we are we can attract more young women into the game. I would like to attract more minorities into the game. But it’s extremely important that this golf look like — that golf look like America. And this is a part of an effort of golf to look like America. If America could look a little bit more like golf, we would all be better off.”

(Getty)

(Getty)

The next day, at the KPMG Women’s Leadership Summit, Rice talked more about golf and used it to expand into other areas. She said that while it may be difficult for women taking up the game now because of its current make up, good things often come from trying things outside your comfort zone, and that it becomes easier for the women in the future.

“You think I was comfortable as a 23-year-old black woman in Moscow?” she asked before continuing.

The United States has had a long journey to make ‘We The People’ be an inclusive concept… what we’re seeing now is that there are fewer and fewer great institutions that survive by excluding themselves.”

 

More Golf