Like many young professionals, Tiffany Fitzgerald followed advice to go to college and land a good job. But no one told her she’d also need to pick up a set of golf clubs to move up the company ladder.
“I found out pretty quickly once I entered corporate America that golf was the one thing that other people were doing that I wasn’t doing, and I learned how to play because of that,” she says.
It was not exactly love at first putt for Fitzgerald. She found the steep learning curve “embarrassing and intimidating.” But once she got better, she enjoyed it more – so much she turned golf into her full-time career.
In 2013, Fitzgerald founded Black Girls Golf to create a safe space for women and girls to learn, play, and connect at all skill levels. She says participation “skyrocketed” in the pandemic as more people sought safer activities to enjoy outdoors. The Atlanta-based organization now counts more than 4,000 members in chapters across the United States, a sign of growing inclusion in a sport traditionally dominated by affluent White men.
“Black women make up less than one percent of the golf industry’s workforce, so a huge part of our mission is introducing girls to the career opportunities that are available in golf. And for professional women, there’s so many benefits, including health and wellness,” Fitzgerald says.
