Always there but seldom seen: black women have been swinging the clubs just as long as men. It's time to recognize. (Challenge).

According to the National Minority Golf Foundation (NMGF), of the 26.7 million golfers in the United States, 5 million (or almost 20%) are women. They are the fastest-growing segment of new players in the sport. And, as a result, the golf industry is paying attention.

"The increase in the number of women players has made the golf industry more aware of the need for equipment that is women friendly," says Barbara Douglas, the managing director of the NMGF in Phoenix and the first African American member of the United States Golf Association Women's Open. "And many golf clubs are putting in forward tees that are the right length for beginners and women."

In essence, the golf industry has realized that women golfers are big business. More and more golf clubs, once notorious for maintaining a good-old-boy's atmosphere, are suddenly putting out the welcoming mat for our ladies of the field. They offer women's clinics, a few others offer daycare and babysitting facilities, and even more are just offering basic services that are specifically female oriented. We discovered that 2.4% of BLACK ENTERPRISE readers play golf on domestic vacations, compared to 1.6% of black women. And while 10.2% of black women watch golf on television, 1.6% of them actually attend golf events.

Executive women who have been excluded from the game for decades are educating themselves about the professional, as well as personal, benefits of the game. Organizations like the Executive Women's Golf Foundation, nearly 10 years old, are helping women to become astute about the sport of golf so that they too can reap the same benefits of the game as their male counterparts.

Joan Flowers, an attorney who has practiced in New York for 14 years, says she fell in love with golf in 1998. While she's still fairly a novice, she has discovered that playing golf has had an impact on the success of her firm. "I bring clients out to the golf course and I also go out with groups of fellow professionals," she says. "This was a sport that was closed off to women professionals for a long time. It's such an excellent networking tool."

Dorothy Gibson, president of Les Birdies, an African American woman's golf club founded in Cincinnati, in 1976, agrees. "When Gibson's daughter moved back to Cincinnati from California, she began job hunting--she hit the green with members of Les Birdies. The club boasts more than 80 members who range in age from their late 20s to their early 80s, and whose occupations include everything from doctors, lawyers, and principals to police officers and government workers.

"[I can't say it enough,] golf is an excellent way to network," says Gibson. "You get to know people and you find out what's going on in the business community in your city."

Deborah Davis, the first assistant golf professional at the Charlie Yates Golf Course in Atlanta, is thrilled at the influx of African American women to join the game. The former Futures Tour player who, until last year, was an instructor at the Golf & Tennis Challenge for Titleist, has personally benefited from her years on the golf course. One of her clients, a real estate appraiser, taught her the ropes and later became her mentor. As a result, Davis is now in the process of going into real estate.

Davis encourages women to get into the business side of golf. "African Americans tend to focus on buying equipment and clothes," she explains, "but we should be buying stocks in Callaway and creating clothing lines and designing equipment." Davis hopes that more African American women and men become sponsors for young African American players, noting that the actor Will Smith has become a sponsor of golfer Tim O'Neill, a young up-and-coming golfer who hopes to give Tiger Woods a run for his money one day. Actress Salli Richardson is another celebrity who is attracting young people to the sport. Personal fitness trainer Donna Richardon, Tom Joyner's wife, also swings an iron.

While golf is raising the glass ceiling for women professionals, it is also becoming something of a personal passion. "Golf is a game of etiquette and intelligence," says Gibson, who has been a schoolteacher for 30 years. "There are so many things you have to study and learn."

Douglas, who has played all over the world, says she finds that it's a wonderful sport for several reasons. The biggest reason? "You're competing against you and the golf course." Her favorite courses are Pebble Beach and Bally Bunyon, in Ireland.

Joan Flowers, who recalls her experience of playing golf in Negril and Montego Bay, laughs about the courses she's played. Concentrate on the game, not the landscape. "You really have to focus or you completely lose your game."

As the number of women players increase, the golf industry will continue to grow to accommodate their needs. It's important that as women place more money and resources into the sport, they also begin to invest money in the companies they do business with. The return promises to be rewarding. In the meantime, let's not forget the real reason so many men have become addicted to the sport. It's just plain fun to play.

RELATED ARTICLE: the youngest master.

Earlier this year, Tiger Woods took his third Master's crown at Augusta National Golf Club, becoming the tournament's first back-to-back winner since Nick Faldo in 1989 and 1990. Woods, who earned a little more than $1 million, joins Faldo and Jack Nicklaus as the tournament's only back-to-back winners Woods, 26, also won the U.S. Open, becoming the first player' since Jack Nicklaus in 1972 to win both the Masters and the U.S. Open in the same year. And though he is the youngest golfer to win eight professional major tournaments (faster than anyone else), no one has ever won all four professional majors in the same calendar year. He has the opportunity to do something that Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer could not do. And as this Journal went to press, Woods is only half way there. If he wins the British Open in Muirfield, Scotland, in July, and the PGA. Championship at Hazeltine in August, he will have made an historical accomplishment.

But win or lose, Woods has won his own version of four consecutive majors: the U.S. Open, the British Open and the P.G.A. in 2000, then the 2001 Masters. But this is considered a straight slam, not a grand slam. On paper, his quest has all the makings of a classic story.--The Editors