Inspirational Scottish golfing duo tee up 'pioneering' Tuesday Links venture

It’s not just through playing the game, though, that young Scottish girls and women are being shown how the sport can provide a platform for successful careers. Just look at Iona Stephen and Rosie Bailey, both of whom dreamt of going all the way to the top of the ladders as tour professionals but turned to different career paths in golf and have now joined forces to launch a “pioneering” business.

Stephen is a familiar face in the game as part of the Sky Sports Golf team after breaking into the broadcasting business following a wrist injury that curtailed her professional career. Bailey, meanwhile, worked as a partnership director for the DP World Tour then had a spell as a strategic project manager for Ryder Cup Europe. As Rosie Niven, she won the Ladies British Amateur Stroke Play Championship in 2008 at a time when The R&A event was dominated by Scots but, although probably good enough to give it a go, wasn’t tempted by a switch to the paid ranks.

The pair became friends through golf and their shared passion for the game. After first properly chatting about it during a game together at Denham Golf Club in Uxbridge, they have co-founded Tuesday Links, a new travel company for women, with the inaugural journeys to Scotland having been planned for this year.

“We are super-excited,” Bailey told The Scotsman. “Iona and I have been working on this quietly in the background for pretty much a year now. We’ve been doing a lot of reaching out to our network and speaking to some contacts and we just felt we are ready to build on that and establish our credibility and distribution, hence our official launch this week, which is timed quite nicely with International Women’s Day on Sunday.

“A big part of where our hearts are is around supporting other girls and women in Scotland getting into the world of golf, whether that is playing or in business and industry opportunities. If we can do anything to help to get the message out there, that’s important to us.”

An initiative which forms part of the St Andrews-based governing body’s ongoing commitment to The Women in Golf Charter, The R&A Women in Golf Leadership Programme has, in the eyes of both Bailey and Stephen, become an important platform for empowering women and supporting greater diversity and inclusion across all levels of the sport.

‘I still think we have a long way to go in women’s game’

“Although there are more and more women coming into the game, I still think we have a long way to go,” observed Stephen, who grew up near St Andrews, went to St Andrews University and still has a strong connection with the Auld Grey Toun. “Even just last week, I was giving a talk at the Marlow Rotary Club and they were asking me about my experiences of women in golf and, unfortunately, I can still think of so many times where I turned up on golf days etc and be the only woman in the room out of 300.

“The R&A Women in Golf Leadership Programme is about helping women understand that there is more than just one route of being a professional golfer available to them in the golf industry. As a woman in golf, you can do so many things. You can be a manager. You could go into the coaching side of things. You could go into the hospitality side of things or the branding or the marketing.

“Rosie and I have had a taste of playing the game at the top level and obviously our careers moved us into slightly different paths but parallel paths on the tour. Now we are creating something of our own. I think that is quite powerful as well and can hopefully inspire other women to think about what they could possibly create in this golf space as well and not just be there to fill a seat at the table but to create change and help to continue to grow the impact women have always had in the game of golf.”

As a member of Crieff, Bailey came through the Scottish Golf ranks at a time when Karyn Dallas was the national women’s coach. She also had a spell at UC Berkeley when Anne Walker, now working wonders at Stanford, was the assistant coach.

“Golf is the greatest gift of my life,” she declared. “I had been with the DP World Tour quite a long time and I had always wanted to create something myself. I felt compelled to do something in the women’s golf space and, in the last couple of years, there has been a build up and excitement in the women’s game with participation on the rise and it felt the timing was right.”

On coming up with the idea for Tuesday Links - the name is a nod to what is traditionally ladies' day at golf clubs - and working in tandem with Stephen to get it to the launch stage, she added: “I sat next to a lady on a flight 18 months ago who was flying in from Illinois. She hadn’t had a passport before, was in her 50s and was landing into Edinburgh to meet a group of ladies she’d never met before and she was going horse-back riding up the west coast of Scotland. For her, it was an absolute bucket-list. She said ‘I’ve not done something for myself in so long as I am so ready and excited for this’.

‘I felt there was space and an opportunity’

“It sparked this idea and I did a whole bunch of research on the back of that. Looking at the golf market base in Scotland in particular, I just felt there was space and an opportunity for something with a bit more female-minded approach and bit more holistic in terms of travel experiences. So golf being the core but actually it is about the whole experience of being in Scotland.”

It sounds as though two very proud Scots who just love golf have come up with a great idea.