Club Maia, co-founded by former England footballer Carly Telford and DJ Lucy Monkman, is a new women’s golf collective aimed at bringing more women into the game through events hosted at Pitch.
The women’s golf collective was created to help drive female participation in golf through combining golf with music, fashion and social events, with the aim of making the sport feel more accessible to women.
Telford is Chelsea FC’s Women’s commercial manager, and Monkman, known as DJ Monki, plays football for Dulwich Hamlet FC and runs the women’s sport agency INMOTION.
The duo were onsite at the AIG Women’s Open at Royal Lytham & St Annes where they met English star Lottie Woad and also caught up with the Ladies European Tour (LET) to explain more about Club Maia.
“Club Maia was born out of our friendship, first and foremost, but Carly and I bonded on the golf course,” said Monkman. “The thing we noticed the most was there were a lot of opportunities for us to play golf in quite cool spaces and wicked events that were tailored to people our age and things we’re into like fashion and music, but what we noticed is that there wasn’t really a space for women that tailored to that.”
Telford continued: “For us, we want people to sign up to be part of Club Maia and come to the events. That’s the main thing where you meet other women who you might want to play with, go to driving range with, but also leave Club Maia and go and find your community outside of that.
“That’s the beauty we’ve found is we text each other saying do you want to play golf on Saturday? That’s what we want other people to do. They meet there, exchange details and find someone that they can play golf with. We’re hoping Club Maia becomes the place for people to meet and then they go and find their community elsewhere around the country and around the world.”
Club Maia had their launch event in early July with over 100 people attending at Pitch in London.
As official events partner, Pitch will host a series of Club Maia experiences across its London venues beginning with Match Play, which introduces newcomers to golf through coaching and interactive sessions while more experienced players take part in social rounds.
Telford added: “We’ve had one event, which was invitational, and we got it out to as many people as possible using our contacts. Our Instagram had only been released four days before the event. Thankfully over 100 women came and a lot of male allies were there as well from different businesses. We’ve associated ourselves with England Golf, Pitch, Mastercard, Panache and multiple others that all came and helped on the night.
“It was just the start for us, and we were overwhelmed to see how many women connecting and different people connecting. The noises coming from each bay of cheering each other on. People at the end saying thank you for this. The feedback has been incredible, and it’s now how do we build on that.”
Find out more about Club Maia on their Instagram page.
