The Rise of Women’s Golf in North Texas
By Stephen Hunt
June was Women’s Golf Month, thus the perfect time to discuss the sport’s recent surge among this demographic. According to the National Golf Foundation, a Florida-based nonprofit organization consisting of individuals and golf businesses dedicated to being the most well-informed advocates for the growth of the industry, a near-record number of women and girls, seven million, played on a course in 2023, the highest figured since 2006, when an all-time high of female players was recorded.
Female players now account for 26% of on-course golfers in America, up from 20% in 2011. Since 2019, the net gain in on-course female golfers is 1.4 million, some 500,000 more than male golfers. Of the 45 million Americans who currently play any form of golf, 33% are female and of the 18.5 million participants in off-course forms of the game like Top Golf, 42% are female.
And the women’s game has experienced similar growth in North Texas and here in Frisco. “It’s incredible, the numbers. In 2023, there were 26.6 million on-course players, and seven million of those were women,” said Ashley Miller, general chair for the 2025 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, which Fields Ranch East at PGA Frisco will host. “I think that’s incredible,” Miller concludes.
“PGA of America is completely dedicated to growing the game and providing entry points for girls and women specifically to get involved. My daughter is six and it’s such a huge opportunity for us to live, work, and play in Frisco so that she can be exposed to it,” she adds. “The PGA of America Coaching Center, they have lessons exclusively for women and young girls that want to sign up and be PGA of America professionals. We have resources here in our backyard, so how special that we get to have the championship here, too.”
Not only is golf seeing impressive growth among females, but that group of players is becoming more diverse. Between May 28 and June 4, 2024, Women’s Golf Day, a global event started in 2016 celebrating women and girls playing golf and learning lifelong skills, was held at over 1,300 different locations, including at PGA of America headquarters here in Frisco. PGA of America hosted Women’s Golf Day on June 4, and participants had the opportunity to meet Women’s Golf Day founder Elisa Gaudet, who was in attendance.
Trish Holt is a Frisco native, a graduate of Frisco High School, and serves as Head Golf Professional at Fields Ranch at PGA Frisco. She is leading the local push to introduce new female players to the sport – something she takes immense pride in. “We got to do two different experiences here. I got to be part of a coaching clinic at the PGA Coaching Center. It was women of all skill levels, backgrounds that came together for a clinic,” Holt said. “We broke them into stations and got to meet new people, learn some new things, and make some relationships there.”
“Then, we had a second event [Women’s Golf Day] hosted by Omni PGA Frisco that was on The Swing, a shotgun event on our par three course. Had a larger group of women that came and played golf, went and had happy hour afterward, hit some golf balls in our Lounge by Top Golf. It’s just cool to see women come together for the game, enjoying the game together, how you can meet new people through the game.”
And for female pros like Holt, who fell in love with the sport at an early age and then decided to dedicate their lives to passing along that love of golf to others by teaching the game, finding new and even somewhat unconventional ways to draw female players in who might not otherwise pick up a club is one of many aspects of her “dream job” that she especially enjoys.
“There’s so many different outlets and activations, so we’re really pulling more people into the game. Maybe watching golf on TV doesn’t look that exciting to them, but getting to hit Top Golf-style, that’s more fun, so we’re pulling different audiences into the game as well here, which is really cool,” Holt said. “Women’s Golf Day is a celebration of everybody that is a part of the game. No matter what avenue they have chosen to take, there’s a lot of different opportunities to bring women together that do play the game. We’re lucky we get to do that here.”
This Frisco Raccoon Returned Home
Not only does Holt have her perfect job of getting to teach the game she’s played and loved for most of her life to others, but she also has the built-in bonus of doing it in her hometown. She fondly remembers spending much of her formative years playing golf in another Collin County community just off US Highway 75. “I grew up at Hurricane Creek Country Club in Anna, a little north of here. It’s my absolute favorite place in the world,” she said. “My parents [Priscilla and John] were members there from before I was born, so I literally spent my childhood there learning how to play golf with my dad. We’re incredibly close because of golf and being able to have a shared activity that we both absolutely love, and we get to do that together.”
“My coach, Greg Morrison, the General Manager/Director of Golf [there], he’s the reason I became a golf pro. I knew from my high school years I wanted to do what he did, wanted to get into the golf business, help grow the game, and be around the sport every single day. I attribute my career to his example. He’s still there. He’s been there my whole childhood and is still there, [an] incredible person.”
In addition to her time honing her skills in Anna, Holt also considers herself blessed to have grown up in an environment in North Texas where women’s golf is not only popular, but celebrated. Between 1990 and 1998, Stonebriar Country Club here in Frisco hosted the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) Skins Game.
Las Colinas Country Club in Irving also hosted an annual LPGA event between 2013 and 2017, when the tournament moved to Old American Golf Club in The Colony, which hosted an annual event through 2023. “Yeah, you get to be close to what women’s golf looks like at the highest level. You get to see it firsthand,” Holt said. “This has always been a hotspot for golf, but women’s golf in particular, there’s been a lot of opportunities for the general public to get to watch women’s golf and be close to it here. It’s great that we get to continue that tradition next year.”
Being able to see professional golfers visit the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex every year has only reinforced something which Holt and her fellow golf professionals have always realized about how strong the women’s game is here in North Texas. “Girl’s golf has always been very strong in this particular area, but just over the last five to seven years, it’s really boomed. There’re so many opportunities in junior golf, so many outlets for juniors to play, to learn, to join junior programming, work with coaches,” she said. “The high school teams have just exploded. It’s really amazing to see.”
“We [at PGA of America] share a campus with The North Texas PGA Section. The things that their foundation is doing for junior golf are truly an amazing opportunity for juniors to go through their programming, play competitive golf, and prepare for maybe college golf or high school golf. [It’s] really great. There’re just so many things happening on this campus. It’s just great to see how much the game is really growing.”
After graduating from Frisco High, Holt attended college at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, where she played golf all four years. She qualified for and competed in the 2023 US Women’s Amateur Championship and, as a senior, finished second in the Mid-American Conference Tournament. After graduating Magna Cum Laude with a degree in Sports Management, she worked as an Assistant Golf Pro at Stonebriar Country Club and at Northwood Club in Dallas before later returning to Stonebriar as Head Golf Pro. Prior to accepting her current position at Fields Ranch in 2023, she spent two years as Head Pro at Lakewood Country Club in Dallas.
And like most golf pros, she loves not only passing along her passion and knowledge for the game but also imparting the many life lessons inherent in the sport. “It rewards hard work and dedication. You really learn that you’re going to pour your heart into something; you’re going to practice and prepare,” Holt said. “Some days are not going to go your way and you have to learn from that defeat and build some grit and resilience and go back at it the next day.”
“And the next day, maybe that is your day. It’s such a special, unique game that it’s not you’re 100% great one day, and you’re good and at your peak…it’s peaks and valleys. The game really teaches you emotionally and mentally how to handle that, not just on a golf course but in life, too. You have to learn how to deal with disappointment, how to learn and rise and grow above it. I think this game teaches you that more than anything.”
However, she feels that maybe the biggest lesson that golf teaches those who play it no matter at what age they first pick up a club, is accountability. “There’s no one else really to blame, so you learn how to build that confidence, that work ethic, grit, and determination in yourself. It’s an amazing game and it’s a game of honor and integrity and accountability,” Holt said. “I really do think it’s the greatest game in the world. Maybe I’m a little biased because it’s the game I fell in love with, but the lessons that you learn on a golf course about yourself and about the game and the relationships that you build…there’s nothing else like it.”
In 2023, Fields Ranch East hosted its first marquee event, the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship. And that tradition continues in 2025 with the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, an event which will also feature a women’s leadership summit headlined by a high-profile guest speaker and numerous opportunities for Frisco small businesses to be involved in the event, and the 2027 PGA Championship.
“I think it’s so special [for Frisco to be hosting this event]. When people come to this major, they’re genuinely seeing the best golfers in the world,” Miller said. “When people see someone who looks like them playing a sport, there’s just something unique that happens in their brain that makes them think, ‘I too can swing a club, I can be out there.’ I think it’s just incredibly important, not just for young women, but for children of all ages to see this and know that they could have a part in the game.”
Stephen Hunt is a 20-year Frisco resident and occasional (but not great) golfer.
