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In the not-too-distant past, women were unlikely to be given a say in the colour of the clubhouse carpets, let alone the condition of the golf course. There was no such thing as International Women’s Golf Day, which is being celebrated this week (Tuesday) for the sixth year in a row.
Today things have changed dramatically, with as significant a club as The Berkshire among those taking the lead in promoting women into prominent positions.
Not only does the club rely on Stella Rixon, a senior agronomist with the Sports Turf Research Institute, to ensure the Blue and the Red courses are presented in optimum order, but they recently have promoted 24-year-old Sophie Bulpitt to deputy head greenkeeper on the Red Course.
To listen to Bulpitt is to wonder why more young women are not following in her footsteps: “It was a shot in the dark,” she says, “but I’ve hit on a job for which I have an absolute passion. I love every minute of it.”
At school, Sophie had her heart set on becoming a forensic scientist. However, so much did she enjoy time spent playing football and basketball that she decided life in a laboratory was not her thing. Before too long, a course going under the name of Sports Turf Management, at Merrist Wood College near Guildford, caught her eye.
Though she was vaguely surprised to find her classmates were all young men, the subject clicked with her from the start and, after earning her Level 2 qualification, she moved on to the Berkshire College of Agriculture. There, she had a final year (this time there was a second woman in attendance) which involved working as an apprentice in an area relevant to her subject.
On scrolling through the various government apprentice programmes, she saw that East Berkshire Golf Club was looking for an apprentice greenkeeper. “I didn’t know the first thing about golf or golfers at that time, but what I did see was that the job had something to do with grass and that was good enough for me,” she says.
Her course complete, she joined the greenkeeping team at the Berkshire on 2 January 2019 and, two months later, she was winging her way to the Valero Texas Open to learn more about her trade. The Waste Management Phoenix Open was another event on her schedule, as was the French Open at 2018 Ryder Cup venue Le Golf National. In France, nothing struck her more than the attention to detail. Even the edging to spectator pathways had to be neatly trimmed.
Also in 2019, she seized the chance to be one of the bunker rakers from the British and International Golf Greenkeepers Association for the week of the Open Championship at Royal Portrush. That was the first time she had clapped eyes on a links and what she saw took her completely aback.
“It was so different, so wild,” Bulpitt said. “The bunkers were far and away the deepest I had ever seen.”
Rory McIlroy is her favourite male golfer, though all she saw of his Open performance was an opening drive which shot out of bounds and led to a quadruple bogey. On the women’s front, her favourite is Charley Hull. She saw Hull at the Solheim Cup at Gleneagles and, more recently, at The Berkshire when she was involved in an exhibition game: “What I love about Charley is the power she generates. That and her laid-back approach.”
What she doesn’t know about Hull is that she once said that if she had not been a golfer, she would have liked the life of a greenkeeper. Bulpitt, for her part, would like to play golf like Hull and has recently had her first golf lessons at Sunningdale Ladies Golf Club.
Moving on to 2020, she went back to the United States for the week of the Players Championship, where she found herself assigned with the task of hand-cutting the greens in the mornings and cutting the rough in the afternoons. She was in her element for four days, but on the evening of the fourth day she was as everyone else on the greens staff in receiving an e-mail to say the tournament had been called off because of COVID-19.
Ask Bulpitt to describe a perfect day at the Berkshire and she opts for the morning of a competition such as the Berkshire Trophy. “You’ve got to get everything looking sharp on these occasions,” she says. “Everyone appreciates it when you get it right, though you’re then under pressure to have it looking 100 per cent every day of the week!”
If the night ahead of a tournament has been windy, Bulpitt will be out on the course first thing to check for any debris. For her next task, she mows the tees. “They’re so important because they’re the first things the golfers see. The lines have to be straight.”
It was at the start of this year that the club announced her new position as a deputy head greenkeeper. Her family were mighty proud, though she suspects no-one enjoyed her promotion more than her grandfather.
Berkshire secretary Michael Newland describes Bulpitt as a young superstar. “Her work ethic is amazing. She’s the first to arrive and the last to leave. Her male colleagues have nothing but respect for her.”
The members, meantime, are equally impressed. “Sophie’s terrific,” says Ann Booth, one of the club’s leading women’s players. “She’s always got a smile on her face and, when we see her on one of those big machines, it brings a smile to our faces too.”
Top: Sophie Bulpitt on the 17th green at TPC Sawgrass during the 2020 Players Championship
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