Former England footballer Carly Telford and DJ Lucy Monkman have co-founded Club Maia, a new collective designed to boost female participation in golf. The initiative aims to make the sport more accessible to women by blending golf with music, fashion, and social events hosted at indoor golf venue Pitch.
Telford currently serves as the commercial manager for Chelsea FC Women, while Monkman—known professionally as DJ Monki—plays football for Dulwich Hamlet FC and runs the women’s sports agency INMOTION.
The founders promoted the project onsite at the AIG Women’s Open at Royal Lytham & St Annes, where they met English golfer Lottie Woad and spoke with the Ladies European Tour (LET) about their vision.
The idea for Club Maia originated from the founders' personal experiences on the course and a shared observation regarding the lack of tailored spaces for women.
“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.”
The primary goal of the initiative is to encourage women to sign up, attend events, and form connections that extend beyond the organization itself.
“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,” Telford explained.
“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 hosted its launch event in early July at Pitch in London, drawing over 100 attendees.
As the official events partner, Pitch will host upcoming Club Maia experiences across its London venues. These include "Match Play," an event that combines coaching and interactive sessions for newcomers with social rounds for experienced players.
The initial event received support from several prominent organizations.
“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,” Telford said. “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.”
Further details about upcoming events and membership can be found on Club Maia’s official Instagram page.
Source: ladieseuropeantour.com
