Two Westfield graduates working to fill the gap in women’s golf attire
By RICHIE HALL
sports@readthereporter.com
Cailyn Henderson and Margaret Wentz have been friends since they were young girls.
They started playing golf at Bridgewater at a young age, then became high school teammates for Westfield High School, helping the Shamrocks to great success. Now, Henderson and Wentz are partners in a new business that’s getting off to a good start.
Henderson and Wentz are the owners and founders of Fore The Girls, a new company that aims to “fulfill the market gap in women’s and girl’s golf clothing,” according to a fact sheet they provided to the Reporter.
“We started this whole new business, we grew up playing golf together,” said Henderson. The women say they believe there needs to be a change in women’s fashion because, as Henderson said, “you’ve probably seen, there’s not a lot of options for girls and women.”
Wentz said that growing up, she noticed that pro shops had “very little” clothing sections for younger women.
“And a lot of times they were unflattering clothing, or other times they just didn’t fit or were too boxy, or there weren’t enough color options,” said Wentz.
Fore The Girls already has its first product out: The FTG Blossom Bucket Hat. The hat is both fashionable and practical. It comes in three different colors (white lily, pink peony and blue poppy). It also has a hidden magnet for golfers to keep their ball markers secure.
“You can wear it in two styles,” said Wentz. “You can flip the rim up, (Henderson) usually wears it flipped up.”
“And then she always wears it down,” said Henderson. “We like it different ways.”
The hat is washable (there are instructions on the Fore The Girls website, look in the “FAQ” section) and also comes with an adjustable drawstring so girls and women off all ages can adjust the hat size accordingly. Wentz also said the hat is wind resistant and provides additional sun coverage, so golfers are prepared for any kind of weather.
The hats went on sale March 1, and started selling right away. Wentz said they were already advertising the hats on social media, so when they dropped at noon, the sales started coming in.
“The first five minutes, we had a lot of orders,” said Henderson. She noted that most of the hat sales are from out of state, with Wentz listing such states as California, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, New York and Massachusetts. The company already has a nationwide presence, and also worldwide.
“We just had an order from New Zealand that we packaged today, which was fun,” said Henderson. “That’s just from social media. We don’t know anyone from New Zealand.”
Hats are just the beginning, of course. Wentz said that in the future, Fore The Girls plans to “come out with more apparel. So, we’ll go into golf dresses, and then we’ll go into polos, skirts, jackets, rain jackets and also accessories that you’ll need on the golf course as well.”
Beginnings
The Fore The Girls concept actually dates back to Henderson and Wentz’s senior year of high school, when they expressed interest in starting a golf business at some point. After graduating from Westfield, both women played golf in college (Henderson at the University of Indianapolis and Wentz at Sewanee: The University of the South).
Finally in 2022, Henderson and Wentz began making Fore The Girls a reality. They took things slow – “baby steps,” according to the fact sheet – making sure they completed all business-related tasks before launch. They contacted Anna Mariacher, a Purdue University fashion student, to help design the Blossom Bucket Hat. After that came designing the website, creating a tech pack, packaging and fulfilling orders, and then designing, filming and editing all of the marketing material.
“You don’t realize how long something actually takes until you go into it,” said Henderson. She and Wentz noted that it took about a year-and-a-half from starting the business to getting the hat ready for sale.
“We definitely had to be very patient,” said Wentz. “So it was a long process to get one product out there. But we learned a lot. We jumped over a lot of hurdles during the process.”
Larger vision
There is a larger vision behind Fore The Girls than just hats and clothes. Henderson and Wentz want to encourage women and girls who play the sport of golf, especially since it has been growing quickly over the past few years.
The Fore The Girls fact sheet noted that according to the National Golf Foundation in 2020, the number of female golfers in the United States rose from 5.6 million to 6.0 million, with women accounting for 36 percent of beginners that year. In 2021, 25 percent of golfers were women, while 35 percent (1.1 million) of junior players were girls, a number that was just 15 percent as recently as 2000.
Many new female players are joining the sport, and Wentz said that while they don’t know much about golf, they want to learn how to play “because you’re outside, you’re getting lots of exercise and you’re meeting people. And so we want to help teach women and young girls how to play.” Wentz said that one of the company’s goals is to “provide clothing options for them so that they feel more confident and feel better on the golf course while they play.”
“People are nervous to go to the golf course because they don’t know what to wear,” said Henderson. “They don’t know how to act on the golf course.” So, the women are using their social media to post golf tips for beginners, fashion tips and other videos to encourage women and girl golfers to enjoy the sport.
Henderson said they want people to know that golf is for “everybody, and it’s fun. It’s positive. It’s not like all these rules that you have to follow. It’s supposed to be fun. And so that’s what we want our brand to show, is that golf is a lot of fun.”
You can check out the Fore The Girls website at forethegirlsgolf.com, and on social media at forethegirls22 on both Instagram and TikTok.