Legislation, state and federal, is doing much to ease discrimination against women in golf clubs throughout the United States. But stubbornly chauvinistic men are beginning to acknowledge that women now have a voice much more powerful than anything emanating from the statute books. And given that we're talking about the US, it is almost inevitable that the issue should come down to money.

According to the National Golf Foundation, women represent 22 per cent of the golfing population in the US. More importantly, they will spend $3 billion this year on green fees and golf merchandise.

The outcome? Local golf-course operators are scrambling to make women feel welcome among the sandtraps and doglegs. They believe they have come up with a solution to the perplexing question as to why nine out of 10 new women players drop out of the game.

Part of the solution has been a radical change by officials at major clubs, to their instructional programme for women. Before sending them out with a member of the teaching staff to hit balls on the practice ground, they have taken to giving women tours of the facility, while explaining how a golf club functions.

Apart from instruction in such fundamentals as how to book a teetime, women new to the game are familiarised with golf's more basic rules and etiquette. And it's working. As one golf director said: "Our experience has been that women felt uncomfortable because of being in a new environment where they didn't know sufficient about equipment or course procedures.

"They also lacked confidence in their own ability. But, as a result of our tours, we found that instead of the established, 90 per cent dropout ratio, we're now losing only 40 to 50 per cent of our newcomers. And we find we're continually learning new ways of further improving those statistics."

Teaching methods are also undergoing a dramatic change. Club professionals are discouraging newcomers from ball-bashing which, for the most part, is entirely fruitless. According to one teacher: "Most people just want to blast away, but it's probably the worst thing they can do."

He went on: "It presents us with a constant struggle, but we advocate starting on the putting green. My method is to hand a player a putter, start them one foot from the hole and gradually work them backwards towards the tee. The driver is the hardest club to handle and one that will cause beginners the most frustration.

"So, our approach is to keep them away from the driver for a while, certainly until they have achieved some degree of confidence in what they're doing. In the meantime, we concentrate on helping them achieve modest proficiency with the shorter clubs." Which means that when the player has become acquainted with the putting green, she is then ready to move progressively through the irons and eventually to the driver.

In the past, most professionals would meet their pupils on the practice ground and probably hand them a five iron. But they have since recognised that when a beginner takes a big swing and misses the ball completely, it can have a devastating effect on their enthusiasm for the game. In the words of another teacher: "It's much simpler and better to learn to putt, then chip and then eventually head for the driving range."

Though some women golfers will be offended by the notion, the fact is that as a group, they rarely achieve the same short-game expertise as their male counterparts. Indeed this has long been a source of bafflement to professional teachers who would reasonably expect a gentler touch from the gentler sex. In other words, greater proficiency with the wedge and putter than might be expected from a man of comparable talent.

But a former men's international player told me that in mixed foursomes competitions, he almost invariably insisted on his woman partner using a putter from around the green, rather than run the risk of seeing her fumble a chip with a wedge. Indeed he confessed that on several occasions, he would ask her caddie to leave the wedges in the clubhouse.

OVER the last 10 years, the number of women golfers in the US has grown from 4.6 million to 5.7 million. And as we pointed out in these columns earlier this year, 12 of the 50 states have passed legislation against discrimination in golf. In most cases, this was done by defining a golf club as a place of public accommodation.

But women are now finding far greater hope in the money factor. And, as might be expected, clubs in the California area are to the forefront in recognising women's importance as cash customers.

Several clubs have installed ultra-forward tees, giving women the option of playing a shorter course than from the traditional red tees. This is a response to a recent survey which showed that women beginners prefer courses that are short and not especially busy.

Others have devoted 40 per cent of their clubhouse space to women, including the provision of a day-care centre. "It's getting better, especially with the influx of more and more women into the game," said Patty Snyder, the head professional at Indian Creek GC. "The industry has discovered that it's very good business to respond to women with the attitude `Please come again; we love to have you."'

Meanwhile, various businesswomen's groups have sprung up in recent years with a view to helping women mix business and pleasure. "We're out in the work place and we're using golf to conduct business, just like men have been doing for years," said Ann Weaver, a golf-playing executive with a major golf outlet.

She went on: "I'm seeing a lot more women in key positions in the business community taking up the game. There's a niche out there which the golf industry is only beginning to tap."

And it would appear that given the chance, women beginners are more than happy to fend for themselves. "We still have very chauvinistic men who feel a women's place is not on the golf course and if so, they shouldn't be there until after the men have finished playing for the day," said Beverly Dunbar, president of the Pacific Women's Golf Association.

"We'll always have that. But the majority of golf course managers and professionals are very pro-women. The word has gone out that these women don't welcome unsolicited advice from the men. In fact many will tell you they're sick of men telling them what to do.

"So, my advice to them is to decline the offers of help. And if that doesn't work, they can inform the would-be benefactor that they're taking lessons and have a long-term plan for their development in the game."

Another fascinating aspect of women's increasing involvement in golf is the way they get into it with a colleague, very often at work. As one beginner put it: "My biggest fear was that all the other players would be too good. So I now play with a friend of mine who is about the same level as me."

"We stay to ourselves and never get paired off with anybody. At this stage of our golfing development, we would be too nervous to be paired with two men, because their competitiveness is greater than ours. But I'm sure this will change when we become more proficient at the game."

Then she added: "Anyway, it's well known that women do everything in twos. Why should we want to change it?" Why indeed, especially when the major players in the golf industry have their arms open to welcome profits on the double.