As so many active military personnel, veterans, and their families know, it’s a dedicated lifestyle moving all over the world depending on where your country needs you. This reality is one that Tammy Cobb, a U.S. Air Force retiree and LPGA Amateur Golf Association member, has taken in stride for decades. In large part thanks to her golf game.

“It’s kind of an addiction.”

Cobb first learned how to play golf in the early 2000s after a nonchalant invitation from a friend on their base in Okinawa, Japan. Thanks to her athletic abilities and a lengthy career playing softball, Cobb said why not to picking up a new hobby while stationed in Asia.

“I kind of got hooked,” Cobb shared during her first round at the 2023 LPGA Amateur Championship Open in Bloomington, Indiana. Compared to her first love of softball, “it was easier, faster, and I didn’t get hurt as bad. I didn’t have to slide in and hurt myself.”

While Cobb has never played in one of the LPGA Amateur’s #inviteHER events, she can’t forget the friend who first invited her to pick up a club in Okinawa.

Whether you’ve picked up a club before but fell out of the sport, or if you’ve never had your own clubs a day in your life, you can benefit from the campaign through complementary clinics, driving range sessions, group lessons, or on-course experience.

Events like these have come from years of both formal and informal invitations for LPGA Amateur chapter members and their friends wanting to hit the links together. A common thread that Cobb says has helped her find a home no matter what chapter she is a part of.

Which admittedly are quite a few. Before founding the LPGA Albuquerque chapter around 2004, Cobb wasn’t much of a golfer. After graduating from the ROTC program at Bowling Green State University in Ohio and graduating from Ohio Northern, Cobb was sent to Vandenburg.

“Unfortunately I didn’t golf then,” Cobb shared. “At that time [Vandenburg] had one of the best golf courses in the Air Force too.”

From Vandenburg she went on to Okinawa to help the U.S. Air Force with aircraft maintenance, where her golf game and life would change forever. With a new set of sticks and golf game, Cobb was ecstatic to head to Hawaii for four years on weapons safety assignment where her newfound golf passion could be cultivated on a regular basis.

Quick stints in Italy and Utah would bring her back to Albuquerque, giving Cobb a chance to grow an LPGA Amateur chapter through invitation. Originally founded with 20 members, the LPGA Albuquerque chapter has grown to almost 300 members in two decades.

It was an “OMG” moment for Cobb. Especially after getting additional Air Force assignments post-Albuquerque that allowed her to join the Newport, D.C. area, Denver, San Antonio, and Tampa LPGA chapters before returning, full-circle, to Albuquerque.

“Golf has been a cool thing for me to meet so many people around the world,” Cobb highlighted.

Finding like-minded women who good-naturedly admit to having a golfing addiction has been a joy to Cobb as she’s traveled around the world. Looking back, she can’t imagine a life without golf. Reminiscing about the “nonchalant invitation” that spurred her journey, Cobb hopes to continue playing a part in getting women to play the game.

In 2022, about 6.4 million golfers in the United States were female. That’s about 25% of the sport. A significant milestone according to the National Golf Foundation (NGF) considering it’s the first time that the number of women golfing has surpassed 6 million in the past three years, since before the financial crisis in 2007.

Since 2019, the net gain in female golfers in the country was 800,000, according to the NGF. An approximately 14% increase. Showcasing that outreach and connection remain crucial to maintain such momentum.

If you also believe that no matter what your skill level, or lack thereof, there are incredible women in your life who would benefit from playing golf more, one simple invitation is all it takes to change someone’s life as Cobb alluded to.

Invite the women in your life to join you for their first golf experience. Visit the LPGA Women’s Network to gain read tips and resources to help you mentor a new golfer’s journey with the game.