The number of girls 12 to 17 playing golf has more than doubled since 1998--328,000 to 775,000, according to the National Golf Foundation--but the percentage of junior girl golfers compared to boys playing the game still shows a wide disparity. Junior golfers playing between 8 and 26 rounds per year – which the NGF describes as "core" players – are 83 percent boys and 17 percent girls.

"If you look beneath the statistics, you'll see that as golfers get older core male and female golfers are similar in many respects," says Mike Hughes, CEO of the NGCOA. "Most important, average annual rounds for adult golfers are very close (36.0 for females and 37.7 for males). That says that women golfers are very valuable customers, and that we should be using our best efforts to attract them to the game."

The National Golf Course Owners Association's Take Your Daughter to the Course Week, which in the past seven years has worked close the gender gap between boys and girls golfers and increased family interaction, returns to golf courses throughout the U.S. this summer as part of the PGA of America's Play Golf America initiative.

More than 1,200 golf courses nationwide are expected to participate in Take Your Daughter to the Course Week, July 9-15, when participating courses will offer free greens fees and instructional clinics to junior girls who are accompanied by a paying adult.