The Founders

The Founders is an empowering story of female liberation. In 1950s America, female athletes faced many obstacles and they were seen as less legitimate than male athletes. Specifically, in golf, women didn't have any sanctioned tournaments and no way to compete and make a living professionally. The 13 founders of the LPGA (Ladies Professional Golf Association) worked to change that. This documentary recounts the organization of the LPGA as told by several of the founders themselves. This film is an honest and narrative account of the stereotypes they faced and how they were able to overcome them and lay the groundwork for the future of women athletes. Its combination of modern-day interview footage and old videos and photographs makes you feel like you are right there with them. You travel with them from their humble beginnings to their legendary successes and truly get to understand these women. This film is inspiring and empowering. They changed the future of sports for all women! Lovers of golf, history and feminist film will love this movie.

The Founders is a documentary following the journey that 13 women went through to create the LPGA. This inspiring documentary follows the 4/13 women that were still alive, Marilynn Smith, Louise Suggs, Shirley Spork, & Marlene Bauer Vossler, as they tell their stories about breaking barriers in the golf world. These women went through many hardships to get women's golf where it is today: they did not have as many choices of fields to play on, people did not take them seriously, and it was very hard for them to get sponsorship. But through all the struggles, these amazing women changed the world anyway! My favorite part about The Founders were their personal stories about all the 13 women! The use of archival footage and photographs of the original 13 really helped tie this amazing documentary together. I recommend this movie for anyone who is interested in the history of golf or women's empowerment!

This is for the most part a well put together documentary of how the original 13 ladies Professional Golfers put together something that eventually turned into the LPGA we know today. A couple of the producers are Stacy Lewis and Karrie Webb, LPGA golfers still active and who have screen time in this program.

In interviews with many of the original ladies still alive it gives good glimpses of competitive golf life back then and some of the clashes of personalities, but through it all they stuck together and found ways to cooperate and keep it going.

An issue that always comes up is pay disparity, back in 2015 when this was being produced top earning PGA golfers made roughly 5X as much as top earning LPGA golfers. Naturally the ladies want better parity but to play golf well no inherent value, it is entertainment and PGA golf gets more TV viewership thus more revenue for commercials this more prize money for the entertainers, the PGA golfers. I suspect it is related to the power game, while an LPGA golfer might bust out a 270 yard drive, a PGA golfer will bust out a 380 yard drive. As much as it is "the same game" it really is a different game.

I found this to be a good documentary, it was good to see old film of old competitions. I found it streaming on the Kanopy site via my public library's subscription.

The Founders is an eye-opening and important piece of documentary filmmaking. Spanning decades, the film tells the story of the founding of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA). I personally knew nothing about the start of the LPGA or its 13 founders highlighted in the film before seeing it and now I have a great respect and appreciation for them. These women showed determination and a pioneering spirit to get the Tour off the ground and make it possible for women to play professional sports. It is hard not to be in awe of these women as they recount the events, like clinics and fashion shows, they had to do to raise awareness for their competitions. These are things male golfers did not have to do, by the way. The fantastically pieced together archival footage and reenactments capture the era incredibly well and can be very interesting from a historical perspective. The best part of the documentary though is the interviews with the surviving founders. Being able to hear Marilynn Smith, Shirley Spork, Louise Suggs and Marlene Bauer Vossler recount personal anecdotes and feelings elevates the footage and the emotional impact of the film. Some moments will make you laugh, like Suggs and Vossler recounting a strange incident on the road, while others will make you tear up, like hearing about Babe Zaharias' battle with cancer. The Founders is a film that carriers weight, telling the history of something that most people have not thought to tell before and paying tribute to not only sports heroes, but feminist heroes as well. This film was deeply affecting and I highly recommend seeing it.

The Founders is an amazing documentary that does a deep dive into the intricate and fascinating history of the LPGA's founding. Being the first professional women's sports league ever, there was a lot of pushback and it was not an easy journey. Personally, I found it very inspiring to hear firsthand from some of the founders including their point of view and experiences. Juxtaposed with those incredible interviews, are some very high-quality archival footage that was just fantastic. Very few documents have been able to immerse me in a time period like this one due to what must have been a long hard search for the perfect shots. Equality for women has come a long way since the LPGA and although it's not perfect yet, I think the modern feminist movement has a lot to thank these brave trailblazers for. And as audience members, we have a lot to thank these filmmakers for because their film is not only a great learning experience but also a riveting story from start to finish, therefore, I recommend seeing it for yourself.