Golf’s Gender Wars: The Aussies Are Leading
Golf’s gender wars won’t be resolved by crashing the Augusta National gates.
While the golf’s gender wars continue unabated on United States links, the Aussies seem to have found a middle path. The PGA of Australia and the Australian Ladies Professional Golf (ALPG) opened their 2016 seasons this week with an intriguing innovation.
The Vic Open and Women’s Vic Open are being contended concurrently on the 13th Beach Golf Links at Barwon Heads, Victoria.
It’s a unique concept, putting the men’s and women’s fields into play on the same course simultaneously; and it goes a step beyond the sequential playing of the 2014 US Open and US Women’s Open at Pinehurst #2, or the call from Paula Creamer and then (unwittingly) Lydia Ko to develop a Women’s Masters at Augusta National.
Read more about Paula Creamer’s call for more mixed-gender competition
The suggestions by Creamer and other American women golfers for an expanded access for women pros are hardly new. Neither are some of the popular responses to those suggestions.
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A recent interview with Lydia Ko, by Golf.com’s Marika Washchyshyn illustrates the depth of golf’s gender wars in the U.S. Washchyshyn asked the world no. 1 to comment on the timeliness of a Women’s Masters. Ko’s response to this leading and rather innocuous question was hardly strident:
"I think that would be pretty cool. I think the closest to the Masters is the ANA Inspiration where there’s something special where the winner leaps into the pond, but I think it would be awesome to have a Women’s Masters. I think there’s so much talent out here so there’s no reason why [not]. Especially because we dream of maybe getting to play at Augusta. If that day comes, even if I’m not the player to play it, I think it’d be really special and I think it would grow our tour."
Of course Lydia Ko dreams of playing Augusta National. I do too, and I don’t bring anywhere near Ko’s level of athletic talent and skill to the tee. Not all of Washchyshyn’s readers, however, were sympathetic to Lydia Ko’s dream.
Despite my awareness that there’s a degree of sexism in golf, I was still stunned at the vitriol apparent in some of the reader responses to Ko’s mild comment:
In the midst of what appears to be a uniquely American gender dispute the Aussies seem to have sorted out golf’s gender wars without much fanfare or hang-wringing.
The parallel Vic Open leaderboards say it all.
18th hole scoreboard Thanks to all volunteers @VicOpenGolf #OatesVicOpen pic.twitter.com/lnASctvaTA
— WPGA Tour of Australasia (@WPGATour) February 4, 2016
The dilemma here seems to revolve around a debate between two interlocking principles: equity and equality. In a nutshell, when it comes to athletic competition – and that is what we’re talking about – equality of competition assumes that all athletes are starting from the same point and playing on the same ground. Equity, on the other hand, assumes that the principles of fairness and justice are embedded in the competitive moment.
Setting the troglodytes’ cries aside, our sport has made greater strides than many others in forging an equality-equity balance. I need cite only the handicapping system to make my point.
At the same time, there are areas that need work, most notably, the gender differentials in prize money and overall earnings capacity of man and women professional golfers. Access to the hallowed Augusta National fairways comes in fairly low on my laundry list of changes designed to promote equality.
Golf’s gender wars won’t be resolved by crashing the gates to Augusta National. That would be window dressing when what’s needed and should be called for is a radical restructuring of the sport’s equity-equality calculus.
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Kudos to the Aussies for their innovation. It’s a step in the right direction!