Thought for the Day
Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won’t have a leg to stand on
Equality for women?
Pro tennis has just witnessed a controversy that led to the resignation of Ray Moore, director of the Indian Wells tournament. He re-ignited the old chestnut of women pros getting equal prize money to men, despite playing shorter matches (best of three sets as opposed to five) and attracting smaller audiences. He said that women ‘rode on the coat-tails’ of the men and quite a bit more in similar vein. Now is not the time to re-hash this old argument and before we get too eager to offer an opinion we perhaps need to remind ourselves that the history of golf is not one to be proud of when considering any sort of discrimination.
Attitudes to women golfers have ranged from mildly condescending to outright hostility. In 1893 Blanche Martin wrote to Horace Hutchinson about plans to create a Ladies’ Golf Union (LGU). Hutchinson was a good enough golfer to have been runner-up in the first ever Amateur Championship (of 1885) and to then win it for the next two years (and would go on to be beaten finalist once more, in 1903, at the age of 44) and was considered one of the leading players of his day. Part of his reply to Miss Martin said: ‘Women never have and never can unite to push any scheme to success. They are bound to fall out and quarrel on the smallest or no provocation; they are built that way!’ If this wasn’t quite explicit enough he added a poetic thought by saying: ‘Tears will bedew, if wigs do not bestrew, the green.’ And then for good measure he put the boot firmly in with the words: ‘Constitutionally and physically women are unfitted for golf… Temperamentally the strain will be too great for them.’ He didn’t quite add that they shouldn’t worry their pretty little heads but the sentiment was implicit.
And if you think that is delving too far into history, consider that as recently as 1980 Seve Ballesteros said: ‘You women want equality but you’ll never get it because women are inferior to men in all sorts of ways – physically, intellectually and morally. There are exceptions but on the whole women are inferior to men.’ In fairness to Seve, he was only 23 when he made that quote, and saying or doing stupid things is pretty much mandatory at that age. Also, he was Spanish, and a certain lopsided machismo has been known to take root in the minds of men of Latin descent. Unfortunately, there are still many in golf who subscribe to those Neanderthal views, even if they don’t show Seve’s kamikaze attitude by expressing them. Their mind-set was captured perfectly by golf journalist Peter Dobereiner, who wrote: ‘Let us examine the proposition that women golfers aren’t people. It requires an effort… for since the beheading of the first woman golfer, Mary Queen of Scots, the golf world has openly regretted that the practice didn’t start a trend.’
And yet, even today one of the showcase events of golf is staged at clubs that do not allow women members. Recently the R&A changed its membership rules so that, at long last, those strangely attractive creatures from the distaff wing of the gender divide can be invited to join but Royal Troon and Muirfield still don’t allow the gels (although both are planning to vote on the issue). And, unlike tennis there remains a huge disparity in prize money between men and women. A journeyman pro on the PGA or European Tour can have a relatively modest career and still retire wealthy; the same does not apply to women. Again, the argument supporting this imbalance cites the fact that they play shorter events (generally 54, as opposed to 72 holes) and attract smaller crowds. But you can only compete against your peers and in any athletic endeavour men are faster and stronger, that’s just biology, so women should not be measured against them, but against each other.
Male handicap golfers will never hit the ball with the power and athleticism achieved by the likes of Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods or even Jordan Spieth. But we can, on our day, achieve the same sort of distance from the tee as many of the best women (exceptions have to be made for people like Laura Davies and Lexi Thompson) and if we really wanted to improve as golfers we would learn far more from watching women’s events because their swing speed is much closer to ours. Because of a comparative lack of strength they are forced to compensate with accuracy and touch. A huge bonus is that, by and large, women pros are friendlier and more accessible and as a result the atmosphere at women’s events has a noticeably more laid-back tone and ambience.
If you have never attended a women’s pro Tour event I would strongly urge you to give it a try – I’m pretty sure you will be pleasantly surprised.
Quote of the Week
If the purpose of golf is purgatorial, nothing more needs to be said. But if the purpose is to entertain as well as instruct, then let us pause in the mad rush for hazards, more hazards, and still more and fiercer hazards
William Hemingway
(commenting in 1909 on the new-fangled trend for penal golf course design)