Here’s another piece written by Golf writer Martin Vousden. Should spark a few interesting discussions…
Another whuppin’
Although the final result of the Solheim Cup – a US victory by 16 points to 12 – was widely expected, the tournament proved not to be the rout many had predicted. When Europe rallied on the second day to tie things up at eight points apiece going into the singles, hopes of a significant upset were raised. And when they took early leads in a number of matches those hopes became even more embedded.
But of course, the Americans rallied in the singles, as they always do, and in the final analysis ran out comfortable winners but it was good, if only for a short while, to anticipate the prospect of doing them in their own backyard. The biggest worry, looking down the road, is that so many of the US team are in their early 20s – Juli Inkster was the only member of the side who could legitimately be called a veteran – so the future looks a bit bleak from a European perspective.
It was good to see Michelle Wie putting some of her recent troubles behind her, and she has followed up her Solheim Cup exploits with a tied 4th in the Safeway Classic at the weekend, so we can only hope that she will now start achieving some of her awesome potential.
A rose by any other name
Before we leave the wimmin’s game, is it just me who objects to the fact that in golf we insist on calling the distaff population ‘Ladies’? We have the Ladies European Tour, LPGA Tour, Ladies Golf Union and so on but why do we insist on sticking with this outdated description that is locked somewhere in the 19th Century and which implies that all women golfers are fragrant, delicate young flowers who are likely to get a fit of the vapours if their whalebone corsets are too tight?
If we were consistent, we would refer to the European Gentleman’s Tour but that would be clearly nonsensical and yet we are apparently wedded to an equally out-dated description of female golfers. I am continually puzzled as to why we consistently call women ‘Ladies’, which in my dictionary is described as ‘Any woman of refined manners and instincts’, a woman who is ‘soft, delicate and genteel.’
Sorry, but that is not a description that could be applied to some of the old slappers at my golf club and, with the best will in the world, is not, I suspect, the way in which Laura Davies, Catriona Matthew, Christina Kim and their contemporaries would describe themselves, either.
In golf there is a serious need for the game to reflect life as we know and live it, and not some idealised, sanitised, purified version of what we would like it to be. There are parts of me that hanker after the days when men wore capes, cravats and monocles, and women lounged around in lace, smoked with a cigarette holder and never broke wind. But if I tried to live my life as if those standards still existed I would be rightly ridiculed and yet we persist in behaving as though they still do apply in the world of golf.
Sticking with a name or description well past its sell-by date just holds us up to mockery, and is presumably why we would no longer ride on an omnibus to the golf course, perambulate the fairways when we get there, and say: ‘What a corker, jolly good show,’ if a fellow competitor hits a good shot. There are many in golf, of course, who would prefer us to be locked into a time capsule, circa 1890, in which the only women who had the time and money to play golf lived on country estates and employed 14 servants, but is it being too anarchic to suggest that they, and their obsolete views, should be quietly led out to pasture?
Journalists get all sorts of press releases, many of which go straight into the bin but this one caught my eye because of the whiff of desperation that clings to it. It tells us that Colin Montgomerie has been presented with his captain’s club car for next year’s Ryder Cup. Monty, being a trouper, tries his best to look enthused but even he can’t quite avoid looking just a teensy bit embarrassed.
Footnote
Rumour is rife that Vijay Singh has been secretly dating Fanny Sunesson and they are planning to marry before the end of the year. Vijay said: ‘I want to make her Fanny Singh by Christmas.’
There’s more of Martin’s stuff here, here, here, here, here and here.
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