sbp

..."provided she received a sponsor's exemption and the tournament was held on a golf course that suits her game."

http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/story?id=1497125

Lowering the standards

ArkiStan

"If she did play in a PGA Tour event, Sorenstam doesn't think the perception of women's golf would depend on her performance. She says women already face unfair comparisons to the men, from length off the tee to the amount of prize money."

...not to mention their driving skills...

Leebo

''If I pick the right course, I think I would do well,'' she said, adding that she could only compete if the course wasn't excessively long, had tight fairways and punishing rough, which she rarely gets into as the LPGA's best driver."

My favorite part... No offense to women and all, especially her, but How can she desire to go into the PGA with the mentality that she can't compete unless she chooses "the right course". I dunno... maybe i'm just a stupid kid...

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sbp

Annika Sorenstam has given a cool reception to an invitation to play against men in a PGA Tour event later this year.

The 32-year-old Swede, who has dominated the women's game for the last two years, was offered an exemption on Friday to play in the BC Open in July.

Sorenstam revealed last week she would relish the chance to play a PGA Tour event, provided she received a sponsor's exemption and the tournament was held on a course that suited her game.

But on Sunday, both the player and her agent insisted they would not be making a quick decision on whether to take up the BC Open invite.

Annika wouldn't be satisfied with making the cut [in a men's event], she would want to win it too

Sorenstam said of the Endicott, New York, event: "I don't even know where that is."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/golf/2697173.stm

coleslaw

She pretty much contradicts herself when she says that women golfers face unfair comparisons, like length off of the tee, yet she herself says that she would only play in a PGA event if the course was not too long. She's basically saying that, because she is a woman, she is not able to hit the ball as far as the men, yet that same argument is used as an example for the unfair comparisons that are made!

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whitak24

while i agree that it is unfortunate that women's golf is largely ignored compared to the men's game (i don't understand why......they're both equally boring to watch, and i don't find a huge advantage to watching overweight men instead of mannish women, but anyway... ). it's also unfortunate that this has translated into sponsors ignoring the women's game, leading to much lower purses, etc.

it's especially unfortunate when you have EXCEPTIONAL golfers like Sorenstam and Kari Webb, who play the game well and, in the case of Sorenstam, are so much more dominant than tiger woods, for insteance, yet receive nowhere near the attention.

with all that said, i think this is an extremely poor move on sorenstam's part. first, as others have pointed out, she's contradicting herself. but i think the larger problem is that she's trying to the the whole weight of her gender on herself and make herself the "lone warrior" against the "male establishment." not only is she likely to fail in doing so, but she's going to alienate a lot of people while she does it.

i think a better approach would be for the pga and lpga to try to devise some sort of "joint event" (i'm thinking in the vein of the NBA/WNBA's 2-ball event during all star weekend). this would give exposure to female golfers and show that they can "play with the boys" in a friendly, positive environment, rather than turning it into a "hello, i'm from the LPGA and i'm here to kick your ass" kind of thing.....

just my opinion

cheapie

i would have to sort of disagree with you here. sponsors and prize money is directly tied to viewership and audience demographics. the audience for men's golf is extremely sought after, therefore there is much more money to pay the players. also, the golf audience (and sports audiences in general) are predominantly male and they like to watch male athletes. this holds true with basketball as well. a possible exception is tennis. it's not necessarily fair to the woman, but it's business.

also, (and this may be over the edge) we watch the PGA because we know they're the best golfers in the world and we like to be amazed. when we watch the LPGA, we know that they aren't the best golfers and so it's not as entertaining. are they good? sure. are they better than i'll ever hope to be? absolutely. am i going to watch them play an inferior game of golf? probably not. it's the same reason i'm not going to watch the buy.com tour. they're good but i'm not interested. and my lack of interest translates into fewer sponsorship dollars.

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Merlin

I think this would be cool and hope she does indeed play at some point. As for it being a contradiction...I don't think it is as bad as most of you. Every golfer out there has different strengths and weaknesses. Some are longer and more wild (think our favorite boozer Mr. Daley) while others are better at shooting targets (think Mr. Mickelson) Now if you went up to every golfer on the men's tour and asked them to pick one and only one tournament (Mastes excluded) that they can play in, they would invariably pick the one best suited to their game. It sems to me that she is doing the same. Yes, there are differences between men and women. Men are bigger and stronger, that's a fact. But there are also differences in styles. And by picking her spot carefully she's only trying to give herself the best opportunity to do well.


Oh and if she chooses to do this, she's hitting from the gold tees. Not the women's tes.

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whitak24

right, but how much of that is as a result of increased media attention and promotion for male sports vs. women's sports?

i mean, if we saw annika sorenstam in buick commericals 5 times a day and she was on the cover of sports illustrated every year, would we watch her instead of tiger woods? i don't know.

i do agree that a majority of those watching sports are men, and i think we do prefer to watch other men. take basketball, for example. when it comes down to it, i think the players in the WNBA are better basketball players than players in the NBA. NBA players are more athletic, obviously. but watching the wnba, you generally see great shooting, excellent passing, good execution of a half-court offense (instead of a lot of guys going one-on-one), etc. yet i'd rather watch the NBA, even though i perfer the style of the WNBA. is that because of marketing? maybe partially. but i think i also just prefer watching men hoop it up.....

whitak24

good points, merlin.

i just don't want to see this come down to a "battle of the sexes" type thing. we already have that going on in augusta

mcs328

Ugh she's stupid. You want to play with the big boys than play the game as it is. So what if you can't hit the ball as far or whatever. Do you want to move the hole a few yards in front of you or play putt putt to level it out?

Sports are supposed to be challenging...how does making it easier on you present a challenge. There's a difference between playing fair and a challenge versus just giving in and changing the rules so you can win easier.

Gee...How about I carry the ball and put it in the hole for you? How much easier does she want it? If anything, she should learn to raise her standards and play a better game instead moan and whine.

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cheapie

i think what we have here is a chicken-or-the-egg debate. are tiger, jordan, and jeter in commercials and the limelight because they are popular? or are they popular because they are in front of us frequently? i believe the former case to be true, but would agree that the latter is true in on certain occasions. tiger also has a tremendous advantage over annika sorenstam in that he is the perfect spokesperson. he is a male golfer, which pulls in the predominantly white male golf audience. he is young, which pulls in younger viewers with the highly sought after large expendable income. he is black/asian, which garners interest in golf from the black audience. this is huge for golf and the associated industries. lastly, he is very good, probably the best golfer in the world, which makes everyone want to be him and golf like him.

annika has several disadvantages that she will never be able to overcome. first, she is obviously female. most men will never closely follow a female athlete. she's 32, not as young and appealing to the young golfers as tiger is. she's white and offers no crossover appeal. think of it this way. can you image a 12 year-old white girl having tiger woods as her favorite athlete? of course. can you image a 12 year-old black boy having annika as his favorite athlete? not a chance. in addition, she's not even an american citizen. both of these severaly hurt her market value as a spokesperson. lastly, she is not the best golfer in the world. tiger is. and therefore when you aspire to be the best, you think of woods, not sorenstam.

unfair? maybe. sexist? i don't think so. reality? absolutely.

Ladogaboy

Dunno... maybe it was just the way I was raised, but in my opinion, REAL men don't play golf either.

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TofuNinja

I remember that one ad where the golfer got tackled by all these football players. Full contact golf or something... I'd watch that. Or if Golf was more like Happy Gilmore

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cheapie

Don't know if you saw Rick Reilly's (from SI) column or not...

First-Date Advice

Posted: Wednesday February 19, 2003 9:40 AM


Dear Annika,

You were smart to ask me to prepare you for your first crack at the men's tour, May 22 at the Colonial in Fort Worth, Texas. As somebody who's caddied badly on the PGA Tour (for Tom Lehman) and the LPGA tour (Jill McGill), I know all the ways to screw up.

O.K., first of all ...

RANGE TALK Be careful. It's not quite as cordial with the men. On the LPGA tour, for instance, you hear a lot of conversations like this:

Laura Diaz: God, those shorts are darling. Are they J. Jill?

Juli Inkster: No, they're Donna Karan. But you're sweet!

On the PGA Tour, you're more likely to hear a conversation like this:

Tiger Woods: God, your clubs suck. Are they Titleist?

Phil Mickelson: Yes, they are. Oops! Did one of them just smash your good knee?

PAIRINGS Pray you don't get stuck with Bernhard Langer, unless you enjoy long walks among statuary, or Ernie Els, because the way he's driving it, someone could build a Wal-Mart between your ball and his. And if Tiger plays, run -- unless you like choppers, SWAT teams and National Enquirer photographers.

Here's what you do: See if you can get paired with one of the five guys who this year can't keep up with your average drive of 265.6 yards: Mark Brooks, Gavin Coles, Brad Faxon, Paul Goydos or Loren Roberts. (As you walk past one of their drives, casually say, "Does your husband play?")

If you can't get with them, see if you can get paired with Ian Woosnam. You won't outdrive him, but at 5'6", at least you're taller than he is.

COURSES Your drives are straighter than Al Gore and should get you to the corner of most of Colonial's gorgeous par-4 doglegs. Yeah, you'll be hitting four-iron from there while most of the men will be pulling seven-iron, but you hit 80 freaking percent of your greens last year, so I'm not worried.

Problem is, the guys who set up the course are from the PGA Tour, and they don't particularly want a woman to be able to beat their boys and give birth, so they're going to put the pins in prisons -- behind bunkers, on the edges of ponds, under Häagen-Dazs carts -- places you can only get close to with a lot of spin, which you won't have. Men are pigs.

Still, you can be a witch with the putter, so I figure you'll shoot par over the first two days, which last year was good enough to make the cut by four shots. That is, unless you fold like a tortilla under the ...

PRESSURE There will be piano crates of it on you out there. This is the tensest moment for womankind since Condi Rice entered Dick Cheney's office football pool. If you choke, you'll set women's golf back to long skirts and bonnets. You'll hear it the rest of your life: So what if you won at every LPGA tour stop this year? You still couldn't whup Ty Tryon!

But think of all the pressure on the guys! Most of them are just slightly right of Pat Robertson -- in an SI poll of 75 PGA Tour players, 68% of them said women should not be allowed to play on the men's tour -- so finishing behind a filly will be like wearing a HILLARY FOR PRESIDENT button the rest of their lives.

The other day someone asked Mickelson where he thought you'd finish in the Colonial, and he said, "Maybe 20th." And where might he finish? "Hopefully 19th or better."

Guys are going to start dodging the Colonial like the draft. "I'd love to play her," says Darren Clarke, "[pause] if I were playing Colonial, [pause] which, fortunately, I'm not."

The men are already talking about what the penalty will be for losing to you. Wear Jesper's pants for a month? Play a pink ball? Go on the pill? Says Tour journeyman Brad Lardon, "We're talking hygiene products in your locker."

CUSTOMS Colonial is going to treat you like a goddess. They don't want Martha Burk on line 2, so you're going to get the courtesy Cadillac, the best digs and privileges in the players-only dining room. Plus, you'll have the women's locker room all to yourself. All Oprah, all the time.

But please don't ask to wear shorts, even though it's allowed on the LPGA tour. We know you like to play in them, but the men never get to. You could force the issue, I suppose. CBS would let you wear a HazMat suit if it would get you out there, but I'm begging here. None of us want to see Craig Stadler's thighs.

SPIDERS On the LPGA tour the women gently nudge them out of their putting line. The men just crush 'em. No matter what they say, remember: They'd love to do the same to you.
Don't know if you saw Rick Reilly's (from SI) column or not...