This past weekend was a sporting one to forget for many. Mainly for Springboks supporters.
But especially so for Springboks, Manchester United, Orlando Pirates and Chiefs fans. For them (for us), it was a dismal weekend that we’d much rather forget ever happened!
A highlight, though, leading up to this deeply depressing sporting weekend, was having the opportunity to participate in the Supersport Media Quiz, supported by my band of ardent Man United die-hards, Gasant Abarder, Robin Adams and Ryan Cummings – all dressed up in Man United regalia!
We understood full well that we’re a far cry from the seasoned sports journos such as John Goliath, Cato Louw, Umjaka, Shafiek Mouton and others. But we were there for a good time, and not a long time, lol!
In the end, of 16 teams, in true Manchester United fashion, we finished a respectable 10th place!
The same day that we enjoyed this sports quiz was also the start of the 2022 ISPS Handa World Invitational golf tournament, an LPGA, LET and DP World Tour tri-sanctioned event.
The unique format of this event vest in its dual men’s and women’s competitions that runs simultaneously within the same event and on the same courses.
The two competitions also have an equal prize fund of $ 1 500 000,00 each for men and women. Great! Right? Another win for female athletes! At first glance, it may appear as such. But is it really a victory for women’s golf? Let’s take a closer look.
Unlike the Volvo Scandinavian Mixed tournament, a LET and DP World Tour co-sanctioned event, the groupings are not mixed. Men play with men and women with women in the ISPS Handa tournaments.
A couple of weeks back, I wrote about why I think professional golf should moving forward, always be a mixed sport, both (all) genders competing head-to-head for the same prize money.
And I presented my evidence for this sentiment I feel very strongly about.
Now, the ISPS Handa events naturally has two leaderboards, one for men and one for women. If you read my previous article, the not-so-surprising result from day one, all the way through to the final round, was that the leading golfer’s score to par was always a woman.
The women’s event was won emphatically in a dazzling display of golfing prowess by the rookie, also from Sweden, Maja Stark. Mere weeks after her countrywoman Linn Grant won the Scandinavian Mixed in front of a home crowd. Linn, too, finished strongly in the ISPS event, tied for 4th place with Emily Kristine Pedersen and Chien Peiyun.
What’s special about Maja’s win, though, is she didn’t only win the women’s event, she also absolutely pummeled the male winner Ewen Ferguson by eight strokes! This is like the days when Tiger Woods was in his prime, annihilating his competitors by eight strokes and more.
Furthermore, she obliterated the course record with her final day score of 10-under par 63.
Amongst this bewildering golf master class by Maja, though, a cringy moment reared its misogynistic head at the peak of her performance just after she dropped her final putt to win the event in such magnificent class a commentator said: “That is one of the best final-round performances in women’s golf in 2022”.
HUH?! Excuse me! that was one of the best final-round performances in golf – period! Why the need to limit the magnitude of her success to that of women?
It may well have been an innocent comment. And that in itself is part of the problem. Society has been conditioned to measure a women’s success to other women. We don’t recognise how misplaced this notion is. When in fact, many women are superior to their male counterparts.
So why did that comment annoy me that much? Back to the point when I asked if this dual and equal prize fund is really a win for women’s golf. To illustrate my point, I draw your attention to the two separate leaderboards I mentioned earlier:
If we had one prize fund of $ 3 000 000,00 that all golfers competed head-to-head for, only ONE of the men in their Top-10 would have made the combined Top-10.
And that’s the men’s winner, who in a merged field would have finished tied for 7th, behind six other women, instead of first.
Look, I’m not begrudging any of the male winners. In the context of this tournament format, they earned their prize money.
But to my question again, is this format then really a win for women’s golf? Can we laud it as progress? Or were the top performers here, who happen to be women, victims of daylight robbery?
Yes, it may be a step in the right direction. But given how disparate the men’s and women’s sport is, stepping-stone changes is not the correct pace at which change needs to be made. We need radical leaps forward.
Or else, in 10–15 years, we will find women’s golf still very far from par.
IOL
Follow Jehad’s Far From Par series on IOL.
Far From Par is a series about the grassroots development of golf in South Africa. For decades golf was a sport reserved for white men for both leisure and professional expression.
Sadly, after nearly 30 years of democracy, apart from it now being open to all, not much has changed to foster meaningful transformation.