If you were watching golf on TV this weekend like I was, you might have noticed a slight discrepancy in the TV coverage of the different tournaments. While the Honda Classic and European Tours enjoyed 3 hours per day of coverage, the LPGA was only afford 1 hour a day by The Golf Channel. 1 hr...sigh...
But in those few minutes we were granted by the powers that be...we enjoyed a very exciting debut of the world number 1, Lorena Ochoa, at the HSBC Women's Champions.
It was amazing to watch her break away from the pack, but it was also exciting to watch Annika and Paula push hard to try and catch her. Too bad that Suzann Petterson struggled all weekend - not breaking 70 across all 4 days. But I'm not too concerned. She'll be back.
Meanwhile back to the pathetic inequality in golf - one of my favorite rants. Women golfers being treated as second class citizens is not "news". It's par for the course, as is a huge disparity in purses in the professional tours. Let's take a look at 2008:
PGA Tour: US$300 million
LPGA Tour: US$60 million
Champions Tour (9 less events than the LPGA): US$55.2 million
With numbers like those, it's no wonder that the two best players in the world don't even come close in terms of winnings.
Sometimes it seems like the golf equality battle will never be won. Even Lorena said in an interview with the Sunday Times, "Sometimes you have to understand that's just the way it is and there's nothing we can do." Nothing we can do??? Oh Lorena, I wish you hadn't said that. Don't wimp out on us girlfriend! We need you to drive progress and change in this sport.
Yes, yes...it all comes down "Show me the money". But did you know that the TV networks PAY PGA Tour to broadcast their events, the LPGA has to PAY the TV networks to get coverage. I find that shocking.
LPGA commissioner Carolyn Bivens said the strive for parity is one of the LPGA's top priorities, "If we don't strive to be equal, then we're going to be under-achieving." I'm glad to hear her say that.
We've seen "No dogs, no women" signs in UK clubs, and "white men only" clubs in the US. These battles for gender and race equality are almost behind us, but we're still seeing appalling stories of discrimination.
But let's not role over and play dead on the greens! Let's take a lesson from some of the great ladies of sport and see what their determination and drive has achieved for their sport.
Almost 30 years ago, Billie Jean King went on a mission to gain support on equalizing the purses in tennis. She was insulted and ridiculed for her efforts, but did you know that today, because of women like her, women's tennis achieved equal prize money in all four of their majors last year?
So there is hope. The LPGA is the strongest its ever been in terms of talent and competition. What we need now is for more women (and their supportive golfguys) to speak out and drive equality forward at their home clubs, in the media, through blogs, Facebook and Yahoo groups, in golf magazines and on golf forums everywhere.
Never give up...never surrender. Let's make that the new motto of the LPGA.
Golfgal
The Straits Times
02 Mar 2008
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