Golf is the great equalizer, short guys can beat tall guys etc, it is skill and discipline, not strenth and speed - so I say bring the women in and let everybody compete on equal footing.
If women want to be equal they should get out there and compete with the men. (And not whine about discrimination)
Sure. And men should play in the LPGA, women and men having equal abilities and everything.
There’s a reason why there are two different golf tours, dude.
County I just don’t know what to say. I have seen some offensive threads in my time. This isn’t one of them. As for the just plain dumb threads hall of fame, we just may have an entry.
Paintball is the great equalizer. Every third team on the NPPL rosters is either an all-female club or a co-ed club. For everything else, ditto Airman Doors, USAF.
If you watched Annika Sorenstam when she played in that PGA tournament, county, you would have seen that her drives were, on average, 30 yards shorter than those of her contemporaries. Also, take into account that she was using longer clubs to arrive 30 yards shorter when the men were using shorter clubs.
I’d say tenpin bowling, as well, especially with these new reactive balls that curve upon giving them the right look.
The tough one is chess (though it can be explained by cultural norms). Only recently are there any bona fide women grand masters. The major chess organizations (FIDE, etc) maintain separate categories for women in order to subsidize female professional chessplayers. They reason that if they were to abolish the special category for women, the amount of prize money going to female chess players would plummet. As one must be a full time chess player to hope to be competitive at the highest levels, only by subsidizing female chess players will a critical mass develop the skills to compete in the general category. Women may always compete in the general category; men, however, may not compete in the women’s category.
Joe K,
Good god I hate those things. I had one with an hourglass shaped polyurithane core, and I couldn’t control it if my life depended on it. I ended up going back to the old style solid plastic core (I have no hook, you see.)
Back on OP, IMO, the idea of gender segregation in sports and other competitions does have merits and drawbacks. I’d recommend them for purely physical sports, such as football and hockey and such (I have no illusions that the majority of female football players (American style) could compete in the NFL.) In non-contact sports, such as archery and golf and such, until females get wide enough recognition and are accepted as equals to men, I’d go for segregated leagues. The WNBA, LPGA, etc etc et al, are fine. BUT! Don’t fuck around and bitch if you find it hard to get into the mens league. Sorensen did a good job, and placed in the middle of the pack during the Open. Doesn’t mean that EVERY female golfer should try to go out and do it.
I guess in a roundabout way I’m trying to say I’m all for equality of gender, but if its going to be equal, then damnit, make it equal in all respects.
I believe that the highest level of competition in any sport should be an ‘open’ league. Anybody who can compete at that level should be allowed to earn their way onto the field of play.
The only place this rule should be restricted is in our very violent sports, football and boxing. I wouldn’t mind seeing a woman or kid fall flat on their faces golfing, but if that happens in football, someone’s going to really get hurt.
You know, if we eliminated the women’s leagues the women would not be able to compete. Take Annika Sorenstam, for example. In the Colonial last year she beat 14 guys. She didn’t make the cut, and she’s the very best that the women’s Tour has to offer. Simply put, they can’t compete at the very highest level. You would think that the Colonial would have been the last word on that.
If we got rid of the LPGA, Cheesesteak, how long do you think it would be before the women started crying foul because they simply couldn’t win, and how unfair it is that they have to play from the blue tees instead of the red ones, and we can go on and on.
Middle of the pack? She didn’t even make the cut. Wait, what percentage of the players make the cut?
Wow, I really don’t know as much about golf as I thought.
So, women really aren’t as good as men, in golf and football and some other stuff?
OK, I’ll try to explain this a little more reasonably.
If a man and a woman both have perfect mechanics, be it throwing, hitting, swinging a golf club, whatever, the man will almost always win. Force equals mass times acceleration, right? Guys are bigger, guys are stronger (in general), so as a result Annika Sorenstam has to depend solely on ball placement because she doesn’t have length on the top male players, whereas Tiger Woods can worry about ball placement and get dramatically longer distance.
All conditions being equal, all skill being equal, Annika will lose because she’s simply physically outmatched. And that’s what happened at the Colonial. On a fair and level playing field she got creamed.
Now, that’s not to say that women can’t compete. Florence Griffith-Joyner, for example, was undoubtedly a better athlete than 99.9% of the men on the Earth, but her 15 year old record of 10.49 seconds in the 100 meter dash is still more than a half-second off the male record, and no current woman has ever seriously threatened to beat the record. So, while you can say the women are competitive, they simply have no chance at winning.
You get where I’m coming from?
Actually, Cheesesteak, is stating what is true in golf. At the highest level, golf is open to all. The PGA (the highest level) has no rules against women competing. But the women don’t really have it bad. I think if you look at the prize money for a typical LPGA event, it’ll be higher than a Nationwide Tour event even though your typical LPGA player couldn’t compete on the Nationwide Tour.
John Mace caught my meaning, Airman. The LPGA, by it’s nature, is a tour restricted to women. The LPGA is NOT an example of the highest possible level of golf competition. The men’s tour, if it wishes to consider itself the highest level of competition, should not restrict itself to just men.
My comment is in response to the men that want to play in the LPGA because Annika played in the PGA. The LPGA is restricted competition, the PGA is not, which is how it should be. Sort of like saying that since a middleweight boxer can, technically, fight in heavyweight ranks, that the reverse should be true.
There’s no real competition if men and women played together in most sports, and that’s half the fun. I don’t want to play golf against a team of children because I would beat them easily. Why would a man WANT to play with women if it is obvious that he would win with sheer strength. I can see a little of the thinking that a woman may want to play against players superior to her (namely men) simply to try and push herself as an athlete. As a woman I hate the thought that a man could beat me in many sports simply because he’s a man, but it’s a fact I have to face.
This discussion is usually tiresome with no purpose. Men and women are different for a reason. I don’t want to do everything just like a man, and I don’t cry discrimination if men have an unfair advantage just because they’re men.
I enjoy the difference as long as all rights are the same. Who cares if men are stronger… women are prettier 
But the 14 guys she beat, they can compete, huh?
I understand the point, but it was ONE tournament. Maybe next time she does better. And we can’t really say that she is the best the women have to offer, competetion-wise. Even if she’s the best now, who’s to say there aren’t 4 or 5 women coming up that can kick her lilly ass? And give all those fellas a run for their money? I saw an ESPN news story about a female high-school player who could drive the HELL out of the ball. (Don’t remember her name though)
I say let 'em all compete. If they don’t make the cut, then they don’t make the cut.
The men she beat had remarkably bad days. Annika played almost as well as she expected to.
You don’t give Annika her proper credit. She isn’t just the best woman golfer…she dominates all women golfers. By a ton. Think back to before Tiger fell into his slump, when he won four majors in a row, some by as many as a dozen strokes. Now multiply that overall dominance by 5, and you start to approach the utter domination Annika has over her peers. She may be the best woman who has ever played the game.
Michelle Wie, who has expressed a desire to play half of the time on the LPGA, and half the time on the PGA. I say go for it, but she’s recently been dismantled by males she’s played against. But she’s still a child, and I blame her handlers for allowing her into competition that might harm her confidance.
But she should be out there competing. I believe that the higher competition and higher expectations will result in better players in the long run, even if some take a shelling in the short run.
In any case, what is lost be letting them try? If they ain’t good enough, they don’t make the cut.