A Scotland-born transgender golfer has come through qualifying to stand only two steps from becoming a member of the LPGA Tour, a scenario that one former professional on the women’s biggest circuit has labelled “unfair”.
That is, have we already institutionalised the pohysical sex differences into the rules of the game?
The World Handicapping System provides for “equalising” playerws off different tees. If you play off a forward tee, your handicap would be lower than off the longer tees. Pros play off scratch, so no handicaps. Women pros play shorter courses than male pros, so anyone who has been through male puberty and plays of the women pro tees would have an advantage in strength over those who had not. In other words, he’s a cheat.
Yes, but it really just means a shorter course, often with the red (ladies) tees in positions to make the drive easier eg not as far to clear a hazard. At the professional level men and women play their competitions separately so there’s no need to have designated tees, but women do play shorter courses.
Having the extra strength in golf really is an advantage. Being able to hit, say, a pitching wedge rather than a 5 iron in to a green increases the chances of a birdie significantly.
I read a lot of science fiction as a child and a teenager, but I don’t remember any author writing about a future where humans tried to outdo each other in the insanity stakes…
“A Scotland-born transgender golfer…”
Ah, that’ļl be Phil McOck.
Course length isn’t the only consideration of course difficulty, courses of the same length can be vary considerable in difficulty. For example a course with lots of carries over rough or water to get to a green or a fairway off the tee is much harder than one where it is fairway all the way, not least because if you go in water or deep rough that can cost a couple of shots.
To give you some idea what that means I have a handicap index of 13.6. If I play off our red tees my course handicap is 11 with par set at 72, taking in to account the difficulty of the course for men. However a lady of the same playing index would have a course handicap of 17 with par set at 74.
So to play to par I would need to shoot an 83 whereas a lady would need to shoot 91, in other words I’m expected to play the course 8 shots better than her even though we have the same handicap index.
So with that in mind, in this year’s British Opens the men’s course was 7180 yards and the lady’s course 6964 yards, but that tells us nothing about the difficulty and my guess is they will have had completely different difficulty ratings.
He always has the option of taking up boxing.
You would think that from 40 metres out, golf would be a game of touch, feel, reading the lie of the land, communication with your caddy, and all that stuff that women are stereotypically better than men at.
However, the women (Davies, Rowling etc) standing up for separate categories are remarkably attractive for any age, so if they’re getting their picture in the paper then I’m with them. Got a Y, play with the Y.
Perhaps the ghost of P.G. Wodehouse could reinvent his golfing stories with the Oldest Member.
It’s been sixty years since the rules were changed such that you can’t just declare a lost ball.
@grist: 2000AD? A lot of this sort of thing would fit right into the big Meg…
Bongo,
“ You would think that from 40 metres out, golf would be a game of touch, feel, reading the lie of the land, communication with your caddy, and all that stuff that women are stereotypically better than men at.”
That area of the game really rewards practice and as we know men are more likely to be obsessive. There’s an old saying about driving for show and putting for dough and it’s a lot easier to putt if you’re chipping to 3’ rather than 10’.
A case in point. A long time ago I went to the final practice day when The Open was at Carnoustie when Tiger Woods was at his peak. Watching him and Steve Williams setting about their work was amazing. At every green they threw balls down and noted which way they rolled. They threw balls just off the edge of the green and Tiger practiced from where they stopped, again taking copious notes. Other players were doing something similar but with nowhere near the diligence.
Troon?