Is Golf the first gender neutral sport?

In the coming months, the look of the PGA tour could change drastically. This past September, Suzy Whaley became the first women to qualify for a PGA event when she won her US PGA sectional tournament in Connecticut to qualify for July's Greater Hartford Open. This led the PGA to change the requirements for qualify to require all players regardless of gender, to play from the same tees. Whaley had actually qualified from tees 10 yards in front of her male counterparts. Unfortunately for Whaley, it seems that Annika Sorenstam will beat her to the punch. When she competes in the Bank of America Colonial in May, Sorenstam will become the first female to play in a PGA Tour event since Babe Zaharias competed in the Los Angeles Open in 1945.

These recent events have rekindled the debate about whether it is fair to have women and men directly compete against each other. Regardless what this country says about equality of the sexes and fair competition, stereotypically, men have always been either culturally programmed or genetically predisposed to excelling at competition, be it between men or women. In the cultural aspect, men have been programmed to believe that losing is bad, but worse yet is to lose to a girl. Is it right to think this way, of course not, but men do. Think back to your high school days, what were some of the worst insults guys would sling at each other, we’ll disregard insults about sexual orientation?
Here are a few:
Nice toss "Sally"
Your skirt must have blown up on you on that putt.
Jimmy, you throw like a girl.
You’re not that hurt. Shake it off, you Sissy
Maybe you should go back to Home Ec class with the other ladies.

This programming can be very psychologically damaging when dealing with open competition between men and women, especially if that competition is physical in nature. A man often times feels he is in a lose, lose proposition when competing against a woman. From his buddies he will hear if he wins, "yeah, you beat a girl, you stud!" (Add the appropriate amount of sarcasm), and if he loses, well, he might as well just hang up his jersey because he’s mentally toasted. I had a teammate who actually quit the high school wrestling team after getting pinned and losing to a girl. Was that his only motivation for quitting? Probably not, but it sure was a major one. I would tell you his name, but I believe he changed it sometime after to avoid possible embarrassment.

So should women compete directly against men? There are some sports where because of the differences in physical make up and size direct competition probably shouldn’t happen, especially in those sports such as hockey and football, where serious high speed collisions take place. Golf, however, focuses more on finesse and skill rather than brute strength and speed. If we really want competition between men and women, I can’t think of another sport more conducive to equal competition than golf. Are there women out there, who could beat Tiger, I seriously doubt it? When Tiger is "on", the only one threatening to beat Tiger seems to be the Lord Almighty himself. Are there women out there who could beat the other Pros in the top 50? Possibly, either way it would be interesting to see and would bring some additional pressure to these pros.

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