Men against women in golf is like Achilles and the tortoise
Should men and women compete against each other in golf? Maybe in another million years. However women’s golf is sure growing in popularity.
For example, a Google search of Michelle Wie gives 572,000 search results. It may not be as high as Tiger Woods’s more than 3 million hits, but it sure is past Phil Mickelson’s 204 thousand.
The search results for Vijay Singh and Phil Mickelson combined give as many as Michelle Wie’s.
Yup, there sure is a rise in popularity, even if women’s golf is not as popular at a high-school level as boys’ golf may be.
Women golfers like Michelle Wie are amazing because they hit like men or get to make men’s cuts.
These women are not anomalies or something created by media, but awesome golfers! They are already throwing themselves into the mix at a few men’s PGA Tour events.
Within the next few years, they will be competing for wins at these tournaments. It is an inspiring show of talent and equality.
A year-by-year breakdown of Michelle Wie’s earlier years superimposed with those of Tiger’s reveals a great deal. Tiger’s first few years (Tiger aged 16, Wie aged 13) are a whole lot better than Wie’s. His drives are simply longer.
As go up the years, Tiger’s performance gets better. Wie, who is just 23, has time to catch up to Tiger’s level before the age bracket in consideration is over, but it looks like it is going to turn out to be quite the unlikely story.
As far as we know, women golfers are not getting any mutation shots. Their drives still land at 270 yards. The men are shooting for the stars at 319 yards. Is 50 yards a small difference? It may be. Nevertheless, the question is, will it shrink any further?
There are a number of opinions.
Chief amongst them is anatomy. The reason is men and women are anatomically different, we cannot hope to see men and women competing against one another. A plausible rebuttal to that comes from the game of golf itself.
Golf is not really all about big hitters and, besides Tiger Woods, rarely have the big hitters relied on their ability to drive long alone to win tournaments. That makes Tiger Woods an anomaly, does it not?
There is also that tendency to see the women incapable of hoping to match the men in enduring the mental fatigue that the higher tournaments of the game ask of its players. That is crude observation at best.
What we tend to forget oftentimes is that if the ladies are getting a grip of the game and the best amongst them are competing in male tournaments now, the men’s game too, is moving from strength to strength.
Those 50 yards may always be there. Ask Achilles, and he will tell. He never did overtake the tortoise.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
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