Sorenstam and the PGA

HarryKeogh

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Why on earth is female golfer Annika Sorenstam allowed to play in a PGA event? There's a reason there's a PGA and a LPGA. Men are much better golfers (due to strength, not skill) and should be separated from the women. What would happen if men were allowed to play in the LPGA? Oh wait, I know, a woman would never win a tournament again.
 
So there is a reason to prevent the males from participating in women's turnament, but why should we prevent women from participating in men's? In a lot of sports, physical strength plays a secondary role; it might be interesting to see women in men's turnaments, maybe it would turn out that they are not always inferior.

The idea for the actual case, as far as I know, is to point out that gender separation is unfair if there is no physical reason for it.

Hans
 
If you are interested, there is a 4 page thread on this topic in Banter: http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19505

But, to answer your question of why she is allowed to play, she was granted one of 8 sponsor's exemptions. The sponsor is allowed to invite 8 people to play who normally would not be in a PGA event. Seems reasonable, considering they are putting up the cash. And considering the amount of media attention the event is now generating because of it, I'd say it was the smartest move they could have made.
 
Thanz said:
If you are interested, there is a 4 page thread on this topic in Banter: http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19505

But, to answer your question of why she is allowed to play, she was granted one of 8 sponsor's exemptions. The sponsor is allowed to invite 8 people to play who normally would not be in a PGA event. Seems reasonable, considering they are putting up the cash. And considering the amount of media attention the event is now generating because of it, I'd say it was the smartest move they could have made.
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sorry to post the same topic you already had. didnt see it!:rolleyes:
 
Yeah, like royalty participating. We have a very sports-interested crown prince here, and there is always room for him in turnaments (mostly boat racing). He does quite well at times, btw.

But the publicity he creates is priceless.

Hans
 
It is true that women, as a rule, cannot compete in the upper eschelon of men's sports. This is also true of most men. Even though they may not have the absolute best players in the world, many people still enjoy watching minor league sports because regardless of the level, competition is still fun and exciting. Now suppose you had a player in a minor league that was so good that he/she was routinely thrashing all the others in that league. Would you not give that player a shot at the major leagues, even knowing they probably wouldn't be the equal of most of the people there?

If Annika beats even one other golfer, she has shown that she deserved the chance to play with the big boys.

(BTW. The WNBA starts tomorrow and I am pumped. GO COMETS!)
 
IMO it isnt right that a girl can play the boys league but boys still cant play the girls league. If women are going to be allowed to play in the PGA then abolish the LPGA and lets just have one leauge where everybody is equal. No?
 
Jon_in_london said:
IMO it isnt right that a girl can play the boys league but boys still cant play the girls league. If women are going to be allowed to play in the PGA then abolish the LPGA and lets just have one leauge where everybody is equal. No?
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Because everyone admits that men are bigger and stronger than women. It would not be entertaining to watch someone with a genetic advantage beating up on weaker people. On the other hand, watching someone overcome their genetic disadvantage to compete with the bigger, stronger specimens is extremely entertaining.
 
For money, of course!

Annika is the biggest news event in north Texas this week, and if she makes the cut, will draw many viewers to TV coverage of the Colonial Open. Obviously, she is allowed to play because of her commercial value, and because there's no PGA rule barring women. At the same time, I doubt that many of us would tune in to see Tiger Woods play an LPGA event. And I doubt that many women will want to compete in PGA events, so the Colonial participants who are all het up over this have little to worry about, except making sure they beat Annika. Vijay Singh, of course, can avoid this worry, since he promised his wife he'd clean out the garage this weekend.
 
Re: For money, of course!

Lemastre said:
At the same time, I doubt that many of us would tune in to see Tiger Woods play an LPGA event.
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I'm not so sure about this. It seems that Tiger is such a large draw that people would tune in to watch him play tiddly-winks.

Tiger: *snaps tiddly wink*

Idiot in gallery: Get in the hole!!
 
As far as I know, there's no rule banning anyone from participating in the PGA (apart from the requirement that they be 18 years of age) if they qualify.

The LPGA and the Seniors PGA are subgroups with additional restrictions on participation in those events.

I'd honestly like to see more LPGA members try to qualify for and play on the PGA tour

If someone wants to start an exclusively male MPGA, there should be no ethical problem with that.
 
Tricky said:

If Annika beats even one other golfer, she has shown that she deserved the chance to play with the big boys.
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I disagree with that completely. I think the number of guys she beats is irrelevant to whether she deserved a chance to play.
 
Tricky said:

Because everyone admits that men are bigger and stronger than women. It would not be entertaining to watch someone with a genetic advantage beating up on weaker people. On the other hand, watching someone overcome their genetic disadvantage to compete with the bigger, stronger specimens is extremely entertaining.
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Overcoming genetic disadvantages is the entertaining part? Doesn't pretty much everyone have some sort of genetic disadvantage compared to others? Would it be entertaining to watch some guy that played baseball in high school but no farther try to play in a major league baseball game? After all, he has a big genetic disadvantage compared to the other MLB players, although the disadvantage doesn't happen to be on the sex chromosome.

In fact, many men have a genetic disadvantge compared with the women playing golf on the LPGA. That is, even though they are a member of the class of people (men) that has a genetic advantage, they themselves have a genetic disadvantage because they simply don't have as much golf talent as the women on the tour. Should they be allowed to play on the womens tour?
 
This actually happened at least once before. Some thirty years or so ago, a kiwi lass went competing with the big boys in the very same competition. Of course, this was before we all belived in equality and such, so nobody minded her being there...
 
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