GW Monday: Gap grows between LPGA & PGA Tour

From the March 14 issue of Golf World Monday:

Much has been written about the precarious state of the LPGA schedule, but relative to their male counterparts, the women are used to being considered second best.

"We will never get the same attention as the men," said former Women's British Open champion Catriona Matthew. "They make ridiculous amounts of money, to the point where they almost put people off watching them. I saw Bubba Watson lose in the match play a couple of weeks ago and he was laughing. He didn't seem to care. I guess when you make as much as they do, you lose some of the incentive to win. It's different for us; there is a huge difference between what we play for and what the men play for. Something like $50,000 is huge for us; pocket change for the men."

This week the women won't even play for that -- at the controversial RR Donnelley LPGA Founders Cup, the players will compete for the right to give their "prize money" to charity.

"The good thing is that it is something different and it has certainly produced a lot of publicity," said Matthew, who is not playing the event. "Given how much we tend to be ignored in the media, that can't be a bad thing. There's no denying the tour isn't in the best of states at the moment."

-- John Huggan