News

'Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden'

May 08, 2017
Muirfield-Golf-Club-Clubhouse.jpg

AFP/Getty Images

Stories of interest you might have missed…

The headline to Lewine Mair's story in Women's Golf Journal is, "Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden." It is a comprehensive look "at the history of 'No Women Allowed and "how clubhouse doors are (reluctantly) opening.”

“Women talk too much, they play too slowly, they can barely hit the ball out of their own shadows. And when one wins a mixed event… Well of course she did—just look at her high handicap! And anyway she was playing from the ladies’ tees," she writes.

“After more than 500 years of golf as we know it, you’d think these dusty old clichés would be worn out, beat up, exhausted, and discarded like so many broken tees—and yes, there are men who don’t subscribe to any of the above. But evolution comes slowly to many among the male golfer species, and so the game’s old fogeys—in no short supply roaming the halls of clubs everywhere—are apt to sire young fogeys, and thus one of golf’s oldest traditions plods on, wheezing and seemingly always near death, as khaki-clad young men disparage the ladies’ game just as their khaki-clad forefathers did before them.”

GolfSixes makes an impression

GolfSixes, the European Tour's innovative alternative to conventional 72-hole golf competitions, apparently is here to stay, James Corrigan of the Telegraph writes, "with sponsors already expressing their interest to the European Tour after the successful inaugural staging of the short-form event here at the Hemel Hempstead course.

"It is understood that a number of potential investors have been in touch and the long-term view is to set up a series of GolfSixes events, which will run within the traditional schedule.

"[European Tour Chief Executive Keith] Pelley admitted beforehand that it was a gamble going into the £1  million event without a title sponsor and so having to dip into the Tour’s carefully protected coffers. But this is an experiment the Canadian believes will pay off. 'There’s no doubt this will be back,' Pelley said. 'We’re going to take what we’ve learnt and build on this. The key is to get the mix right, making it entertaining and preserving the integrity of the game.'”