The Loop

In defense of Paige Spiranac playing in Dubai: She brought attention to tournament

December 12, 2015

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The appearance of Paige Spiranac in the Omega Dubai Ladies Masters was not universally criticized. Here, Kevin Garside in the Independent comes to her defense: “You would have thought Kim Kardashian was teeing it up, such was the gnashing of teeth among the golfing sisterhood in Dubai this week…Of course her appearance at the event had tons to do with the way she looks, but in case you hadn’t noticed, 21st-century sport is a business that relies on its commercial relationship with sponsors to keep the participants in Baby Bentleys and Prada. So what if she was a hook to raise awareness of the event? She is a legitimate golfer and it worked. Not one column inch in a newspaper or internet page would have been spent on the Omega Dubai Desert Masters had Ms Spiranac not appeared.”

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Colin Montgomerie has joined the chorus of those demanding that golf proactively address slow play and that simply fining players “is a joke,” he said in this story by Martin Dempster of the Scotsman. “We should be proactive and especially in majors, where there’s a referee with every group, players should be on the clock from the word go…At the moment, we have to wait until there’s a situation before that group is warned and that’s not right, no, as we all suffer.”

As her 2015 season reaffirmed, [Lydia] Ko…is one of the most precocious sports people of all time. No golfer has ever had so much success at such an early age,” Bill Fields writes at ESPNw in this profile of women’s golf’s leading light. “Hype and hullabaloo are glued to some athletes who receive big contracts before they are big winners, their sizzle stemming from potential rather than performance. Ko is an understated champion about whom it is difficult to overstate her achievements.”