Promoting women’s pro golf
Though Michelle Wie has the potential to transform how people think about women’s professional golf, she will likely do so primarily by playing with the men at their tournaments. For this reason and others, I’ve always wonder whether anyone has thought about staging men’s and women’s pro golf events on the same course at the same time. Strange as this may sound for golf, this is essentially how tennis runs its major events, and many other sports (e.g., ice skating, track and field) have men’s and women’s competitions in the same setting at essentially the same time.
Though it may be logistically challenging to get all the early rounds played before the fields gets cut, I think it would be fascinating to see women playing at Augusta (from moved up tees) during the same week that the men are playing the Masters. The women would not be competing directly against the men, but we would get to see their skills tested in the same setting and under similar conditions (although a shorter course) that test the men.
In terms of promoting women’s golf, I think this could be great (or at least very interesting). The many fans who attend the event and/or watch on TV would get to see coverage (and the impressive skills) of many women golfers. Of course, I can imagine lots of reasons why the PGA and the LPGA would not like such a combined event, but I think it would be nice to see it tried at least once.
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