Just in case you've seen all the foreigners winning majors and figured golf had embraced diversity, the Southwest Kansas Pro-Am is here to remind you: The gentleman's game is still very much about gentlemen of the white-dude variety.
The 31-year-old pro-am, which partners with the Adams Golf pro tour, has long had a tradition of keeping women from playing in the event, and it upheld that tradition this year when it rejected a woman golfer whose game and checkbook were more than ready to play.
The tournament, hosted by a Garden City municipal course, raises money for the St. Catherine Hospital Newborn Intensive Care Unit, and does it quite well: It's raked in more than $800,000 for newborns in three decades of duffing.
But it's long had a stale tradition of keeping women out. For its first 19 years, no women teed it up, despite the event raising money for a cause so close the hearts of women.
Whatever outcry there was was probably faint. Male golfers far outnumber women ones, and who but a rabblerouser would complain about an event that raises money for tiny babies?
The tournament first made an exception in 1998, but the way the Garden City Telegram tells it, you wonder if they just were just bored of trying to hit the cart guy with punch shots. While men who want to play in the event simply have to sign up and submit a handicap, tournament officials forced a woman to play four practice rounds to prove herself worthy.
Apparently they thought smacking her ass on the driving range was cliche?
Women have been allowed to play in years since. But this year, when another broad got her panties in a bunch about playing, she learned that the tournament had actually gone back to its no-chicks-allowed policy.
Paula Van Norden played in the event last year -- her way bravely paved by the Humiliation Open of '98 -- and figured she'd do it again this year. After all, it's family tradition. "I play it, my husband and son play it," she told the Telegram. "We house the pros. This year, we had three of them stay with us."
But this year, Van Norden was told she couldn't play in the main pro-am last Friday, and instead was invited to play in a women's event the Tuesday before. Beth Koksal, the pro-am coordinator, said the women's event and a Sunday "mixed event" give women every opportunity to play, and that the tourney committee has decided to reserve the main pro-am for men.
When asked why, Koksal -- who spent her college years extinguishing her classmates' burning bras -- promised to have committee member Kent Colvin call us. He didn't, but he told the Telegram, "We have a full field."
Which is totally true. It was just full of men.
Golfers have raced to the tournament's defense online. They say having women play is totally confusing because women play from different tee boxes -- a hurdle countless fair-minded pro-ams have managed to get past. And they say very few women have complained about the discrimination.
That's probably true, but that's just because we all long ago gave up any hope of golf pulling its head out of its head cover. This, after all, is the game that forced Tom Watson to abandon his childhood course, the Kansas City Country Club, because it didn't admit Jews -- in 1991.
Bigotry in golf: It's a tradition like no other.
Comments (0)