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What a show it could be. Sunday afternoon, Minjee and Min Woo Lee competing shot for shot for the Stonehaven Cup.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve competed head-to-head, growing up at home in Perth, for the title of best in their family. If they could do it at The Australian Golf Club for the title of best in the country, they would raise enough noise to drown out the flight path. No party holes necessary.<\/p>\n
With its world-first dual-gender event, Golf Australia dangled this prospect before us and yet, as Maxwell Smart would say, missed it by that much.<\/p>\n
When Australia decided two years ago to combine its men\u2019s and women\u2019s Opens, it seemed to offer the best of all worlds. Both sexes competing over four days on two prime courses, last year Victoria and Kingston Heath, this year The Australian and The Lakes. Same pin placements, same rough, the women playing off forward tees to balance out the difference in driving power. A great idea and what a perfect way for a summer tour to put COVID behind it.<\/p>\n
The reception of the actual events has also been, er, mixed. It\u2019s turned out that the men and women aren\u2019t playing against each other; instead they are playing parallel tournaments.<\/p>\n
Sometimes the leaders are on the same course, sometimes not. Sometimes a person from the other lot has come onto your fairway. Hello, how are you, I think you\u2019re about to hit my ball. As a spectacle, it can be as hard to figure out as a mixed Irish foursomes.<\/p>\n
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Simon Letch.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Simon Letch<\/cite><\/p>\n The TV coverage also follows the second law of thermodynamics: all things in the universe tend toward disorder. We jump between separate leaderboards, different courses, different people of different sexes. As if golf isn\u2019t hard enough.<\/p>\n Last year, the first year of the format, the Sunday afternoon tension, which should have built to a single focused climax, was flying off, like Adam Scott\u2019s tee shots, all over the place.<\/p>\n A well-intentioned idea had turned into what the cricket commentator John Arlott said of the Kiwi bowler Bob Cunis, and cannot be repeated too many times: \u201cHis bowling, like his name, was neither one thing nor the other.\u201d<\/p>\n The Australian Open has ended up being a bit of this and a bit of that.<\/p>\n Cameron Smith and Min Woo Lee playing together during the Australian Open\u2019s first round.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Getty<\/cite><\/p>\n The mixed format didn\u2019t do the women\u2019s or the all-abilities sections any favours, although it was trying hard to. On the Sunday last year, rather than enjoy equal billing, the women\u2019s and all-abilities events, which finished earlier than the men\u2019s, were quietly pushed into a background they didn\u2019t deserve.<\/p>\n As in Olympic events and tennis grand slams, the men\u2019s finale was scheduled last, giving it the status of the main event with the others as curtain-raisers. Olympic medals are valued equally \u2013 gold is gold, particularly Australian gold \u2013 but you scarcely hear the women\u2019s 100m track final described as the \u2018blue riband\u2019 event. Women\u2019s grand slam tennis finals are on Saturdays, men\u2019s on Sundays. Little wonder that for the rest of the year, the women want their own circuits.<\/p>\n One of the many lessons from the transformative 2023 FIFA Women\u2019s World Cup was that women\u2019s sporting events are raised to a higher plane by standing alone. Had the women\u2019s tournament been held concurrently with the men\u2019s, for all its superior qualities it would have been overshadowed by the Lionel Messi fairytale. The Women\u2019s World Cup we got was separate and equal. It had its own oxygen.<\/p>\n Sexist bias is older and runs deeper than sport, and while sport plays its role in leading the world toward equal valuation, its most effective message is when events stand apart. (Which brings us to single-sex schools \u2026 no it doesn\u2019t.) Cricket\u2019s Big Bash League is a good example. The women\u2019s version is held in spring, with no competition from the men\u2019s, and a higher overall quality of players. In time, its superiority as an entertainment product will be reflected in spectator and broadcast numbers and sponsorship values, just as the Matildas now eclipse the Socceroos.<\/p>\n Minjee Lee tees off during her opening round of the Australian Open at The Lakes.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Getty<\/cite><\/p>\n Golf usually has standalone men\u2019s and women\u2019s events, but Australia was promising something really radical by combining the two. Only it didn\u2019t quite go far enough. With a truly open Open, it could provide more exciting competition. For example, last year the men\u2019s event fizzled out a little in the last round when Poland\u2019s Adrian Meronk cruised away for a five-stroke win.<\/p>\n On the same course but a little earlier, the women\u2019s version had a blanket finish. Combine the two together, and Meronk (14-under) would have squeezed home ahead of South Africa\u2019s Ashleigh Buhai (12-under), South Korea\u2019s Jiyai Shin (11-under), Australia\u2019s Hannah Green (10-under) and Grace Kim (9-under) before you got to the next-placed man, Adam Scott (9-under). For interest\u2019s sake, Minjee and Min Woo Lee would have finished tied on 8-under, family bragging rights to be settled privately.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, both last year and this, the women\u2019s Australian Open brings more star power. While the men\u2019s event has one world top-30 player \u2013 20th-ranked Cameron Smith \u2013 the women\u2019s has four: Minjee Lee (world No.5), Shin (15), Buhai (26) and Green (28), as well as the former world No.1 and two-time major winner Ryu So-yeon. It would add tremendous interest to see those women in the same groups as the likes of Smith, Scott, Meronk, Marc Leishman, Cam Davis and Joaquin Neimann.<\/p>\n Golf is not the first place we look when we seek adventure, but in recent years it has shown a will to do so. The Australian innovation is a world-first. It has, however, left its potential untapped. Come on, golf. Free the Lees! Wear T-shirts, and leave them untucked! Live a little! When it comes to loosening the belt on those tailored shorts, there are more interesting ways to stimulate a game than letting people throw beer cans onto the field of play.<\/p>\n Sports news, results and expert commentary.<\/i><\/b> Sign up for our Sport newsletter<\/i><\/b>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Source: Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n
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