Women's Golf Deserves Better Than This

View From The Fairway by Derek Clements

There was $4m up for grabs for the winner of the CME Group Tour Championship last month but the chances are that many of you did not see much of the action. And you certainly didn’t see any live golf on the third day as it was broadcast on delay. Shameful!

Is it any wonder that women feel they are treated like second-class citizens in the world of golf?

This was the LPGA Tour’s equivalent of the Tour Championship but it was made to play second fiddle to the PGA Tour’s RSM Classic, with the field having to start early from two tees in order to accommodate the TV schedules in the final round for the men’s event.

It was also the swan song for Lexi Thompson, one of the biggest names in women's golf. 

She might reasonably have expected to walk down the 18th fairway, being cheered every inch of the way by thousands of adoring fans. Instead, her full-time playing career came to end on the ninth green in front of a paltry crowd. She deserved better.

And it is no surprise that it left a bitter taste in her mouth. She said: "I am pretty sad when you’re at four-under in the season-ending event, which could easily be the last CME of your career and you won’t even finish on 18 because they decide to double tee on the final day due to TV coverage window. I am bummed I was not able to embrace all the incredible fans on 18. But just know I’m grateful for you all."

The RSM Classic was the final event in the PGA Tour’s schedule for 2024. It was won by Maverick McNealy but the real interest centred around players battling so keep their cards

So the question is this: was there more drama in seeing Joel Dahmen battle for a final round of 64 to keep his card or in the women playing their most prestigious event of the season and saying farewell to a number of household names, Thompson among them? Hmmm….

I believe that, once again, women’s golf has been seriously short-changed by both the broadcasters and, worse than that, by its own governing body. This is an occasion when the LPGA should have refused to give in.

If you did actually get to watch the action you will have witnessed Thailand’s Jeeno Thitikul achieve a thrilling victory. Regular readers will know I am no fan of the pace of play within women’s golf but the first two rounds were played briskly, in two-balls. To squeeze it all in for the final round they were made to play in three-balls. And guess what happened? Once again the pace of play suffered.

Make no mistake, this was entirely to satisfy the TV schedules in the USA.

I take my hat off to Dahmen for being able to dig deep enough to find the round that may have effectively saved his career. And there was the rub. The broadcasters wanted to focus not just on the leaders but on the players such as Dahmen, fighting for their lives to remain in the top 125. But to be honest, he had only himself to blame for finding himself in that position in the first place. He is the first to admit that he does not cope well when things are not going his way. 

For me, there was more interest in seeing McNealy win for the first time in 142 starts and Thitikul win in such sensational fashion.

And I wanted to see more of Thompson, a golfer who was runner-up at the Evian at the age of 15. Two months short of her 17th birthday she posted her first win in Dubai to become the youngest professional winner on the Ladies European Tour.

Yes, she only won a solitary major and let several more slip away. She was a ferocious competitor at the Solheim Cup, playing in seven matches and appearing on the winning side three times, including this year, when she was a captain’s pick.

She was always box office and deserved a better send-off than the one she received and Terry Duffy, whose company sponsored the CME Group Tour Championship, agreed. He was livid when he discovered that the third round would not even be shown on live television. Remember that the CME Group pumped $11m into this tournament - and they certainly did so on the basis that the event would receive full, live coverage.

Duffy said: "It is entirely inappropriate for a tournament of this magnitude to be on tape delay. If you are going to continue to build women’s sports, you have to give them the same billing as men and stop the nonsense of saying we have to show the men’s tournament because they’re the men."

I am sure you will all have your own opinions, but I could not agree more with Duffy.