Players must be assigned female at birth or have transitioned to female before going through male puberty to compete in LPGA tournaments or the eight USGA championships for females under new gender policies published Wednesday.
The policies, which begin in 2025, follow more than a year of study involving medicine, science, sport physiology and gender policy law.
The updated policies would rule out eligibility for Hailey Davidson, who missed qualifying for the U.S. Women’s Open this year by one shot and came up short in LPGA Q-school.
Davidson, who turned 32 on Tuesday, began hormone treatments when she was in her early 20s in 2015 and in 2021 underwent gender-affirming surgery, which was required under the LPGA’s previous gender policy. She had won this year on a Florida mini-tour called NXXT Golf until the circuit announced in March that players had to be assigned female at birth.
Cool. Now we just need to allow people to transition before puberty, and we’re all sorted.
Supreme Court: LOL, no
If they dont enforce gender roles, how can they make money pointlessly gendering things. Pay women less by having a women’s league, make more money by selling women’s tees, etc. Golf is a grift that never ends.
The PGA is open to all genders and therefore is more competitive which will always bring more views thus more money. The LPGA is exclusionary based on gender and therefore less competitive and will bring less money and viewers.
You should be happy the less exclusionary league brings in more money unless you love discrimination.
Women can play in the “men’s” league currently, right? So are you proposing that they do away with the women-only league? Despite that being a blow to capitalism, it will be devastating to professional female golfers.
I’m a bit lost, what’s being pointlessly gendered, am not a golfist.
Seems like it may be difficult to prove someone “transitioned before male puberty”. Its not like puberty hits in a day and all of the sudden your voice is deeper and your skin turns bright purple.
Well, I wouldn’t expect golf to be the most progressive sport anyway. Actually, I wouldn’t expect any major sport to be very progressive with such huge amounts of money involved.
For golf though? I isn’t golf more about strategic use of speed, angle, and pitch? Where does gender have a place? Strength is not much of a factor which is why fat old people play it. If any sport should be gender neutral it would be golf.
Even NASCAR is gender neutral, and that needs strength for turning the wheel. According to a quick Google search:
but it’s different from the power steering in a typical vehicle. NASCAR cars are heavier and more difficult to turn than other cars. Drivers must use a lot of strength, stamina, and mental focus to turn a race car for 400–500 miles.
Race car driving is physically demanding and requires a lot of hand-eye coordination, strength, and endurance. The high speeds and unique engineering of race cars make turning and braking require more force. Drivers use the muscles in their arms, upper body, and legs to control the vehicle.
Geoff Bodine introduced power steering to NASCAR in 1991. Drivers have experienced power steering issues during races, including Daniel Suárez and Harrison Burton.
The PGA is open for men and women. The LPGA is only open for women. The fact that there are no women in the PGA is proof that golf is not gender neutral.
Have you ever golfed?
There are literally mens tees and women’s tees (and usually kids tees, too)
Women’s tees are closer to the hole. (Kids are closest)
Yes, but this is the pro level so imbalances due to gender are not as pronounced.
At a pro level gender differences are the most pronounced. It’s below that where is mostly a wash.
The tees are closer. This isn’t a debate.
The LPGA players do not play from the ladies tees when on tour. The LPGA makes their own tee off areas for each tournament, which average a total of 6200 – 6600 yards. The overall yardage on traditional ladies tees is 4600 yards.
According to the LPGA, they create their own tee box for each tournament depending on where they are playing. So there is no set tee area that they consistently use. In other words, the LPGA tees off from a custom tee box.
The PGA averages 7,200 yards, so it’s still significantly shorter.
Red and white tees are made for more normal humans, which are both generally shorter.
Uh, no. This about professional golf. There aren’t “fat old people” playing on the pro tours. Strength is very much a factor. LPGA courses are shorter. Women’s average drive distance is about 45 yds shorter than the average for men.
You obviously don’t understand golf and made a lot of assumptions there. This a fairly reasonable rule. Probably unnecessary but better than an outright ban.
John Daly would disagree.
I would think so too, but looks like average golfing handicaps do still differ pretty dramatically between the genders. Golf is a very male dominated sport and I feel like that might be a major factor, but the numbers we’ve collected thus far do point to a difference. Not a big golfer, but the only thing I can think of is maybe driving hit range but, I wouldn’t think that could be responsible for the difference alone.
Some of it is down to biology (more strong muscle, me hit ball further) some to womens equipment being more of an afterthought, and a good deal down to the disparity in practice / coaching time. It’s not one single factor, but it is a big one that does impact how a.rpund is played. Not arguing the ethics of the above rule, I don’t think I have a particularly good solution, just these are the factors in the sport.
