A crowded leaderboard for the start of Masters Saturday
Molinari, -7
Day
Koepka
Oosthuizen
Scott
2. D. Johnson, -6
Harding
Schauffele
Woods
10. Poulter, -5
Rahm
12. Kizzire, -4
Kuchar
Mickelson
Howell III
16. Aphibarnrat, -3
DeChambeau
Thomas
Conners
Finau
Woodland
Fowler
Xander Schauffele had the round of the day on Friday. His -7 65 followed a +1 73 on Thursdau bringing him from 7 strokes behind the lead to tied for 6th. 33 put 32 home
Tiger Woods’ round could have been even better. He continued to miss some short putts butmade a number of long difficult putts. He had 6 birdies 3 on each 9 for a -4 68.
Francesco Molinari played steadily with a 33 on the front nine. It is remarkable how he has improved with the putter, the aspect of his game which previously was the weakest.
Jason Day had 6 birdies and the only bogey was on the par 3 12th. There is still a question mark on how his back will hold up an did he is playing through pain.
Brooks Koepka maintained his lead with a -1 71 after a shaky start which included birdie, double bogey, birdie, bogey.
Adam Scott was steady with 3 birdies and an eagle until he had bogey on 16. He looks to be putting supremely well.
Louis Oosthuizen came from outside the top 10 to tied 1st with two halves of 33, a round of 66.
Dustin Johnson looked resillient and birdies 2 of the par 5s, playing the second nine in -2 for a round of 70.
Last night I wanted to get home quickly to see the first round of The Masters so I hailed a black cab down. London cabbies are renowned for having opinions about a lot of things and also for their straight talking.
So I got to know from the horse’s mouth, how an avid male golfer felt about women playing golf. He obviously loved playing every weekend and what he and his friends had organised amongst themselves sounded fantastic, social, competitions, travelling abroad to play. But it was clearly boys only.
He mentioned that the other week he had actually played in a mixed fourssome and didnt mind it, it had been something different. However, and there came the truth, he said he wouldnt do it regularly as “there was a stigma about playing with women” amongst his all male group.
This is 2019. But it sounded like 1000 years BC. Women stay in the cave, the men are going out to play. You stay home and cook the terradactyl.
Women are your wives, girlfriends, mothers, grandmothers, sisters and lovers. we represent half of the human race. Perhaps we should stigmatise any woman who plays golf with eew, a man…
The latest meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Golf Group took place on April 3rd and hosted an excellent panel discussion on the work being done to encourage more women and girls into golf. We heard from four speakers Jackie Davidson, the R&A’s Associate Director of Development, Lauren Spray, Women and Girls Manager at England Golf, Simon Elson from Sygenta, who carried out the 2012 research commissioned by the R&A into participation and Maria Stokes, Professor of musculoskeletal rehabilitation at the University of Southampton. The discussion focussed on how to foster a more inclusive culture in golf.
Jackie Davidson stated that women’s participation in the UK was now at only 16%, the lowest in Europe. In Germany, Austria and the Netherlands the figure was 30%. There was now an average of two girls per club. The R&A in its global role were looking at the situation in Australia where female participation has dropped from 34% to 20% and how this can be redressed. In Denmark clubs were being challenged with retaining female members. In other sports rugby was at 25% female participation in the UK.
Lauren Spray said that womens golf provided a huge potential revenue stream and they were supporting clubs with best practice. Last year 1600 girls took part in taster sessions in 22 counties providing a positive first experience. Barriers are that sometimes girls feel embarrassed to admit to their peers that they play golf, feeling comfortable in their bodies and the cost of equipment. Mentors, role models and deliberately marketing to females were important. Encouraging clubs to actively invite women in as quite a few had done around the time of International Womens Day.
She said that the offer isn’t right at club level. The environment isn’t necessarily inviting. It needs to be more like a coffee shop environment where anyone can just walk through the door without being challenged or being made to “account for themselves” why they are there which can be intimidating. Women often feel that they are not valued as a customer. The industry is competing for peoples’ leisure time and the offer needs to begin with a relaxed environment, a comfortable meeting place with an open door. The positive offer that golf has is that players of all ages and abilities can play together due to the handicap system. But the delivery needs to change with much more emphasis on health and fitness and social.
In a country a culture of diversity is translated into sport and Jackie Davidson said that people in the golf industry need to begin the uncomfortable process of “looking under the rocks” at attitudes which are holding women back from taking up the sport. There is a recurring theme that image was a barrier and this was at the root of the problem. As a culture inequality needs to be tackled because this would filter into sport. It had been proved that company boards which are diverse are more successful. In Norway 42% of board members are women and 34% in Germany. The current image of golf in the UK is male dominated, elitist, older and expensive. It needs to be accessible, social, open and family friendly.
Public perception needs to change about the sport that it should be available to all genders, socio-economic groups and to people with disabilities. Part of the problem the R&A recognises is the revenue model that club golf is based on. Clubs are nervous of change in case it makes them lose existing members who financially support the cost of running two huge capital assets – the course and the clubhouse. Volunteer committees, which can be transient often changing every two years, are often not diverse and not attracting people with the right skills. We need to also be brave and look at some of the attitudes which repel women and the huge potential income that they could bring in and work out what culture can be sustainable.
The R&A’s Women and Golf Charter which was launched in May 2018 has been useful as a call to action to keep the golf industry focussed on the problem of bringing in and retaining women and girls into the sport. To date 107 organisations had pledged their support and it helps to define what actions can be taken to accelerate change and inclusivity. The host club of the mixed Ayla Jordan Open has become the first club in the Middle East to pledge support as has Oman Golf.
Special mention was made of the work of Alastair Spink, who was present at the meeting see this below
His scheme is being rolled out to Sweden, Spain and Canada.
Mike Round, Chief Executive of the Golf Foundation was also present and spoke about their initiatives to being more girls into the game. They have a special format – Tri Golf- to be used with school children with safe, fun inclusive teams and girls making up 50% of the participants. The focus is on learning and life skills such as integrity and honesty. There are three levels – start, learn and stay – with the focus of retaining the youngsters within the sport. The Golf Sixes initiative had been successful with a league of five a side mixed teams which brought in 2,000 children in 100 leagues across the country, The Youth Sport Trust had also had good success bringing golf into the school games.
There was talk about how other formats such as Top Golf were successful at bringing young men and women into play golf because they provide a social, fun experience. A lady representative from the British Greenkeepers Association raised how women could work in the non -playing side of the golf industry. In particular STEM science and technology students had training and skills which would be valuable. Women could also do greenkeeping work if they overcame the nearly all male culture.
It is clear that some fundamental, cultural change needs to be fostered.A lot of clubs are still not welcoming or open, holding on to many out dated rules, scared of upsetting their existing membership market. Social media is, however, changing the landscape and this may be a big way forward in making golf seem more relatable.
Seven major champions are in the hunt for the 2019 Masters after yesterday’s first round. Amongst them is Tiger Woods at -2 who had the same first round score that he had each time he won his four green jackets, The winner of the last 13 Masters has come from the top 10 after the first round, a statistic which excludes Rory McIlroy who finished on +1 after a round of 73,
Leaders Brooks Koepka (right), who did not compete last year, had five birdies in six holes on the back nine while Bryson Dechambeau (left) had 4 straight birdies in a round of 66 -6. He started with 2 bogeys on the front nine but then rallied on the back with six birdies in the last seven holes nearly holing out on 16.
20 players are within four strokes of the lead. Mickelson finished strongly with 5 birdies in the last 7 including a rare birdie on 18. -5
Ian Poulter at -4 had five birdies and one bogey, joining Dustin Johnson in that score. Johnson has been working extensively on his putting which has looked less than sharp this season.
Jon Rahm nearly lost his temper and did toss a club in frustration after 2 bogeys in 4 holes taking a 6 on the par 5 8th after an errant drive. He recovered to birdie 9,11 and 13.
Adam Scott, Justin Harding, Kevin Kisner, Kiradech Aphibarnrat are all on -3.
Woods on -2 missed two or three short putts but looked focussed.
Rickie Fowler also in -2 had some good breaks and only one bogey. Jason Day had to call the physio on the 2nd hole to treat a back injury but responded with a birdie which he followed with ones on 8,13 and 16. Also on -2 are Francesco Molinari, Cameron Smith, Gary Woodland, Lucas Bjeregaard, JB Holmes and last week’s winner Corey Conners.
This time a picture of the runner up, Megham Maclaren, instead of the winner Daan Huizing, who of course must be congratulated. But what a huge step forward this is to have this remarkable event comprised of women from the LET, and men from the Challenge and Senior tour playing together.
Meghan said
Golf… it’ll get you. But there’s some pride in there too.. of myself, of women’s golf, of golf as a whole. Of everyone who made this happen. Thank you to all those who have supported me this week.. it’s overwhelming and means the world.
When Masters Chairman Fred Ridley announced the inaugural Augusta National Womens Amateur last year it caused a lot of excitement but nothing to what we felt during the final round on Saturday. What happened could not have been better. This celebration of the amateur, Bob Jones would have loved it, especially how the final round played out. 72 young women aged between 16 and 24 years from 23 countries began the tournament at Champions Retreat Club and after 36 holes the field was cut to 30. Every competitor then played a practice round at Augusta National and on Saturday the final round took place, with every member of the final 30 being featured on television.
The final round had a first class atmosphere, it was a unique moment in history. People in the gallery called out “we’re proud of you” “awesome” “you rock” the kind of things heard at professional events, but it was different, more meaningful. There seemed to be a huge, uplifting sense of pride. Support came from several PGA Tour pros, Bubba Watson stayed for over six hours watching, celebrity Niall Horan called it “a huge day in the game of golf” and the illustrious LPGA stars Annika Sorenstram, Nancy Lopez, Lorena Ochoa and Se Ri Pak were there to cheer everyone on.
What made the day so special was the two players pictured above, Jennifer Kupcho – left – from Wake Forest University, the number one amateur in the world, and the world number six, Maria Fassi, from Mexico who studies at Arkansas. It turned into a huge battle of match play at its finest when they left the rest of the field behind and fiercely competed against each other.
Maria had been given lots of advice by Angel Cabrera, the 2009 Masters Champion, a friend of her fathers. She took the lead on the front nine with her superior driving, she made every par 5 in 2 shots and made five aggressive birdies. By the 8th hole it looked as though Jennifer Kupcho was deflated, her body language was down. It was only after the round that we found out that she had had a migrane attack, which she was able to shake off.
Jennifer’s driving was very precise. She did not miss one fairway and put the ball into good positions taking the bunkers out of play and making some beautiful approach shots. Her swing has a lot of power generated from staying down in the swing, keeping an open hip position and a balanced spine. She has also been using a lower trajectory ball which spins less giving her much more control, while retaining a speed of around 107 mph.
The momentum began to swing away from Maria Fassi when she started leaking shots out to the right on the 11th and 12 th holes. On the par 5 13th she had an aggressive putt but didnt get the ball high enough, she played it with too much break. Jennifer Kupcho went to school on this and made a magnificent eagle putt.
Jennifer’s resilience began to show as she fought back as Maria Fassi missed more shots out to the right in 15, 16 and 17, possibly as a result of pressing too hard. Fassi showed lovely sportsmanship when Kupcho grittily fought back and by 16 they were tied. Kupcho made a birdie and Fassi missed, a 2 shot swing, Kupcho’s putting was brave and skilful, she put herself into good positions below the hole to putt uphill. A final, dramatic birdie on the 18th hole gave Jennifer Kupcho the title after a huge fightback. She was drowned in water sprayed on her from her Wake Forest team mates and she apologised to Annika Sorenstam for making her wet when she was offered an embrace.
There’s always big celebration at the end of the Solheim and Curtis Cups and after each major but I can honestly only think of one other time when there was this level of emotion at the finish, and that was when Annika Sorenstam finished her career at the British Open at Sunningdale, the noise was deafening. The noise was of a similar decibel here at Augusta, a deep-rooted joy of barriers being broken, of our gender moving forward.
There has been a lot of talk of this event being transformed into a womens professional one, perhaps replacing the major taking place at the same time. Perhaps, in time. But for now, in the spirit of Augusta National honouring the amateur, this could not have been played out better. It was a beautiful thing.
Canadian Corey Conners had a remarkable 2 shot victory over Charley Hoffman to claim his maiden victory on the PGA Tour and the final invitation to this week’s Masters Tournament.
Currently ranked 196th in the world his -6 under 66 had 10 birdies in a roller coaster round where 4 birdies on the front nine were followed by 4 consecutive bogeys. He recovered on the back nine with 6 birdies and 3 pars to win.
”It was an amazing day, a dream come true” he said as he secured his second invitation to The Masters, having competed in the 2015 tournament as an amateur.
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