Soapbox

All views expressed are those of the writer. If you would like to comment, please email me at girlsinsport@hotmail.com

April 2001 - Women's Golf and the Australian Media

I have, in various other forums, discussed my strong views (to put it politely) about the lack of media coverage the LPGA (Ladies Professional Golf Association) and Karrie Webb in particular, receive, especially from Australian print media. These strong views are fuelled every Monday when I read the Queensland Courier Mail's (Queensland's only newspaper) sport section and I am dismayed at the lack of coverage women's golf is given.

Australia has a small handful of successful women golfers - one really outstanding i.e. Karrie Webb, but a lot of other talent in more experienced players such as Jane Crafter, Rachel Teske, Allison Munt and Corinne Dbinah and less experienced players such as Nicole Lowien, Loraine Lambert, Kate MacIntosh, Shani Waugh and our amateurs, Carlie Butler, Rebecca Stevenson, Helen Beatty etc etc. In a country that is suppose to be the sporting nation of the world, these are very limited numbers…and I'm sure there are a few names amongst that list that may be foreign to some readers.

Again I will make my point about societal attitudes and what this has to do with women in sport. Young girls are not encouraged to view sport as a profession - not as much as boys are. Ask a bunch of school boys what they want to be when they grow up and they will probably say "I want to be a footballer/baseballer/basketballer" or worse still, "I want to be just like Tiger Woods/Shane Warne", (lets just hope they don't want to be like John Hopoata) or "I want to play cricket/soccer/football for my country " - ask a bunch of girls the same question and I'm sure you won't get "I want to be a professional golfer/tennis player", probably more likely to hear "I want to get married and have babies". And in this day and age of equal opportunity, how come this is still the case? Lack of support from the corporate world and the media.

One in three people who play sport are female however women's sport is not given a third of the amount of the media coverage. Recent studies done in Australia of female role models, teenaged girls were asked to nominate their favourite sporting idol. Surprising, 54% listed a male sportsperson, 33% listed a female sportsperson and 13% had no sporting idol at all.

Of those who did nominate a female athlete as their sporting idol, half listed Cathy Freeman (Australian 400m Olympic gold medallist). What this study shows is that when sportswomen receive high levels of media exposure, as Cathy has, they can become role models for young women to look up to and aspire to emulate.

Now we come to the point that has created the fuss in the first place - the Australian Golf Digest magazine. This woeful magazine featured Karrie Webb on the front cover of its March 2001 edition. The editorial admitted that Karrie had not been on the cover of the Australian Golf Digest since July 1996. Karrie is the number one female golfer in the world - two years running - has broken a number of scoring and money earning records, recently won the Australian Sports Personality of the year award - and in 5 years she has only been on the cover of a leading Australian golf magazine, TWICE!!!!!! I wonder how many times Tiger has been on the cover? I assure you it's more than twice.

Ok so I will come back to the Australian Golf Digest. Another example of poor media coverage of women's golf in Australia - In March 2001 Karrie won the ANZ Ladies Masters which was played in her home state of Queensland. Karrie won the event for the fourth time in a row, a feat only accomplished by four other players. Rachel Teske, also from Queensland, came second in the tournament. The Queensland newspaper - the Courier Mail - had a small article on Karrie's win on page 15 of the sports section whereas the Australian Grand Prix, which was held on the same weekend but in a different state, got front page of the newspaper, front page of the sports section plus at least two other pages within the sports section. Karrie's outstanding win was over-shadowed by the Australian Grand Prix - a sport that was not held in the local state, was not being contested by any Australian drivers, was not being contested by any Australian made vehicles and is a sport that most of us couldn't even dream of being involved in, but look how much media attention it received.

Back to the Australian Golf Digest. Considering the Australian Ladies Masters and the Women's Australian Open, the only two professional women's golf tournaments played in Australia, were both played in March, I for some reason, expected the Australian Golf Digest to run stories on either, if not both, of these events in their April edition. To me it seemed logical for an Australian golf magazine to report on Australian tournaments, both men and women's events equally. Obviously I'm too logical for the Australian Golf Digest because their April edition failed to report on either of these two women's tournaments.

Ok so am I picking on the Australian Golf Digest? Well, I guess I am because I have not compared it to any other Australian golf magazines, which there seems to be a plethora of - and I'm sure, suffer from the same delusion that every one of their readers wants to read about Tiger Woods and men's golf.

I will compare it though to the Australian Tennis Magazine.

When Jennifer Capriati (who is not Australian) won our national tennis tournament, the Australian Open, Capriati was featured on the front cover of the Australian Tennis Magazine. Well done Australian Tennis Mag!

When Sophie Gustafson (Sweden) won our national women's golf tournament, the Women's Australian Open, she did not get a mention in the Australian Golf Digest - perhaps her score was recorded somewhere in the bowels of the magazine. Similarly when Karrie Webb (Australia) won our only other professional women's golf tournament, the ANZ Ladies Masters, there was no blatantly obvious coverage in the Australian Golf Digest either.

The April edition of the Australian Tennis Magazine features Mark Philippoussis (Australia) on the cover. At least he's Australian but not a female…but I don't expect a female on every cover. The edition does include, however, a two page poster of Amelie Mauresmo (probably more well known for being an 'out' lesbian on the WTA (Women's Tennis Assoc) tour then her tennis talent), a one page poster of Serena Williams, a four page story on Mary Pierce (France) and a four page story on Nicole Pratt (Australia), not to mention numerous other photos and short news bites on other women and men tennis players.

The April edition of the Australian Golf Digest, admittedly I haven't bothered to purchase it because it has nothing in it that interests me, has Tiger Woods, once again, on the cover. There is also a story about Tiger's coach, a story about one of the up-coming young Australian male golfers (someone other than Aaron Baddley for a change) and a story on the upcoming US Masters (a PGA - men's - tournament) which I am sure they have predicted Tiger to win. I wonder if they will run the same amount of coverage on the US Women's Open, which Karrie won last year? I won't hold my breath.

Being a big fan of both tennis and golf, I was faced with the choice of which to buy, and I could have bought both, but I decided to buy the Australian Tennis Magazine over the Australian Golf Digest…and I will continue to do this until the Australian Golf Digest actually prints stories I, as a female golfer, am interested in.

Would it surprise you if I told you that the Australian Tennis Magazine's publisher, editor and associate editor are all females? Would you be surprise if I told you that these same positions at the Australian Golf Digest are all held by men?

So what is really the harm in not reporting on women's golf in an Australian golf magazine or newspaper? If you look at the current state of Australian golf, you may say that we must be doing something right and obviously the amount of media coverage, or lack of women's golf receives in the media, as the case maybe, isn't a contributing factor because our female golfers are achieving some outstanding results regardless and the popularity of the sport seems high - especially if you compare our achievements with players from America. Obviously we won't know what could be achieved in women's golf if it received the same amount of attention that the men's golf receives. Can we speculate, however, on the future of women's golf in Australia or any other country for that matter?

In 2001 no American female golfer has won a LPGA title thus far. The titles have been shared amongst golfers from Sweden, Canada, Scotland and Korea. America has enormous female golfing talent but so far Sweden (with three wins) and Korea (with two wins) have dominated the season. Why is this so? Sweden and Korea have very serious junior golf programs, which is obviously achieving results. Australia does have a program at the Australian Institute of Sport, which is where a lot of our amateurs are coming from.

But what about the future of Australian female golf and how can the media assist or hinder this future? Take for example the Australian female tennis team. Nicole Pratt is our highest-ranking female tennis player, ranked 66th. We thought we had a future Australian female tennis champ with Jelana Dokic (ranked 27th) but we all know what happened there.…Could this lack of dominance in a world sporting arena happen in Australian women's golf? Can we look past Karrie Webb and feel confident that we are doing enough to promote women's golf to young girls? How do we get young women/girls to get involved in sport? The answer, through media exposure.

Admittedly not every female golfer is going to be a Karrie Webb fan. That is why we should not only be showcasing the best of Australia's talents but the best the rest of the world has to offer to.

At the Australian Open this year, the last round when Karrie was playing Sophie Gustafson, I'm sure I must have been about the only one at the course who knew who Sophie was and what she had accomplished - voted European Players Player in 2000, won the British Open in 2000, #1 on the LET circuit, Solheim Cup Player etc....I think everyone else was thinking, who's this unknown from Sweden about to deny Karrie a chance to win the Open two years running.

Is it the fault of the Australian public to be so ignorant about what happens in the wider circle of golf outside of Karrie Webb? Why is it that everyone knows Tiger, Ernie, Jack etc, even though they are not Australians...and Greg Norman is always mentioned and how long has it been since he won a tournament? We also know about Agassi, Sampras, the Williams sisters, Hingis but they are not Australians. So why doesn't the Australian public know about Annika, Lori, Sophie, Se Ri, Dotti etc? Because they are not marketed by the newspapers, the tv news or the sports magazines because women's golf is not glamorous (like women's tennis) or wealthy (like men's golf)....and lets face it as I have already demonstrated, the media is run by men who write stories for men....these men don't want to read about some woman who can hit a golf ball further than they would ever dream of...but it's ok for Tiger to do it, that's classed as amazing, because he's one of them.

So here is a chance of the Australian golfing magazines to educate the Australian public that there is more to golf than Tiger Woods, Aaron Baddley and Greg Norman. We also have outstanding Swedish players who win our National tournament and break scoring records ie Annika Sorenstam who shot a 59 for 18 holes…a feat even Tiger has not achieved.

Let's face it, men are promoted in the media because of talent/skills/achievements, whereas women are still promoted according to their beauty/sexiness. And for a sport like women's golf, that has even less support because it is not seen as a glamour sport like tennis for instance, these problems are much more critical. It would be nice for women's golf (and all women's sports) to get more media coverage and for the sportswomen to be marketed for their sporting ability/talent/achievements. Don't we ultimately want our young girls to say "I want to be just like Karrie Webb"?