January 1 ------ TEEN golfer Rianne Malixi and her camp wasted no time in accepting the idea, first suggested by a sports site, of competing in the Philippine Open scheduled for January 2025.
Malixi’s father, Roy, has said his daughter is “very willing” to play in the Open now being revived as part of the Asian Tour after being abandoned by the National Golf Association of the Philippines (NGAP) for lack of funds in the past six years. Rianne herself appeared excited to participate, saying just hours after Inquirer Golf broached the idea: “That’s a good gift my country can give in my preparation for my upcoming LPGA and USGA major-exempt events and other elite amateur tournaments.”
Indeed, competing at the highest level is normally deemed beneficial, especially for Rianne whose current trajectory shows signs that she may be the country’s best hope for a global force in women’s golf. At 17, she rocked women’s amateur golf in 2024 by winning the US Women’s Amateur Open and US Girls’ Junior, a feat achieved by only one other player, not a Filipina, in USGA history. Organizers of the Philippine Open cannot be begrudged their enthusiasm. Rianne, being the country’s most accomplished amateur golfer, has the gravitas to secure an invite and perhaps even give the NGAP good press. But this is not a step in the right direction.
If the NGAP is tickled by the prospect of a woman playing in the Open, Rianne, to my mind, is just not the right person. If anyone has to be sent, I will go out on a limb here and name Yuka Saso and Bianca Pagdanganan, two golfers already molded by tough and demanding competition abroad, as the persons to send. Not to belittle Rianne’s accomplishments, or her talents, but I doubt she would make a dent in the competition that will require her to play from the men’s tees. What’s likely to happen, should she get to play, is that Rianne will become simply a distraction whom golf fans will egg on and then be disappointed with when she fails to deliver.
True, she is not expected to win; true again that making the cut is the first and real objective. But this alone is a huge mountain to climb. Why? Well, we only have our recent past history to look at. And this one tells us that in no instance have women golfers — pro or amateur, here or abroad — ever made the cut when competing in a men’s professional golf tournament. Locally, we can look at the disaster that the RPGA wrought in 2004 when two amateurs— Ria Quiazon and Heidi Chua — were allowed to play in the Philippine Open. Though both were accomplished amateurs, having won medals in the Southeast Asian Games and Asian Games, both finished dead last or close to dead last after two rounds.
Even legends of women’s golf from other countries did not stand a chance when they got the opportunity. Michelle Wie famously bombed out when she played in eight events in the PGA Tour. In one, she actually withdrew. And this is Wie, a female golfer who terrorized the amateur ranks with drives approaching 300 yards! Then there was Annika Sorenstam, a global superstar who ruled women’s pro golf for more than a decade. In 2003 she tried to pit talents with male pros at The Colonial. After two rounds she was 2-over and missed the cut. After this, she proclaimed that she did not have it in her to compete with men golfers.
Twenty years later, in 2023, Lexi Thompson, winner of 11 LPGA Tour events, also teed off with the men at the Shriners Children’s Open in Las Vegas. She suffered the same fate as Wie and Sorenstam. I take liberties by mentioning Rianne in the same breath as Wie and Sorenstam and Thompson. These are three professionals who are practically icons in women’s golf. It’s a stretch to speak of Malixi’s journey as coming close to theirs. However, one thing going for Malixi is that the Asian Tour is not the PGA Tour. That may be a plus for Rianne who will be going up against less formidable rivals.
But all of today’s professional men’s golf tours are sometimes separated only by the millions on offer as prizes. A good four days of an Asian Tour player can match up with the best efforts of PGA Tour pros. For her part, Rianne is looking at the Open at Manila Southwoods as a chance to pick up new tricks here and there, not to mention creating a good buzz around her should she beat one or two pros. But this still does not justify her entry into what’s expected to be a very tough tournament, an entry that can at the same time deny a deserving male pro from participating who has a chance at winning.
Learning new tricks is a good agenda as it goes. But it may make for a smarter agenda to try her skills first against the pros in our own men’s professional circuit, and then go from there. To bring Maliksi into a field of pro men golfers from around the world, for the purpose of gaining publicity and social media mileage, is the worst kind of promotion for the coming Open, an event that needs to be taken seriously and given respect by all parties. Getting women to play in men’s professional events might have inspired interest in the past, but has become an outdated move after the notoriously weak showing of women professionals. If Malixi eventually plays and fails grandly, the NGAP and the country can become the laughing stock of the international golfing community that knows when something is more gimmickry than genuine play.
Source: spin.ph
Комментарии