Annika Shoots 71 in 1st Round at Colonial

Originally posted by Davros: LOL - trust me Ray - I wouldn't be talking of airballs and pushing myself this far out on a limb if you weren't "ABSOLUTELY CATEGORICALLY TOTALLY FLAMIN WRONG AND IN FACT NOWHERE EVEN IN THE RIGHT BALLPARK TO BE EXACT" . Atually MagiK - I have never been surer in my facts when I have crossed swords with you in debate. This topic is one that I have been following fairly closely for months. Davros hands ball back - I believe this is yours [img]smile.gif[/img] . Whatever...bask in your superiority, illusory though it is. I think my issue had been settled by another of our fine posters and I threw no air balls, as you call them. Had she not been playing off the same Tee's as the rest of the contestants it would have been unfair and made the whole contest bullshit, however she did play by the same rules in the tourney so, as my earlier statment said....I have no problem. Riddle me this huh - why are men never allowed to play in the LPGA - cos they are clearly physically dominant in this sport. How would that be a measure of equality of the sexes? Should we "men" feel threatened becuase the best woman in the world wants to test herself againt us on our rules and our terms - HALE NO (as my good mate JD would put it) 0 let hed find out for herslef what it's like and how she rates. Should the women feel threatened if physically advantaged people (I don't know - say us men) were allowed to compete in their events - HALE YES - that is hardly a move that produces equality - it produces inequality. You are showing a blind eye to men who cannot qualify for the PGA but still might qualify for the LPGA....why is it fair to exclude them from the LPGA where they may be able to compete? The only answer I can think of is, is that men do not deserve the same rights as women....if a woman can compete in the mens arena...she gains the right to do so...but if a man can compete with the women but not the men..he has no recourse...double standard....ahh well as long as YOU feel it is right and just there is no problem I guess. Your question answers itself really.

[ 05-24-2003, 11:49 AM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

Originally posted by Davros: Heck - we may even see a female member of Augusta National, or Royal St Georges by those times .

Can you help me to understand why it is so important for Augusta to have a Female "Member"? Are we then to say we need to do away with ALL clubs and organizations that segregate on the basis of sex? Shall all the YMCA's allow women and all YWCA's allow men? Boy and Girl Scouts be abolished replaced by just Scouts? What about locker rooms? Shall we say one room for all because we don't want any descrimination....where does the line lie?

Before you think IM being too sarcastict here, think a bit. Augusta is a privately owned club. They allow a particular event to USE their facility.
Why (as long as they don't dictate who can be in the event) do they then have to invite someone they do not want as a member into their private membership?

Where does a persons right to associate with other like minded people to the exclusion of other like minded people end? Does it exist at all? Are we all to be forced to associate with people that we do not want to? By what moral imperitive is it evil for people to form clubs of any kind with exclusive memberships?

Originally posted by Davros: Displaying tact Mr Butterknife - that's not something I am used to - age seems to be mellowing you [img]smile.gif[/img] . I think this was unnecessarily direct and personal of you Davros, you don't like his view fine, but why make your response personal? No, she didn't make the cut, but she made a good fist of it. I think that she played golf that she would be proud of, and been disappointed about her putting performance. I agree, she did well the first round, and she supposedly had a great short game. As someone else said on the second round she had a problem and we all know what can happen when you have an off hole. Is everyone happy that she is out - well clearly some are (as the Scarlet Poignard seems to be) and some aren't, but in the end it really isn't about them anyway. It was about Annika testing herself against the men at their own game - I think she will be disappointed in not making the cut, but there were some real positives in the way she handled herself under intense media glare with the expectations of so many upon her. Not at all, I never had a problem with her playing in the PGA. My only objection would have been if she had preferential treatment. Malth. explained to us all, that my impression of her having a special tee was wrong, explained how it might have got me confused and informed me he had seen her tee off where the men had...thus ending my objection to her being there. In contrast lets look how you responded...you just criticised me for stating I hated seeing her play in the PGA if she had special treatment..but didn't bother to tell me you knew that she was using the same tee as the men...which if as you say, you were watching the whole issue closely...you should have been able to tell me she was clearly using the mens tee position. Which would have ended any objection I had. There is something I am wondering though Mr Blade and perhaps you can give me an insight. Golf is not what I would term an inexpensive sport. Now granted, some people play for money and riches, but I imagine that unless I misread you, you are not in fact a professional golfer. Most other people play for enjoyment or the challenge of bettering one's abilities. It's hard to imagine why someone would recreationally play such an expensive sport (green fees, Membership fees, golf clubs, shoes, new ball per round), and do so "all the time" if someone "HATES GOLF". On the contrary, golf doesnt have to be all that expensive. Alot of the expense has to do with where you are. In pensacola florida, I could and did rent clubs, pay the greens fees (no special shoes or clothing was required since this particluar course was not the snobbish sort) and had a great day of it for less than $40......I can spend almost as much taking my two kids to a movie. On the other hand...why someone would pay even $40 for something they hate...is a bit perplexing

Just thought of an excellent reason why someone who hates golf would play all the time....its called "Business". Thats how I got started playing (when I did). As a lot of people know...there is a LOT of business that gets done on the golf course in the course of 18 holes.

[mysticelt]

Putting aside the male/female issue for a moment, then, how does everyone feel about the ruling about the handicapped golfer who is allowed to use a cart on a non-cart course? Isn't that giving him an advantage similar to a forward tee?

[ 05-24-2003, 12:32 PM: Message edited by: mysticelt ]

I know it is going to get me tons o hate mail, but if you cannot compete under the same rules as everyone else..you don't belong in that tournament. Play in those tourneys that cater to those with special needs.

The whole idea behind sporting events are to (in theory) identify "The Best" at something, Superbowl? The best Football team, World Series? The best baseball team, America's Cup? The best yacht crew. PGA tourney? Best golfer. It is the reason the tournement exists....not to see how well we can water down the competition so that there is no difference between the winner and the looser.

Edit: If we are going to make special allowances for people, we might as well just quit keeping score so that no one wins and no one looses and everyone can say they competed....they already do this at many public schools in the US. No one has their self esteem endangered by loosing because they do not allow any one to win or loose.

[ 05-24-2003, 01:37 PM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

[Davros]

Originally posted by MagiK: You are showing a blind eye to men who cannot qualify for the PGA but still might qualify for the LPGA....why is it fair to exclude them from the LPGA where they may be able to compete? The only answer I can think of is, is that men do not deserve the same rights as women....if a woman can compete in the mens arena...she gains the right to do so...but if a man can compete with the women but not the men..he has no recourse...double standard....ahh well as long as YOU feel it is right and just there is no problem I guess.

[img]smile.gif[/img] Blind eye huh [img]smile.gif[/img] - well there are two of us here who think we have both eyes open, but surely that couldn't be right if we were in disagreement - could it [img]smile.gif[/img] .

I have made no bones about the fact that the two tours are split on gender grounds for perfectly valid strength reasons. Women cannot regularly hope to compete against the men on an equal footing because of it. You only have to note the manner in which the strongest men (Woods, Mickelson, Els, Singh et al)and the strongest women (Sorenstam, Webb) tend to dominate the respective tours. Sure they don't in all the time and the shorter hitters bob up here and there, but a good long player will average a lot mre success than a good short player. So answering your question (you must think this is a change for me [img]smile.gif[/img] ), it is not fair that men who aren't capable of qualifying for the PGA tour go play on the LPGA tour, because they maintain the gender strength bias. Being lesser male players does nothing to remove that bias - if they are not good enough for the PGA then there is the NIKE tour - if theya re old eneough then they can go onto the LEGENDS tour - the weaker ladies have none of these options I would hasten to point out (in the interest of fairness [img]smile.gif[/img] ).

How my support for "fairness" over "bias" leads you to the conclusion that I believe men do not deserve the same rights as women I am not quite sure - that is a fuzzy brand of logic at best. The rest of your post goes on to accuse of double standards et al and "As long as I feel it is right" - nothing to respond to here, because they are just emotive statements thrown in as if to suggest to the world that you had already proven your point, and could now take the time to drive it home.

Case dismissed.

[Davros]

Originally posted by MagiK: quote: Originally posted by Davros: Heck - we may even see a female member of Augusta National, or Royal St Georges by those times .

Can you help me to understand why it is so important for Augusta to have a Female "Member"? Are we then to say we need to do away with ALL clubs and organizations that segregate on the basis of sex? Shall all the YMCA's allow women and all YWCA's allow men? Boy and Girl Scouts be abolished replaced by just Scouts? What about locker rooms? Shall we say one room for all because we don't want any descrimination....where does the line lie?

Before you think IM being too sarcastict here, think a bit. Augusta is a privately owned club. They allow a particular event to USE their facility.
Why (as long as they don't dictate who can be in the event) do they then have to invite someone they do not want as a member into their private membership?

Where does a persons right to associate with other like minded people to the exclusion of other like minded people end? Does it exist at all? Are we all to be forced to associate with people that we do not want to? By what moral imperitive is it evil for people to form clubs of any kind with exclusive memberships? [/QUOTE]Nice to see someone so protective of male rights MagiK [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] - it is a cruel callous world we live in, and it lightens my heart to see a beacon of support against the issues that are grinding us menfolk down.

If you go back to the full post that you cut this excerpt from Ray, you will see that my statements weren't used as an attack to try and change those male bastions (I've been into the Royal St Georges clubhouse, and rest asusred, those of us posessing a penis are treated right royally [img]smile.gif[/img] ). They were used in an allegorical sense to relate two things (the female member issue at those instititions AND women golfers being able to stand toe to toe with the men and compete effectively day in day out) that could well happen in the future, but are unlikely to happen in any short time frame.

My post never in fact indicated my support or otherwise for the changing of these institutions. In fact my belief is that these organistions should change if they wish too, but have the right to remain as they are if they so choose.

[Davros]

Originally posted by MagiK: On the other hand...why someone would pay even $40 for something they hate...is a bit perplexing

See - even you struggled with it in the end [img]smile.gif[/img] . I think my query was along the lines of why would someone pay that much "all the time" Ray. It sure gets expensive to do that "all the time" - especially if you HATE it.

Having said that, I applaud Crimson Blade's follow up past where he better explained his position. As for any unnecessary directness - I think that while you would like to score points at my expense Ray (whoops - airball), if there are any issues that is a matter between CB and myself. His follow up post didn't suggest it, but if there are I am sure he would PM me about it. It just so happens to be my normal response that if someone pops up and shouts vehemently "I HATE ....." I usually say something along the lines of "No, tell me how you really feel" [img]smile.gif[/img] .

[Davros]

Originally posted by mysticelt: Putting aside the male/female issue for a moment, then, how does everyone feel about the ruling about the handicapped golfer who is allowed to use a cart on a non-cart course? Isn't that giving him an advantage similar to a forward tee?

Hello Mysticelt [img]smile.gif[/img] .

Always a touchy one this issue, and I have a feet in both camps. While I like the traditional approach that it is a physical test as well as a skill test (ie all the other players are going to tire more by walking the course for 4 days and tired players = bad shots at the end of the day), I am also dead set against barring someone from competing on the skill grounds of a medical disability that only limits their walking.

The advantage that Casey Martin is getting by using the cart is in terms of freshness at the end of the round. If a guys medical condition limits his walking AND taxes his strength during the round then I believe there is absolutely no competitive advantage (because they have rules proscribing his use of the cart to protect against other potential advantages - ie no roof even if it rains - a limit on driving forward to inspect the lay of the land etc). Is this as much advantage as a forward tee - no, I really don't think so - maybe a couple of feet per hole [img]smile.gif[/img] .

In the Casey Martin case "I feel" that he probably gets a minor advantage in freshness at the end of a round because his physical conditioning is good and I suspect his small amount of walking doesn't tire him out. "I would say this was about" 1/3 of a shot over a 4 round tournament on 75% of the field (not a third of a shot per round and no advantage over the fitter athletes). How do you compare stamina and mental toughness? My estimate is entirely subjective and is only "my estimate".

So the short answer is that I think he should be allowed to compete, even though I am not entirely happy about all aspects.