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Colonial attitude Men should respect Annika Sorenstam's desire to competePosted: Monday May 19, 2003 1:05 PM
Nothing gets a male athlete's knickers in a twist faster than the prospect of serious competition from a woman. For evidence of that, we need look no further than golfer Vijay Singh, who reacted last week to Annika Sorenstam's intention to play in the Colonial Invitational, a PGA Tour event, as though it was a threat to our very republic. In an apparent bid to get Spanky and Alfalfa to vote him in as president of the He-Man Woman Hater's Club, Singh spoke out against Sorenstam's plans to become the first woman in 58 years to compete on the PGA Tour, telling The Associated Press that "[Sorenstam] doesn't belong out here," and that he would refuse to play if he were paired with her. "This is a man's tour," he went on to say. "There are guys out there trying to make a living. It's not a ladies' tour." Perhaps realizing he sounded like a Neanderthal, Singh later tried to soften his comments before finally withdrawing from this weekend's Colonial because, he said, he had promised his wife that if he won the Byron Nelson Championship, which he did on Sunday, he would take the week off. Although Singh insisted his withdrawal had nothing to do with the controversy, it's likely that he decided he didn't want to face the media's questions about Sorenstam, or Sorenstam herself. Calling for the exclusion of one woman and then hiding behind the skirt of another -- you've done our gender proud, Vijay. Thanks, man. But Singh is not the only man who gets huffy when women try to compete on equal footing with men. We've heard John McEnroe insist that any of the top 100 male tennis players could beat Venus and Serena Williams, lest the Williams sisters get any crazy ideas. Most male NBA fans consider it their duty to scoff at the WNBA and declare it unwatchable. Men -- not all, but enough to make noise -- get so predictably defensive at the prospect of women entering their playing fields that you have to wonder whether the ladies do it partly to get a rise out of us. It's not hard to envision Sorenstam saying to a girlfriend, "Watch this. Let's see how many pompous male windbags put their foot in their mouths when they hear I'm playing a PGA event." Attitudes like the one demonstrated by Singh -- who is not the only male golfer opposed to Sorenstam's entry, just the most vocal -- are especially unfortunate because you would expect athletes, even more than the rest of us, to welcome all comers. Sports are the closest thing we have to a meritocracy in America -- if you're good enough, you will succeed; and if you're not, you will be pushed out by someone who is. Athletes talk all the time about seeking and accepting challenges, about wanting to play and measure themselves against the best in their sport. It shouldn't be hard for them to understand that that's exactly what Sorenstam is doing. The male golfers in the tournament should applaud her for that -- and then go out and try to beat her, just as they would another man. The men who finish behind Sorenstam in the Colonial -- and some of them surely will -- may be surprised to find that they won't have to immediately retire in disgrace. This isn't the third-grade playground; the public isn't going to point at them and chant, "You got beaten by a girrrl." The men should be intrigued, not threatened by this experiment. But maybe the only argument that has a chance to change their stance is this: Putting up a "No Girls Allowed" sign just isn't very manly. Sports Illustrated senior writer Phil Taylor writes about a Hot Button topic every Monday on SI.com.
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