Yani Interested In Playing With The Men

From an unbylined report, reporting on her comments Saturday:

“If an opportunity presents itself, I would like to play in a PGA tournament to learn more from male golfers,” the Taiwanese star said after the second round of the Suzhou Taihu Ladies Open in China.

Some golf pundits have recently suggested that Tseng, after having “a season for the ages in 2011,” take her immense talent to the PGA Tour.

Comments

[Del the Funk]

"The event, the largest women's golf tourney to be held in China in 2011, drew a crowd of 1,600 spectators on the final day."

Greg says China is where the action is at, Jack says it ain't.

I'm with Jack.

[Grant]

Europe wants China to fix their financial problems. Golf wants China to fix it. But China is a long way from being the answer, notably at the corporate level.

[Marky Mark]

A crowd of 1,600 is understandable. In China, a ticket to watch a golf tournament probably costs 200 RMB plus a possible trip to a "re-education camp" for enjoying a bourgeoisie pastime.

[Del the Funk]

Good point MM. I've not been there.

[Moi]

Yani is bored of winning so often and needs to find new goals. I think she would do it quite well if she played with men in a short golf course.....as did Sorenstam or Wie some time ago.

[Elaine]

I don't think she's the least bit interested in that, no sirree Bob.

[metro18]

@Marky Mark. "A crowd of 1,600 is understandable. In China, a ticket to watch a golf tournament probably costs 200 RMB plus a possible trip to a "re-education camp" for enjoying a bourgeoisie pastime."

Total, absolute rubbish.

[KCMG]

Not quite total rubbish. 200 RMB will get you into the pro-am this week, 500 to the weekdays, 1000 and 2000 respectively for Saturday and Sunday. That tends to keep the masses away. China is developing economically with stunning rapidity but it is starting from a long way back, and there are still not that many people with the means to have taken up this previously unknown pastime -- it's not as if they were all sitting home watching golf on TV until they started building courses there (or signing them, if you're Norman).

[metro18]

KCMG. Have you ever been to Mission Hills in Shenzhen? 12 courses there and they are booked out weeks ahead. Mission Hills has been around for almost 10 years. The amount of people who can afford to play and do in China, is growing rapidly and given the size of the population, that is a lot of new golfers.

[Press Agent]

It's not that hard to go to China for a little vacation and to do a little sight-seeing. I suggest some of the experts here take a little trip and inform themselves. Might come in useful to learn a little about the people who own America.

[Dexter]

Redo the bilaws, and just say no.

[AK47]

What would she gain with an M/C in a PGA Tour event?

[elf]

If Yani made the cut (or was close to it) in a men's event than would she get credit/respct? Golf magazine just named Rory golfer of the year. Seriously? Yani had 11 wins! and 2 majors!

[gov. lepetomane]

I enjoy watching the LPGA. Their competitors are fine golfers. But the gap in skill between the best of the LPGA and the bottom of the PGA Tour is immense. They score numerically comparable with the males on courses much easier. Even disregarding the course length discrepancy, the course set-up on most PGA Tour events is far more diffiuclt than anything the female pros encounter. Think of it. There are no LPGA events where the greens are similar to Augusta National in April or the (Mens') US Open. Therefore, how could they compete with their male counterparts on such greens?
The LPGA could present a tournament or championship with high, thick penal rough and slick undulating greeens and a course length in the 6,000 yard range. But the scores would likely be so high that the viewership would not wish to watch. (Then again, similar to the Men's US Open, schadenfreude might force some of us to remain glued to the debacle.)
An LPGA Tour golfer could learn more from the male pros (and suffer less embarrassment) by caddying for a male pro than by playing in one of their events.

[fourputter]

I think the gov. above is correct. The ladies' British Open was played at Carnoustie last year and the players did well, but the course setup was really easy (compared to a men's event, and bore no relationship to the Open setup). I too thoroughly enjoy the LPGA golf, and think the players are terrific, especially the short games, but the physical differences alone make it impossible for the women to compete against their male counterparts on the standard elite male tour courses.

[AK47]

The 125 player on the PGA Tour would smoke Yani Tseng at a PGA Tour event. The intriguing prospect to me is Lexi. She grew up with brothers who were good and measured herself against them (and beat them a few times). She's got that Michelle Wie factor, or what Wie used to be, before Leadpoisoning and her parents combined to destroy her.

[Moi]

Lexi already won a tournament against men, playing the course at 94 % of men's lenght. It was in a Moonlight mini-tour Champ. She tried at NGA-Hooters Tour and failed to make the cut.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/sports-golf/2011/02/22/alexis-thompson-beats-guys-in-south-florida-minitour-stop/

I don't think she could make the cut at PGA Tour

[Marky Mark]

Oh metro18

First, you were a little gullible on my re-eductaion camp quip.

Second, I have played a number of times up at Mission Hills in Shenzhen. I have never played with a citizen of the PRC there. 90% of the time it is with Taiwanese businessmen who have factories in Guangdong and take out membership at Mission Hills since they live in the area for months out of the year. Other than that, occasionally I get paired with members up from Hong Kong. You see some PRC commie pinkos on the course, but they are a distinct minority. Despite the already massive population around the three Mission Hills properties in Shenzhen, the locals just don't play.

Even the Shenzhen Golf Club, which is much closer to the center of SZ is packed full of Taiwanese and South Korea members, and not many PRC members.

Third, the courses are not fully booked months in advance. On a number of occasions, I have played 36 at Mission Hills, being able to walk on to one of the other courses after I finished my first round.

[Keith86]

If only 1.5 % of china played golf once a year that's a hell of a lot of golfers.

[Mike Wang]

Nobody suggested that Williams sisters should play against male tennis players. Why should Yani Tseng have to ?
Personally I am happy to see Yani play a PGA game, but I hate to see racial or gender attitude in that game.
Yani Tseng deserves more respect from American media and golf fans.

Read more: http://blogs.golf.com/presstent/2011/11/truth-rumors-yani-interested-in-pga-tour-event.html#ixzz1cVm2dBHl

[Mike Wang]

If you do not stay in China for some time longer than a month
Please do not judge anything about China.
We Chinese say a narrow-minded man is just like a frog in the bottom of a well to see the world through that little hole.
Terribly, many Americans are those frogs in the bottom of a well nagging stupid ideas of China and Chinese people.

[KCMG]

Metro18: I have not been to Mission Hills though I know Shenzen very well. I was trying to suggest that there is a lot of new money in China and I know there are recent millionaires who have taken up golf.

But there are still more millions who have not made it yet. I don't think that very many of them are putting their modest disposable income into watching unknown foreigners do something weird outside all afternoon. But it will come in time.

As for Yani -- now that the has expressed interest, it is possible that some event will invite her. It does not seem to have advanced the careers of other women who have tried it. She may, like Annika, think she has little if anything to lose by the effort (though that seems a little premature in her case). If she just wants "the experience," what the heck. She has more right to it than Michelle Wie ever did, and even she showed well at least once. But size matters, and the arguments regarding course set-ups and relative strength are pretty persuasive,

[metro18]

KCMG. Agreed on all counts.

If Yani does do it, then I'm sure it will be a one off and a short track such as Colonial - much in the same way as Annika.
Yanni is a smart girl and knows her limitations and as you say, she certainly has the right to give it a one time shot.

[metro18]

@ Mike Wang. Very well said.

[Daryl Stewart]

I would love to see Yani Tseng play some PGA Tournaments. She won 11 tournament in 2011 and the year is still not over. Yani is still trying to make a name for herself in the US, something she wants to do.

[Moi]

@Mike, I don't think anybody here don't respect Yani. I'm pretty sure we all think she's the POY if we look at both (men and women) circuits. Maybe you're mixing up respect with realism and they are not the same.
Regarding China, I absolutely agree with you.

[Marky Mark]

@Moi - Wang is a Communist China apologist. Yani Tseng is a citizen of a different country, Taiwan. Mr. Wang is defending Mainland China in general and not Tseng. When some of the Party apparatchiks who were trying to builld the PRC's Olympic golf team tried to induce Tseng to become a PRC citizen with an offer of $25 mil, a private plane and real estate, Tseng told them to stuff it. So I don't think there is much of a Yani fanbase in Mainland China.

And Wang is right about Communist China, after about a month living there, one really gets to see enough stunning examples of uncivilized rudeness and unabashed racism that it is easier to make a judgement :-)

Then, after that month, visit Taiwan. The rule of law, freedom of the press, preserved and authentic Chinese culture, common courtesies, and the lack of political paranoia will be a very very welcome change.

[fatgoalie]

I would like to see Yani QUALIFY for a men's event.
I've watched her practice at Oak Valley, and it is impressive.
Maybe she could try US Open qualifying rather than be handed a sideshow exemption.

[Moi]

@Marky,I've travelled a lot in my life (Nepal, Vietnam, Maldives, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbawe, Peru, Colombia, among others) and I've learned a lot about, as we say in my country, "not putting everybody at the same bag". I've found very nice people and big SOAB in every country. I don't agree with comunism but I also don't think that every chinese person is a comunist (probably, there are less comunists in China than we think). That's why I tend to individualise and not to judge everybody because of what their governments do. We all are a little chauvinist with the ones that share our culture, and that's what I understand Mike is doing relating to Tseng.

[Marky Mark]

@Moi
Mike isn't relating to Tseng - he is defending Red China. I doubt he would have posted here without myself or other posters here bringing Mainland China into the discussion.
I have spent vast amounts of time in east Asia including the PRC - what Mike is doing is an automatic defense response that years of government propaganda has shoved into his head - that foreigners owe China a debt, that they don't know a thing about the PRC even if they have lived there, and that they no right to comment on the "internal affairs" of the PRC.
Yani Tseng has nothing to do with his comment.
I agree with you that we shouldn't generalized, but Mike has shown his hand and we know where he stands.