I played against the best, but never a man. Here’s why.
It is hard to believe we have been forced into this fight.
For 28 years, I played competitively on the Ladies Professional Golf Association Tour, and even though it took me seven long and frustrating seasons to win my first tournament — a time when I questioned myself more times than I can count — I went on to capture 34 titles, including six major championships. That career earned me a place in the World Golf Hall of Fame and the LPGA Hall of Fame, which is the most difficult hall in all of sports to enter.
Never in my wildest dreams did I believe I could compete against elite male athletes.
The LPGA has been around for 75 years, and we only have 35 members in our Hall of Fame due to the rigid entry criteria. In 2024, we added our most recent inductee, Lydia Ko. For context, Lydia has won 23 LPGA titles, three major championships, and three Olympic medals — and she just got in. It goes to show that the LPGA Hall of Fame is an elite club. I am humbled to be a part of it.
But I can promise you this: Even with the career I had, I would never have won a PGA Tour event — ever. It’s comical to think in those terms.
Women’s sports are for women
A few LPGA players have tried the Professional Golf Association Tour. Babe Didrikson Zaharias, an Olympic medalist in track and field and the original founder of the LPGA, played in one men’s event. So did Annika Sorenstam, who is one of the greatest players of all time with 72 LPGA Tour wins and 10 majors.
Michelle Wie West, who was a teenage phenom, played in the PGA Tour event near her home in Hawaii. And Brittany Lincicome and Lexi Thompson, both long hitters in the women’s game, accepted sponsor exemptions to play with the men. Not one of them made the 36-hole cut to play the weekend. The best in the history of women’s golf never made the top half of the field in a PGA Tour tournament.
On the flip side, if a struggling PGA Tour player had decided to declare himself a woman and play the LPGA Tour, that person would have shattered our record book.
Thankfully, late last year, professional golf did the right thing and instituted a gender policy that secures women’s golf for women.
Woke delusions
The fight is far from over. While President Trump signed an executive order to pull federal funding from any school or state that allows men — no matter how they identify — from competing in women’s sports, women are still being bullied, harassed, and cheated out of trophies they have worked their whole lives to attain.
Within the last few weeks, men identifying as women have won track and field and swimming championships, and a female fencer was sanctioned after she took a knee and conceded rather than compete against a biological male.
Whether it’s a transgender college volleyball player or the absurdity of two Olympic boxers who are biological men, it’s up to those of us with long, successful careers to stand up and say, “Enough!”
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I was so disheartened by my home state of Pennsylvania. During a floor debate on the Save Women’s Sports Act — a bill that would do nothing more than infuse common sense back onto the playing fields — Pennsylvania state Senator Lindsey Williams said, “I want all girls to know that there are elected officials like me who believe female bodies are just as strong and fast and capable as male bodies.”
That statement was so ridiculous, I spent half a day confirming that it wasn’t a parody.
But Williams wasn’t finished. She went on:
I want all girls to know there are elected officials like me who would never underestimate your ability to beat a boy at their own sport, because that’s what the premise of this bill assumes, that female bodies are less than male bodies, that girls are at an automatic disadvantage, and can't possibly compete against boys. Even though girls do it every day.
Biological reality
I attended Furman University in the mid-1970s, where I was a three-sport athlete. In the fall, I played field hockey. In the winter, I played basketball. In the spring, I played golf. During my senior year, I focused solely on golf. But never in my wildest dreams did I believe I could compete against male athletes in any of those disciplines.
Sure, I could beat most of the random guys on campus at golf. But at the elite college level, female bodies are obviously at a disadvantage over our trained male counterparts. It’s simple biology.
I have been inspired by the courage and leadership that women like Riley Gaines and former gymnast Jennifer Sey have shown on this issue. And the number of women speaking out is growing. From disc golf and cycling to weightlifting, women are finally ignoring the insincere calls for empathy. They are saying, “No, this is not right. This is not fair. Women’s sports must remain for women.”
It is my honor to place my name among those taking that stand. Many of us fought for places to compete when none existed. We cannot surrender our sports or our spaces. This moment and this mission are too important to sit on the sidelines.
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