ASHLEIGH BUHAI column
TWO INTO
ONE
In her latest column, South Africa’s most recent Major champion argues that playing men’s and women’s tournaments at the same time would excite the fans
I was very interested in Caitlyn Macnab’s performance when she won the Waterfall City Tournament of Champions on Royal Johannesburg’s East course last month – for several reasons.
In my first column for The Golf Mag in March I wrote that Caitlyn had turned professional at exactly the right time in her life and career. Naturally, I’ve been keeping tabs on her progress, and that victory – beating men in a mixed field of Sunshine Tour and Sunshine Ladies Tour winners – invites a broader conversation about how to move the game forward.
I love the idea of men and women competing at the same venue, the same week but still playing in their separate tournaments. I experienced something similar when I won back-to-back Australian Opens in 2022 and 2023, where the men’s and women’s events were contested together. Men and women played in separate groups and the atmosphere was electric. The crowds loved it, and we women benefited from the extra energy and attention. (Image from 2022 Australian Open victory shows, from left, All Abilities winner Lachlan Wood, men's champion, Joaquin Niemann, and Ashleigh as the women's champion).
From the players’ perspective, it was great fun. The men argued the setup made scoring easier but in 2022 I won at 12-under while Adrian Meronk won the men’s event, by five shots, at 14-under which shows pretty comparable scoring.
The reality is that scheduling with two different tours and field size are major hurdles. If you want to keep it at full field for men and women you need two courses. Or you would have to reduce the field to 72 men and 72 women for it to be held at one course which would leave many players unhappy to miss out, so the reality is complicated. After trialling fully inclusive Australian Opens from 2022-2024, Golf Australia decided to stop. They listened to players and stakeholders and concluded the negatives outweigh the positives.
Those events did make me wonder whether South Africa could lead the way with a similar format. Investec sponsors both the men’s and women’s Opens, which are only a month apart. This year the men’s SA Open was in Stellenbosch while the ABSA Ladies Invitational was in Johannesburg.
I’m not trying to stir up a hornet’s nest – just suggesting a starting point. Why not sit around a table and explore it? Try mixing men and women in the same event as an experiment. There is an annual mixed-team Grant Thornton Invitational in the USA, but imagine a sanctioned ‘two-in-one’ individual tournament if we could find space on the calendar.
Even when women play from the forward tees we don’t always reach the same areas men do from the back tees, so course setup would need to be thought through, but from a spectator’s perspective, mixed fields could offer a wonderful viewing experience.
about the author
British Open winner
Ashleigh Buhai has
teamed up with
The Golf Mag as a
columnist where she
will take you into her world as an elite professional golfer. Be sure not to miss what one of South Africa's greats has to say.
AUSTRALIAN OPEN | FACEBOOK.COM
