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Wednesday, 21 June 2006 04:06 |
 | | Roland Martin |
CHICAGO ?? For nearly 20 years I have been an addict.
When I walk by the green stuff, my heart starts to race, my eyes light up, and all that comes to mind is the last time I got my fix on with my 14 sticks.
Yep, I??m talking about golf (gotcha!).
Look, there is no way for me to explain the utter fascination that I have with the game of golf. When I finish one round I??m ready for another. Being able to crank a 300-yard drive down the fairway is sheer bliss, and sinking a hard-to-come-by birdie will leave you smiling like a little kid.
Yet what makes the game so unique is that regardless of age, gender, sexual preference or economic status, we are all one. As a man, I may be able to drive the ball farther than a woman, but if I score a five on a hole and she finishes with a four, I??ve lost the hole. Simple as that.
That??s why I??m not one of these people who believe that Michelle Wie should stay in her place and not try gunning for the PGA Tour and a chance to play in their sandboxes ?? the men??s U.S. Open, the Master??s or the men??s British Open.
Golf is so amazing is that all that matters is whether you can tee the ball up and beat the field. I would need to use the U.S. Golf Association handicap system to beat Tiger Woods (Hey, Tiger, give me a call to play a round). But on the pro tour, it??s mano a mano, er, womano a mano.
But for some reason Wie has her detractors, who maintain that the 16-year-old with the envious silky golf swing has no business playing with men. ?®Go back to the women??s golf tour where you belong,?∆ they say.
Who can forget when Vijay Singh made an ass out of himself by complaining about Annika Sorenstam being allowed to compete in the 2003 Bank of America Colonial in Fort Worth, Texas. Apparently, some players are still upset with their decision to grant a sponsor??s exemption that some are refusing to play the tournament. Spoiled brats.
Her quest to be the first woman to make a cut on the PGA Tour caused considerable excitement and was fun to watch.
And the same goes for Wie.
As I was exercising recently, she tried to qualify for the U.S. Open, every time ESPN broke in with an update, I stopped to check out what she was doing. As she played a grueling 36 holes, I would periodically check the leaderboard to see where she stood. This was history, but it was also an effort by a seriously talented young woman to challenge herself to the best of her abilities.
What these guys don??t understand is that what Wie is trying to do is push herself personally against the best of the best. If you are a female chemist, do you just want to be the best female chemist? Heck no. You want to go up against the top dog. The same in golf. Just being the best golfer in your age group is one thing. Beating the crap out of everyone is always the ultimate goal.
In fact, you don??t hear ANY pro golfers complaining about having to go up against high school or college players. If it??s a problem with a woman playing, why not keep the young guns out? The NBA and NFL discourage that from happening. That shows how sexist they are.
But these guys are regular guys. There are far too many jobs where men walk around with a chip on their shoulder thinking that their female boss is an idiot who only got the job because of her bedroom skills. They don??t give the woman the benefit of the doubt that her talent and hard work got her that VP job.
Men are not good at everything over women. There are many things a woman can do far better than a man. And vice versa.
The great thing about golf is that there is only one way to prove it: by playing the game.
Michelle Wie, keep your chin up and your standards even higher. Don??t let anyone try to measure your game based on a what another woman has done. Make them respect your game, and not your gender.
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Roland S. Martin, editor of The Chicago Defender newspaper, is author of ?®Speak, Brother! A Black Man??s View of America.?∆
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