The success of the
LPGA Tour is too often judged by the wrong numbers.
Never mind that Karrie
Webb is soaring toward $1.5 million this year, or that a record 78 players
have earned more than $100,000. The nagging question is why the LPGA purses
pale in comparison to the men.
The LPGA sanctioned
38 events this year on four continents, but seems to make headlines only
when it loses a tournament.
So what that the 240
hours of television time is more than any other women's sport? Critics
want to know why more tournaments are not broadcast by the networks.
Maybe those critics
should spend more time with Patty Berg.
A winner of 15 major
championship and 57 tournaments, Berg measures success by the number that
matters the most: The LPGA Tour is about to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
``Fifty years! That's
marvelous,'' the 81-year-old Berg said from her home in Fort Myers, Fla.
``It just goes to show what happens when you work together and have a vision
that this was going to one of the best organizations -- and it is.
``Others may disagree,''
she said, alluding to tennis, basketball and now soccer. ``They have wonderful
organizations, too. But I happen to be talking about mine.''
Indeed, the LPGA Tour
belongs to Berg, Alice Bauer, Bettye Danoff, Marlene Hagge, Betty Jameson,
Marilynn Smith, Shirley Spork and Louise Suggs.
Of the 12 members
who chartered the LPGA Tour in 1950, those eight living founders will gather
in New York on Oct. 19 to help begin a year of celebration for the longest-running
women's sports association.
These are the women
who help LPGA Tour commissioner Ty Votaw appreciate how far women's golf
has come, and make him optimistic about the next half-century.
``I'm not sure I would
have had as much optimism that it would have lasted 50 years,'' Votaw said.
``At the time, society was not sending many signals that women could or
should be professional athletes in a touring sense.''
``What would have
tempered some of that pessimism were the people involved, and that indomitable
spirit they had in bringing the issue to a head,'' he said. ``We have 50
years of history, and a foundation on which to build. The LPGA Tour has
stood the test of time.''
It wasn't easy.
Consider the average
week of a touring pro. Most arrive at a tournament no later than Tuesday,
get in a practice round, play in a pro-am, give interviews to a half-dozen
reporters and cash a check at the end of the week that could be worth as
much as $100,000.
Jameson and her pals
also used to show up at tournaments a couple of days early, albeit for
a much different purpose.
``We had to set the
pins,'' said Jameson, 80, who lives in Delray Beach, Fla. ``Someone else
marked the course. We did all the running of the tournament.''
On Sunday night, they
stayed late to compile the scores and send them off to Western Union. They
were more than just performers. They were press agents, tournament organizers,
rules officials. Berg recalled one tournament in which a player -- head
of the rules committee that year -- had to stop playing in the middle of
her round to make a ruling.
``They had to do this
on their own,'' Votaw said. ``I would equate it to trying to dunk a basketball
from the standing position. And they reached pretty high.''
The inaugural LPGA
season featured nine tournaments with a total purse of $50,000. The LPGA
Tour had 43 tournaments on the schedule, including off-season events, worth
more than $36 million in prize money.
Television was only
a baby in 1950, televised golf not even a consideration. Now, a week rarely
goes by that Berg isn't glued to her set watching players from all over
the world playing a tour that she helped start.
``The publicity is
terrific,'' she said.
Thanks to founders
like Berg, Jameson, Suggs and Zaharias, women with a love for the game
have a tour they can call their own. Thanks to Hall of Famers such as Mickey
Wright, Betsy Rawls and Kathy Whitworth, they have a standard for excellence.
``We've come a long
way,'' Jameson said. ``I'm glad I could be part of the history. I wouldn't
exchange that for anything.''
It's time to put away
the yardsticks and break out the party favors. It's time to stop the incessant,
unfair comparisons to the PGA Tour and begin to measure the LPGA Tour on
its own merits.
By that standard,
the LPGA has been an enormous success.
