Women in golf want to be supported
Professional female golf players want Tshwane mayor to prioritize on women golf.
Women golfers have expressed their dissatisfaction at the Tshwane metro’s lack of urgency in prioritising the game as a sport for women.
They penned an open letter to Msimanga responding to a question he had asked about why the metro needed to fund “vanity sports”.
Insert tweet:
An Open Letter to the City of Tshwane about Women’s Golf https://t.co/Q3clc4z0KQ
— Sally Little (@sallylittlegolf) August 23, 2016
“The mayor aims to rid the administrative capital of ‘vanity projects’ and review the metro’s organogram with a view to trim the fat. The Tshwane Open golf tournament which costs the metro R40 million to host, will be first on the chopping block,” said UniMedia Pro founding member and activist, Rayana Edwards.
“The debate on how money awarded to men’s golf, particularly in South Africa, has shown very little return for the metro’s involvement. And there is little to no transparency in the award of contracts to participating companies.”
Edwards said monies earned should have been directed to development of golf and particularly women’s golf.
“The stats show the disparity between men’s and women’s golf in SA as being chalk and cheese,” said Edwards.
“Male golfers’ total earnings are R32 775 000 for the year 2015 and 2016 and women’s R2 800 000. With that being said, men enjoy up to 22 sunshine tour events a year and women only nine. For women, this works out to about three months of competitive golf, and the rest of the year it is basically scrapping together to get to tournaments abroad or coaching to pay bills.”
Insert tweet:
The transformation of #golf both gender and race Tks to @unimediapro 's disruptive strategy is already transforming @rayana_edwards
— @VanessaPerumal (@vanessaperumal) June 24, 2016
Edwards said she had been battling to understand how the mayor would fail to respond to questions around the lack of support given to women in golf.
“Those questions range from: why is there a massive gap in earnings when tennis and other sports show very little discrimination in earnings between men and women athletes? Is women’s golf not one of the priorities in Pretoria as well as in South Africa when globally it is like a tsunami hitting the golfing world?”
Edwards said it was strange that there was no live coverage on women’s golf.
“Is there no case for live broadcasting of women’s golf as is the case with the LPGA, and the Ladies European tour which features regularly on national and paid TV? Is there not enough talent on the SA women’s tour that will attract public viewing and support as what we just witnessed at the Olympics 2016?” she asked.
Edwards said UniMedia Pro and the governing body of the the Sunshine Tour, represented by executive director and manager of the team Selwyn Nathan, who had extensively engaged with UniMedia Pro to drive professional women’s golf to new plateaus and illustrate how the Sunshine Tour has been a catalyst to the growth of Professional Women’s golf since 2014.
“UniMedia Pro continues to engage with the governing body and shall release a joint statement of the true and fair status of professional woman golf in South Africa in due course,” said Edwards.
According to Edwards, the Tshwane Open is a period contractual agreement between the metro and the Sunshine Tour.
The mayor’s spokesperson was not reachable by time of going to press. Rekord also sent emails to the metro for comment but no response was received by time of publication.
Also read:
Tennis South Africa appoints much awaited CEO
Two South African teams to compete in the Netball Diamond Challenge
Do you have more information about the story? Please send us an email to editorial@rekord.co.za or phone us on 072 435 7717.
For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites:
For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram.
