Jan & Carolyn continue to gather names for Match Play. Signup deadline May 24.
Matches begin June 1.
If you would like to sign up please contact
Jan Atkinson Hall for 4ball Match Play.
[email protected].
And or Carolyn Smith for singles Match Play.
[email protected]
Until then for your amusement , as if we didn’t know already men & women are different, especially in their choice of golf ball colour. According to an article from the Wall Street Journal, more women tend to choose coloured golf balls than men, with Bubba Watson being an exception. He used a pink ball in the 2017 Masters, and now favours yellow balls in competition. If you are interested in reading more, I’ve attached the article “Gender Gap on the Golf Course”.
Your Ladies Vice Captain, Karen Franklin, and I look forward to seeing you soon. Please feel free to reach out to us if you have any thoughts or concerns.
Susan Quigley
[email protected]
Karen Franklin
[email protected]
Gender Gap on the Golf Course
Colored balls improve play, but male players are slow to shift from the traditional white.
By Peter Funt, Wall Street Journal. April 14, 2021
Pebble Beach, Calif.
One of the great mysteries in amateur sports is being probed again this spring: Why do so many women use colored golf balls, while most men continue to reject them?
Scientifically there is little doubt that nonwhite balls, particularly yellow ones, are easier to track in flight and easier to spot in the rough, which speeds play. Yet resistance remains among many male golfers, who persist in associating colored balls with high handicaps—and with women. Female golfers have long accepted balls in a variety of hues.
More than color separates men’s and women’s golf balls. Compression differs, as do spin rates and even the number of dimples. But the only effect a ball’s color has on any player’s performance is mental.Manufacturers target women with a dazzling array of colored golf balls, such as Srixon’s Soft Feel Lady ball in “passion pink.” For men, the change from white is slow, but Titleist, Callaway and TaylorMade have added yellow versions to their most expensive, tour-quality golf balls.
At Whispering Pines Golf Club north of Houston, the pro shop tells me that less than 10% of men purchase colored balls, while nearly 60% of women do.
Katherine Marren, head professional at Quail Golf Course in Carmel, Calif., emailed: “I love the new colors and when they make better-performing balls in more colors, I predict more colors on the LPGA Tour.”
Tennis woke up to the virtue of yellow balls half a century ago. The International Tennis Federation required yellow balls, instead of white or black ones, in 1972, in part because they photographed better on color television. Wimbledon waited until 1986 to go yellow, but then the changeover was complete.
In 1982, Wayne Levi became the first golfer to win a PGA Tour event with a nonwhite ball. Mr. Levi’s ball was orange, the same hue used later that year by Jerry Pate in winning the Players Championship.
You’d think that would have ended the male bias against colored balls, but it didn’t. Virtually all pros stuck with white, as did amateurs. Bubba Watson, one of the more charismatic long hitters on the PGA Tour, surprised fans and fellow players in 2017 by using a pink ball in the Masters. Mr. Watson has since favored yellow balls in competition, and has gradually influenced other players to do the same.
As more companies manufacture high-quality yellow golf balls, more PGA players will be offered cash enticements to use them. As they do, more male amateurs will take note—which is, after all, the purpose of the payments.
My highly unscientific research on this matter involves walks with my dog, Abigail, at Poppy Hills golf course in Pebble Beach. We used to find one yellow ball for every 10 white ones. Last year the proportion of yellow balls doubled, and so far this spring it’s tripled. Abbie seems not to care about the color of the balls. Soon, male golfers won’t care either, although it is tough to teach them new tricks.
Mr. Funt is a writer and host of “Candid Camera.”