Mixed greens could spice up state of play

HERE IS a prediction for 2006 — you will not see Jean Van de Velde, or any other man, compete in the Women’s British Open.

And here is another. You will not see Michelle Wie, or any other woman, line up alongside Tiger Woods when the Open championship returns to Hoylake near Liverpool after a gap of 39 years.

Van de Velde was simply making a point, a protest if you like, when he revealed last week that he wanted to play with the women.

While not wanting to make it personal at all, he does not like the fact that Wie has been given the chance to play with the men in golf's biggest event.

But even if the 16-year-old Hawaiian enters the Open regional qualifying pushed back two days to accommodate those crossing the Atlantic it would be the achievement of her life if she negotiated that and then 36 holes of final qualifying.

And the same applies to any other member of the fairer sex interested in giving it a go.

So does Van de Velde have a legitimate gripe? Or is he making an unnecessary fuss about something that will probably not affect him in his lifetime?

"This is an issue that needs resolving or it is going to get out of hand," said the Frenchman, forever to be remembered for his closing triple bogey seven when leading the 1999 Open by three.

"We could get 50 Michelle Wies entering our qualifying school, maybe 10 of them make it through to the finals and perhaps two get their cards.

"If it goes on this way, in 20 years you could have women playing in the Ryder Cup and I just don't think that was the original intention for those matches."

Yet if Van de Velde really feels the need to go down that road, was it originally intended for Spanish, German, Swedish, Italian, Danish of French men like him to play?

If he requires being reminded of what it was originally, it was a match between Britain and the United States, but for the good of the event, and at the suggestion of Jack Nicklaus, that became Europe in 1979.

Things change, in other words.

Should a woman become one of the 12 best players in the continent unlikely since Sorenstam is brilliant, but nobody would put much money on her keeping a card on the European Tour why shouldn't she play in the Ryder Cup?

And if one is good enough to make it into the Open or on to the European Tour, what is wrong with that as well?

Perhaps Van de Velde and those who sympathise with the view he expressed he said he had a lot of feedback at the Volvo Masters need to stop thinking about them being on the men's tour.

Much better for their peace of mind just to consider themselves playing in the equivalent of the Premiership and the women in a lower division. That way if any of them can prove themselves worthy of promotion, why stop them because they wear a skirt?

Such an exclusion would be as unfair as keeping Pádraig Harrington or Sergio Garcia off the American tour because they are not American.

Women competing against men full-time is a long way off generations probably, never possibly but is it not time for some sponsor somewhere to recognise the changing times in which we live and bring the two sexes together?

In this television age golf the most boring sport imaginable to some people is crying out for a makeover and perhaps needs to create more interest than it currently does.

Yes, there are exciting finishes to tournaments, and yes, events like the Ryder Cup and the Open can be gripping from first to last, but too many hours of the global coverage during the season are spent watching players trying to be as dull as possible.

Their faces hidden under visors, the object of the exercise is to hit the ball down the middle of the fairway, walk after it, hit it again onto the green, walk after it again and then hole a putt.

It would be much more fun to watch those who are having a terrible time, carving drives into woods, failing to make it across lakes, hitting into spectator stands or whatever. Remember Van de Velde at Carnoustie?

There must be some ways of freshening it up and maybe one idea can be taken from tennis, where in the four Grand Slams Wimbledon and the Australian, French and US Opens men and women compete for their own titles on the same stage at the same time.

Just for some novelty value that could be worth trying. And if not that, then a mixed pairs event along the lines of the Benson and Hedges Trophy, last played in 1991 and won then by Anders Forsbrand and Helen Alfredsson.

There could be benefits for both circuits, but especially the women's tour on this side of the Atlantic. Such was their lack of profile this year that do you even know who was their number one?