This weekend, the USA’s best professional women golfers defeated their European counterparts in the Solheim Cup played in Des Moines, Iowa. Though the Americans led for the entire weekend, this particular event was a refreshing change from a normal (and, sadly, boring) average professional women’s or men’s golf tour stop.
On the first tee, thousands of rowdy Iowans whooped it up and cheered for both teams – just twice as loud for Captain Juli Inkster’s American team. It was encouraging to see the ladies welcome the cheering and noise from the fans. The spirit of the event was right up there with the men’s Ryder Cup.
For their part, the European women’s team, captained by Annika Sorenstam, played some solid golf, but the American team found ways come up with timely birdies and clutch par putts to grab the Solheim Cup by a final 16.5-11.5 tally. In Sunday’s final matches, Team USA’s Lexi Thompson rallied on the final nine to shoot an incredible eight under par as she rallied to salvage the most thrilling half-point seen in years.
Over 100,000 fans attended the three-day event in middle America. The crowd dressed and acted the part as thousands of red, white, and true blue American fans made plenty of noise, while the blue and yellow-clad Euros had plenty of their supporters, too.
Women’s golf, like their male counterparts, has seen a continued erosion in interest – both from network television coverage and with major sponsors. Saturday’s round started on Golf Channel, made a token 2-hour cameo appearance on NBC during the afternoon, and then reverted back to Golf Channel for the final few hours of coverage. It reminded me of how the NBA used to tape-delay broadcasts of playoff games during the 1970’s and aired them after the 10PM local news, because ratings were so low that the networks didn’t want to lose viewers during basketball coverage. For NBC’s part, they ended one of women golf’s premier events on a Saturday afternoon to join a NASCAR auto racing event in Bristol, Tennessee. Yeah, it’s that bad for the ladies these days.
Taking a page from Rodney Daingerfield, America’s Juli Inkster said that women’s golf just doesn’t get the respect it deserves. While that may ring true for this special golf event, the fact remains that women’s golf (and golf, in general) has increasingly become a snail-paced game with professional golfers now taking in excess of 5 hours for an average round. It also doesn’t help that many of the golfers (women and men) play like a stone faced robot and lack any personality when uber-focused on the task at hand.
Two words of advice to both the men’s and women’s tours – Arnold Palmer. If you respond to the fans, they’ll reciprocate for you, too. American teammates Paula Creamer and Christie Kerr can attest to that as they appeared to be having as much fun as the crowds this weekend.
That’s what helped give the Solheim Cup a much needed shot in the arm for televised women’s professional golf. The players encouraged the crowd’s participation, and it made for interesting vlewing to see the players respond in kind. Contrast that to the annual PGA tour stop in Phoenix which features the rowdy crowd surrounding the par-3 16th hole. Some PGA golfers have become so unnerved by the prospect of being booed (albeit good naturedly) after hitting their tee shot some players now annually avoid the Phoenix tourney every season.
So, “Good show!” ladies! The Solheim Cup was a splendid vehicle to help build more goodwill and interest in the women’s game. Next time, it might be fun for the Americans and Euros to team-up against Team Asia, because that is what golf viewers on both sides of the pond really want to see!