TECHNOLOGY, and its unrelenting march towards the complete tyranny of mankind, has a habit of making you feel hopelessly inadequate doesn’t it?
Before I’d even registered that the clocks had birled back an hour at the weekend, for instance, a smug little message on my computer appeared, nonchalantly informing me that it had already changed the time on my behalf.
And then my mobile phone got in on the act too with its automatic updates which served merely to heighten my sense of muttering, doddering incompetence. The message was clear. It seems this smart alec gadgetry thinks we’re all bumbling halfwits incapable of performing the most basic of functions.
“Well, I’ll show them,” I defiantly grumbled only to realise I’d walked out of the house in my pyjamas. At that point, my phone binged with its daily notification from the Public Humiliation Avoidance.com website telling me to ‘remember to put your clothes on’. Gee whiz.
Here in the world of golf, meanwhile, the good women of the Ladies European Tour (LET) will be getting a timely reminder of what it’s actually like to get a run of tournaments under their belts as the circuit gets going with four events in the next five weeks. It’s just a shame the season is actually coming to a close. For those behind the scenes at the LET, they’ll probably be happy to see the back of 2017.
Tournaments falling by the wayside, sponsors abandoning ship, an embattled chief executive quitting, tales of players taking part-time jobs to supplement their income? It’s been a torrid old year.
Speaking to Scottish golfer Pamela Pretswell Asher last week, it was clear that the former Curtis Cup player was raring to go. And no wonder. Here we are with November looming and she has played just eight events. Pretswell Asher sits in 36th place on the LET rankings with earnings of around £21,100.
The same spot on the men’s European Tour is almost £711,000. On the LPGA Tour, the 36th ranked player has racked up over £350,000. And on the second-tier men’s Challenge Tour, No 36 is currently well over double what Pretswell Asher has made.
This has been a season when the plight of the LET has highlighted the haves and the have-nots of professional golf while the forthcoming costly trips to Abu Dhabi, India, China and Dubai over the next month illustrates the problems players on the LET have faced; less opportunities to make money but hefty expenses on long-distance travel when those chances do come up.
For many, it’s been difficult to make money when you can’t build any sort of momentum. Stories of players looking to other forms of revenue is hardly surprising but it is a sobering, downbeat reality. The demands of professional sport requires more than enough hard graft, sacrifice and commitment without the added burden and distraction of so many hours of other work on top of that.
In the wake of a thrilling Solheim Cup back in August, there was plenty of talk of white knights coming to the rescue of the LET with the combined forces of the men’s European Tour, the LPGA Tour and the R&A getting their heads together and attempting to formulate some sort of buy-out plan.
Since then, though, it’s all been very quiet on that particular front. Perhaps it’s a case of no news is good news? There are suggestions that there is encouraging work going on behind the scenes and a few more events in the circuit’s heartland of Europe could be added to the 2018 schedule.
For those already on the tour, and those who will come on to it via the Access Series and the forthcoming qualifying school, there must remain plenty of uncertainties.
The LET is still producing players – the emergence of Georgia Hall this year, for instance, has provided a ray of light – but for a new generation coming through, it’s difficult to establish a strong foothold when opportunities are fleeting and development, ultimately, is stifled.
The clocks may have turned back at the weekend but the Ladies European Tour continues to look forward. We await to hear if there’s anything genuine to look forward to, however.
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