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Showing posts from May, 2014

Why Women Pros Play for Much Smaller Purses than Men Pros

We all know that men's professional golf tours pay a lot more than women's professional golf tours. The differences are stark. An entire purse on the Symetra Tour, the LPGA's feeder, might only be equal to the first-place check of the Web.com Tour tournament. So there's much praise this week for the news that the USGA is bumping up the purse for the 2014 US Women's Open from around $3.25 million to around $4 million. That's great! I wish all women's tournaments paid more, and young women touring pros didn't have to struggle so much in pursuit of their dreams. But the new, improved US Women's Open purse is still only less than half that of the US Open. Why is that? Is it terribly unfair? Writing in the most recent issue of Golf Digest, former USGA director David Fay passed along a couple facts that tell you all you need to know about the money differences between men's and women's tour golf: Every year, the US Open generates revenue t

Watch Elin Nordegren's Commencement Speech for her College Graduation

Elin Nordegren is now a graduate of the Hamilton Holt School at Rollins College. And a very accomplished one, with a near-4.0 grade point average. Her fellow graduates voted her Outstanding Graduating Senior, which meant she got to speak at the school's graduation ceremony. Rollins College is located in Winter Park, Fla., and Nordegren's degree is in psychology. Watch Elin's speech, in which she makes a few thinly veiled references to Tiger Woods (and notice when the crowd cheers as Elin notes that she is no longer married):

Who are the Best PGA Tour Golfers at Finishing Second?

Here's a fun little nugget from the PGA Tour. Which current PGA Tour golfers have finished second most often? You probably won't be surprised to learn that the tour's biggest winners - Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh - all also rank on the Top 5 in runner-up finishes. But none of them are No. 1. Here's the list: 1. Davis Love III, 30 second place finishes (692 starts) 2. Tiger Woods, 29 second places (312 starts) 3. Phil Mickelson, 29 seconds (497 starts) 4. Vijay Singh, 27 seconds (535 starts) 5. Jim Furyk, 26 seconds (513 starts)