Augusta Nationwide Chairman halts LPGA stars enjoying Masters observe

Augusta Nationwide Golf Membership is among the most prestigious golf programs on the earth, but it doesn’t maintain knowledgeable ladies’s occasion.

Chairman Fred Ridley held his annual deal with on the eve of the 88th Masters Event Wednesday. He tackled a variety of topics together with offering help for the golf ball rollback and LIV Golf’s place within the sport.

He additionally conveyed his emotions on whether or not a lady’s event needs to be held at Augusta Nationwide.

“There are some basic difficulties in that,” Ridley stated. “We fortunately had been capable of finding a technique to have a contest for juniors and a contest for girls amateurs kind of wrapped across the Masters event, and it simply appears to suit rather well.”

The membership started the Augusta Nationwide Ladies’s Novice in 2019, which incorporates a world discipline of 72 younger ladies. Nonetheless, the women play 36 holes at Champions Retreat Golf Membership and solely play the ultimate spherical at Augusta Nationwide.

It isn’t just like the novice ladies destroy the course. They do not play sufficient holes on it to do any injury.

There has additionally been an annual junior event the place youngsters have participated within the Drive, Chip, and Putt Problem since 2013. Each women and boys take part in that occasion.

Ladies’s sports activities are on the rise, as is the game of golf. One may suppose it will make sense to discover a technique to let the LPGA stars have a crack on the Masters course.

Nonetheless, Ridley doesn’t see it that manner.

“To have one other event of any variety can be very troublesome based mostly on our season, based mostly on the truth that that is basically a winter and spring golf course,” Ridley stated. “It isn’t open in the summertime. It would not play the way in which we would like it to play within the fall for a significant event. We did have one, one time, and Dustin Johnson did very nicely.”

As a result of COVID-19, the 2020 version of The Masters was held in November. Johnson would go on to win that 12 months and submit a event scoring document of 20-under. It was not the identical as an April Masters Event, nevertheless it was nonetheless the normal event that followers love to look at earnestly.

Ridley expounded on why having one full event annually is all of the membership can do.

“We actually have a restricted time period we might play any extra occasion,” Ridley stated. “We shut within the third week of Could. Then you definitely add the factor of … kind of the mystique and the magic. We have to make it possible for we actually respect the mystique and the magic of the Masters, so we must suppose lengthy and laborious to have one other golf event.”

These feedback from Ridley had been discouraging. It feels off-putting to permit novice ladies on the course however not skilled ones. What does that say to the LPGA Tour? There isn’t a weekend someday within the spring that may work?

The membership simply allowed its first skilled feminine participant. Annika Sorenstam earned Augusta Nationwide membership this previous October.

She turned the seventh lady general to achieve membership.

When that information broke, it felt like issues had been shifting in the suitable path for the ladies’s recreation.

Ridley’s feedback Wednesday really feel like a step backward. His phrases present simply how behind the instances Augusta Nationwide continues to be. “The mystique and the magic” — should not ladies expertise that too?

Savannah Leigh Richardson is a golf employees author for SB Nation’s Taking part in By means of. For extra golf protection, be sure you comply with us @_PlayingThrough on all main social platforms. You too can comply with her on Twitter @SportsGirlSL and Instagram @savannah_leigh_sports.