Prizegiving

First published in Column Eight on the 13^th April, 1994 [our twentieth wedding anniversary!] 

Golf (to quote Mark Twain) is a good walk spoiled. Wordsworth claimed it was a day spent in strenuous idleness.

I was interested, therefore, to consider last week’s reports of the wimpy prizes given to the girls participating in the PostBank Golf Tournament.

After an earlier report we were present on Saturday with a gloomy photograph of a young ladies’ quartet (accompanied by towels) expressing all the injustice of coming second in a ‘male’ world. There was no sign, however, of the jubilant males with their barbies (barbecues, that is, not Barbie dolls).

Everyone would agree that a set of towels appears to relate in no way value-wise to a barbie or a CD player. Towels do have the advantage, however, of not needing the additional purchase of a range of overpriced CDs or a couple of steaks before they can be of use.

Towels, in fact, could be seen as showing practical value, while CD players are frivolity. So maybe the boys were worse off than the girls, since the boys’ effort was undermined by frivolous prizes.

The young ladies, ever creative, suggested golf-orientated prizes would have been more sensible. Did they mean something appropriate like Tee-shirts? Or electric irons? Or lessons in how to make green tea using a caddy?

Ironically, this little sage of pathetic prizes brought an inequity of a different sort out into the open, the kind that rears its divot-shaped head not infrequently in relation to areas which have tended to be mostly the fairway of males.

In this particular case the inequity is in regard to the fees male golfers pay compared to those handed over by females.

The theory is that lower fees for females will encourage more women to participate in the sport. Thus we have a schoolgirl paying $22.50 at the Otago Golf Club while a boy pays $33. A female student pays only $56, however old she is. But 24-year-old male students, for example, pay anything from $66 to $420 a year.

Politically I am incorrect to speak of such things. But why the fuss on one hand, and not on the other? To be truly objective, we should have had a photo of a quartet of boys expressing bewilderment at being charged a higher rate of membership because they happen to have been born male.

I appreciated the comments made by Otago player, Shelley Duncan, who said she didn’t recall feeling the prizes were unfair when she attended national high school tournaments. Prizes, she said, have to  be kept in perspective. She added that women’s golf is now very strong.

If that’s the case, why are the gents still subsidising the ladies?

And talking of gentlemen, a couple or three came to the fore in this prize foray, two of them fathers who made up the lack of value in prizes through their own generosity. (I have to say something commendatory about this: one reads my column, and long ago we played Suzuki violin together with our youthful female prodigies. Whoops! Old Boys’ network.)

Isn’t it interesting that the spokesperson for the PostBank people was a woman who seemed to have little sympathy for the unfairness caused to her sex, while men, who were on the side of those getting the flak, came to the rescue?

Why should I wonder? Such generosity towards daughters is just normal for us blokes. (Ask my daughters. Ask Alan Duff!)         

 

Lydia Ko, top NZ golfer

 Alan Duff lives with his family and has three daughters (including pianist Katea Duff). In interviews discussing his viewpoints and social commentary, he has defended his appreciation for women's roles in society by explicitly stating, "I really care; I've got daughters." Commentators on his life have noted that despite his controversial public persona, he "walks the talk" in his personal life when it comes to showing profound respect and empathy toward the women in his family.