Low Amateur

Wonder if the “other” vote was for Walshe or Lua? Otherwise you hit all the names that came to mind.

27 amateurs in the Women’s US Open – as opposed to the Men’s Open with only 9 amateurs this year. I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out if this is a good thing or a so-so thing for the women. That many amateurs who make it through qualifying doesn’t say much for the depth and level of play from the professionals.

On the other hand – a good number of these amateurs are going to make it to the LPGA with a better than even chance of being successful.

So – is this just a sign that the women’s game isn’t all that deep right now – but the LPGA is going to need to dig a new pool pretty soon ? Or are the lower ranks of the LPGA just not good enough to beat some really good amateurs and they are going to be phased out in the very near future ?

I wonder if anyone keeps stats on how many men and women have the required handicap to attempt to qualify at the local level for their respective Opens? My guess is at least 10x more men and maybe 100x…. With that many more men able to go for it, you’d expect to see more male amateurs making it, so yeah, the male pros in the 100-to-300-range in the world rankings are definitely putting up a better fight than their female counterparts. Given how few female amateurs make the cut, the top 100 are pretty darn good, but after that….

BUT, check out that fact that former JLPGA star Chieko Amanuma qualified. Sure, in 2001 she won 5 events there and was 3rd on their money list, but since 2007 she’s been struggling with her game so much she’s mostly been playing on Japan’s Step-Up Tour in Japan this season. And yet she qualified whereas the LET’s Yuki Sakurai (just a bit more than half her age!) failed—go figure. Aiko Yoshida, who’s spent a good portion of her short career on the Step-Up Tour, also made it. Imagine if the JLPGA’s best were to attempt qualifying! Odds are you’d have at least 15 fewer spots for domestic qualifiers.

So I’d qualify your point by suggesting that fewer top women’s pros from outside the U.S. try to qualify for the Open than their mail counterparts. We’d have to find that elusive list of those who tried local and regional qualifying to verify this, so this is just a guess. What do you think?

Keep in mind that the majority of these amateurs beat out the pros in a 36-hole one-day shootout. I don’t think you can take the one day’s results and make a definitive statement on the quality of any group of players.

Men’s golf is much deeper than women’s golf, at every level, but especially the farther away from the top level you look. And it’s all about the numbers: There are roughly 21 million male golfers in the U.S., 6 million female golfers. And despite the best efforts of Korea and Japan, I suspect that discrepancy is larger on a global scale. (Although it’s probably also true that the number of female participants is growing faster than the number of male participants.)

But more germane to the question of so many amateurs making it into the Women’s Open compared to the men’s Open are these numbers: There were 8,300 entries for the men’s Open this year, 1,200 for the women’s.

So any young amateur who meets the maximum handicap requirement is automatically looking at much better odds of getting into the Women’s Open through qualifying because she has many fewer competitors to get past. Which is why so many younger, less experienced players (even 12 year olds, 15 year olds, 17 year olds) make it into the women’s open.

The USGA expands the number of women eligible to enter US Open qualifying by raising the handicap. Women with a handicap of 4.4 or lower are eligible. I’m sure the handicap number has dropped some over the last few years, but I can’t find the history.

Men, on the other hand, have to have a handicap of 1.4 or lower. It wasn’t too many years ago that applicants with handicaps just under 3 were allowed to apply. The men’s game has exploded over the last 10 years, forcing the USGA to lower the number nearly every year to keep the number of eligible applicants at a managable level.

I still think it’s amazing that 27 amateurs can make it into the women’s Open. The girls taking up the game are getting better as the years go along. Equipment changes have helped kids get better at a younger age, and the lighter equipment today makes it easier for the smaller women to keep up with the bigger women. I wonder how soon we will see a lot more junior girls skip college to turn pro.

ENTRIES – There were 1,236 entries accepted for the 2008 U.S. Women’s Open, the fifth consecutive year the number of entries surpassed 1,000. The record of 1,251 entries was set in 2007 for the Women’s Open at Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club in Southern Pines, N.C.

Would love to know the handicaps of those who made it, eh? And of those who finished well…