Brian Kontak and Annika Sorenstam are both golfers, but as he eyesthe Women's Open, she tees off with the men, writes Shane Hegarty
Brian Kontak will never be the planet's best golfer. The 31-year-old journeyman's greatest moment came in winning the Canadian Tour 1998 Order of Merit. He is a veteran of the PGA's lesser tours, such as the Gateway Tour, the Nationwide Tour and the Hooters Tour, sponsored by the famous chain of titillation-and-fries restaurants. In March, though, Kontak announced he was ready for a fresh challenge. He would attempt to qualify for the US Women's Open in July.
"If a woman has the opportunity to play in a men's event, a man should have the opportunity to play in a women's event," Kontak said.
His participation depends on his circumventing an LPGA rule stating that only those born female can compete, a regulation put in place to prevent transsexuals from competing in women's events. "We're going to try and work our way around it," was all Kontak would reveal.
His somewhat graceless blow for equality coincided with the announcement that Annika Sorenstam would take her place alongside the men at this weekend's Colonial Open in Fort Worth, Texas. A graceless response, though, may have been expected from some in a sport that sometimes finds difficulty allowing women into the clubhouse, never mind on to the first tee.
Sorenstam's appearance may be her last. The US PGA tour policy board will meet next month to discuss a ban on women golfers in men's events. The outcome will matter a great deal to Suzy Whaley. Before Sorenstam grabbed the limelight, Whaley had become the first woman to qualify for a PGA event, beating an all-male field to a spot in this July's Greater Hartford Open. While buried under the coverage afforded Sorenstam, this was a milestone. The question of whether women can compete at the same level as men is a question on sport's collective mind. It occupies the golfing world at the moment, as it has previously occupied tennis and motor racing. As the gap in performance narrows, there will be more Sorenstam stories.
Sport's most famous battle of the sexes remains its most shallow. When Bobby Riggs played tennis against Billie Jean King in 1973, he did so as the Wimbledon champion of 1939. It was more showbiz than sport. The 55-year-old arrived on court on a golden rickshaw pulled by six scantily-clad women. King emerged on a red velvet litter carried - time suggests somewhat inappropriately - by university football players clad in togas. In the end, she hammered the creaking Riggs. Then, in 1993, Jimmy Connors easily defeated Martina Navratilova despite her being allowed more of the court to hit into.
It is in the power sports that women are at an immediate disadvantage. Both Sorenstam and Whaley chose short courses on which to take on the men. In the US, two women may have played university American Football, but both were place-kickers, neither tackling nor likely to be tackled.
According to Phil Jakeman, Professor of Exercise Science at the University of Limerick, muscles are muscles, regardless of sex; it's just that men's are bigger. In sports in which power does not matter as much, such as long-distance running, women are disadvantaged by the workrate of their cardio-respiratory system. Paula Radcliffe may have run a time in April's London Marathon that was good enough to win every men's Olympic marathon until 1984, but she benefits from modern training knowledge and facilities, even if she has brought the women's world record five minutes closer than it was to the men's 15 years ago.
Sports in which the equipment is primary offer a better chance for women to compete equally with men.
"You have to isolate the sport," says Jakeman. "So that there is a technical challenge that gives women an advantage and where pure brute strength does not come into it."
Ellen McArthur could be considered one of the world's best sailors. American jockey Julie Krone remains the one woman to win a Triple Crown race. Meanwhile, Irish racing driver Sarah Kavanagh's mission to become a Formula One star was not unprecedented, with several Italians succeeding, such as Lella Lombardi, the first woman to finish in a points position in 1975. Alison Fisher played on the men's snooker tour during the early 1990s. Perhaps the one sport at which women can claim pure dominance over men is gymnastics.
Jakeman sees other reasons why women have made strides in certain sports. "There may be a social development here, in that there were some sports in which men always played and women were traditionally prohibited due to cultural factors or whatever. Now they are being removed, who's to say that women, if given the chance over a couple of generations, won't be able to compete at the same level as men?"
Jessica Kurten has competed on Ireland's mixed show-jumping team. She did not face the kind of intimidation levelled at Julie Krone, who was kicked and whipped by opponents during a race until she finally brought it to a halt by punching one jockey so hard that she knocked three of his teeth out.
Kurten's sport is one with a tradition of mixed sex competition.
"On a team basis, when I first started out I had noticed that there were some who weren't so keen on a woman being in the team, but as long as you proved yourself then you could become accepted. I suppose that's the same for anybody," she says.
She does point out, though, that of the world's top 30 riders, only a handful are women. "It says two things. It says that a lot of women don't have what it takes to make it at the highest level, and it also says that men have more chances to make it . . . Girls either give up very young, or they're not prepared for what is a very cut-throat business. "
Kurten, however, does not offer any sisterly support to Sorenstam. "She didn't qualify and in my personal opinion that gives her absolutely no right to be there. She should have competed and earned the place, just like the other men," she says.