While much of the focus in the battle for equality in golf has been on club life, it is far more sharply defined at tournament level. One need look no further than last weekend when Billy Andrade's winning cheque in the Invensys Classic in Las Vegas, was larger than the entire prize fund for the LPGA World Championship in California.
Andrade, who was securing his first tour win since the Canadian Open of 1998, took home a cheque for $765,000 which, among other things, effectively eliminated his worries about maintaining exempt status for next season. Prior to last weekend, his earnings for the season were a modest $187,027 but he has now leapt to 43rd in the money list.
As it happened, when an elite field of 20 players assembled for the Samsung Women's World Championship, they were competing for a prize fund of $725,000 - $40,000 less than Andrade's pay-off.
It meant that when Juli Inkster captured the title for a third time in four years, her four-stroke victory over second-placed Annika Sorenstam was worth no more than $152,000. There, in a nutshell, is the huge difference that television fees make to the men's game.
In the event, Inkster is having a marvellous season. This was her third win of the year, but most significantly, it was the 25th of her career.
On this side of the Atlantic, observers first became aware of Andrade when he played in the victorious US Walker Cup team of 1987 at Sunningdale, where Ireland's John McHenry was a member of the home side. As a professional, however, he never fully realised the potential of those amateur days and, until last weekend, had to be content with tournament victories in the Kemper Open and Buick Classic of I993 and the Canadian Open five years later.
So his Las Vegas delight was entirely understandable. "I'm speechless the way the whole week went," he said. "I'm near tears at doing this in what had been such a bad year." He went on: "The important thing was that I remained very confident in my putting. I knew if I got the ball anywhere on the green, I would two-putt."
Entering the Las Vegas event, Andrade was 159th on the money list and had already sent his cheque to the US Tour for entry into the Qualifying School. Starting the final round level with Tom Byrum, he proceeded to shoot a closing 68 to hold off the challenge of Phil Mickelson, who birdied the last hole for a 66.
But it wasn't easy for the winner. After back-to-back birdies on the 16th and 17th, Andrade hit his three-wood off the tee into a desert canyon on the 18th. After dropping outside the hazard for a one-shot penalty, he then had to hit a six iron 199 yards from a sidehill lie over water to get it on the green about 50 feet from the hole.
In fact that shot bore comparison with the glorious six-iron which Tiger Woods hit from a bunker and over water when clinching victory in last month's Canadian Open at Glen Abbey.
Noted for his charitable work, Andrade and tour colleague Brad Faxon became involved with needy children in 1991 and the pair have since donated more than $1 million to youngsters in Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts.
