Hannah Inexperienced has implored golf’s powerbrokers to escalate the LPGA’s water-cooler conversations and severely take into account a mixed-gender overhaul of the Presidents Cup.
Australia’s highest-ranked golfer at quantity seven will return for the nation’s Open on Melbourne’s Sandbelt, the November 28-December 1 event to be performed alongside the boys’s occasion for the third straight 12 months.
A fan of the idea, if not of the date she says creates too many scheduling conflicts together with her fellow LPGA members, Inexperienced says mixed-gender competitors has turn into an everyday speaking level amongst her friends.
The Internationals’ tenth straight Presidents Cup loss to america in Canada final week triggered debate about the best way to salvage the one-sided contest.
The US have misplaced simply certainly one of 15 ties stretching again 30 years, with LIV Golf’s arrival additional weakening an Worldwide staff that featured only one top-10 participant.
4 of the world’s prime six males’s gamers are American, and all of Jim Furyk’s 12-man line-up have been contained in the world’s prime 25.
The ladies’s rankings are a unique story, with spots 3-10 all taken by worldwide abilities.
Australian Minjee Lee, the sister of Internationals debutant Min Woo, is at the moment world quantity 16, which might have positioned her because the second-highest-ranked participant on this 12 months’s males’s squad.
A transfer to a six-man, six-woman Presidents Cup format would theoretically produce a extra even battle and likewise fill a void within the in any other case swollen {golfing} calendar.
“Positively, representing my continent can be actually cool, and even around the globe,” two-time Olympian Inexperienced mentioned on Wednesday.
“The Worldwide staff has struggled the final 10 cups … having the ladies concerned would make it actually aggressive.”
The 32-player Grant Thornton Invitational is the excursions’ solely blended occasion, whereas the biennial Solheim Cup is the ladies’s equal of the boys ‘s Ryder Cup, pitting Europe’s greatest towards the People.
“It may nearly outdo a Solheim Cup or Ryder Cup,” Inexperienced mentioned of a mixed-gender Presidents Cup.
“Between gamers it is type of been spoken about, however we do not know if that is even on the playing cards, if anybody is probably interested by making that an occasion.
“Even when it was simply the ladies … it would be very aggressive if it was Asia-Pacific versus Europe.
“Maybe somebody may decide that up, that’d be very nice.”
West Australian Inexperienced has completed fifth and third on the previous two Australian Opens behind South Africa’s two-time defending champion Ashleigh Buhai.
She soared to as excessive as quantity 5 on the earth this 12 months after securing her fourth and fifth LPGA Tour titles this season.
The highest Australian probability will solely arrive in Melbourne on the Wednesday, lower than 24 hours earlier than the event begins, due to the jam-packed US schedule.
Inexperienced described the year-ending time slot as “inconvenient” in comparison with the event’s conventional February season-opening date.
“But when that is the one date that works (to mix the women and men) I perceive,” she mentioned.
“For the LPGA gamers, it is a troublesome time to return right down to Australia, but it surely elevates each occasions having everybody (women and men) on the course on the identical time.”
Defending males’s champion Joaquin Niemann will return, alongside rising Australian star Min Woo Lee and former champion Cameron Davis at Kingston Heath and The Victoria golf golf equipment.
Jason Day and Cameron Smith have each dedicated to the Australian PGA Championship per week earlier in Brisbane, however are but to pencil of their Open appearances.
Former Masters champion Adam Scott, Australia’s highest-ranked male at quantity 18 and an everyday starter within the Australian summer time, can also be but to verify his plans.
AAP