Opinion: "The lie we're told about women's sport"

Being an advocate for and someone who gets to write about women’s professional golf, it can often feel like I am hitting my head against a brick wall. How many times do I need to ponder and ask why women’s professional golf is not getting the media coverage and recognition that it deserves?

Time and again, I have written articles around this and as each year goes by it is very hard to see much improvement. You don’t need to take my word for it, just last week the Women’s Sport Trust 2024 Visibility Uncovered Report found that only 2% of print media coverage was dedicated to women’s sports, down from 3% in 2023.

It’s almost laughable that this is the third year in a row that I have embarked on another opinion piece around that lack of coverage for this week’s Ladies European Tour (LET) event. Because with everything that happens in the golf media space, I would think that it would be this week that there would be some interest and yet, year after year it’s met with relative silence.

PIF Saudi Ladies International

Why was my X (formerly Twitter) timeline filled with articles around LIV Golf Riyadh’s event last week and now when the PIF Saudi Ladies International takes to the same course just a few days later, there’s a murmur?

Same course, same Saudi backing, same moral issues and some of women’s golf’s biggest stars – including arguably golf’s most marketable star at the moment Charley Hull.

Not only the above but, just as a reminder (for those who haven’t read the 2023 and 2024 opinion articles), this is the biggest event outside the Majors on the LET. The prize fund offered is the second largest, outside of the Majors, on both the LET and LPGA.

"The lie we're told about women's sport"

It was while thinking about how I could tackle this issue for a third year that I randomly came across a video from Eurosport and TNT presenter and sports journalist Orla Chennaoui on TikTok – simply titled “The lie we’re told about women’s sport” – I was immediately listening.

Orla highlights the disconnect between the growing popularity of women's sport and its persistent neglect in traditional media. Whilst noting how women's sport has become aspirational and "cool" in its own right, yet outdated attitudes persist.

Her frustration is clear: women's sport is thriving, yet mainstream media still gatekeeps coverage, missing both the business opportunity and the larger cultural shift. She calls for urgent change, with a parting line: “As journalists, we're missing the story, and just in a wider sense, we're [women’s sports fans] missing out.”

And that sums it up perfectly. It’s the gatekeepers of the golf and sports media space that are holding women’s golf back, not the players, not the tours, not the fans.

The players are there, the stories are plentiful and ready to be told and if those gates were opened then thousands more golf fans the wider sports audience would finally find out what they’ve been missing out on.