Pro golfer Rosie Jones came out of the closet last week, authoring an article published by the New York Times in which she admitted to being a lesbian.
Those who follow her sport immediately responded with these pressing questions:
Did Tiger Woods make a career-altering mistake by splitting with swing coach Butch Harmon, and will one of his drives ever again land in a fairway?
• Did John Daly s watery grave on the final hole at Bay Hill on Sunday cost him any chance of qualifying for the Masters?
• Can Annika Sorenstam win every tournament she enters?
• Will Michelle Wie be making a mistake if she tries to play on a college men s team instead of with the women? Or should she skip college and go right to the pros?
• Are all the Ryder Cup tickets sold?
And so on.
Jones pronouncement hardly caused a ripple. We all stifled yawns.
It is no secret that there are lesbians, and no miniscule number of them, on the LPGA Tour, just as there are gay athletes in many sports.
Coming out, as it s called, used to be a big deal. Ask Martina Navratilova or Greg Louganis.
I remember one of the early years of the Jamie Farr Classic. The winner putted out on the 18th green to clinch the victory and the large Toledo gallery, as always, reacted appreciatively. A small group of LPGA players was waiting near the green, and as the champion began to exit, one of them broke away from the others, ran onto the edge of the green, jumped into the winner s arms and laid a full kiss on her.
The crowd s applause stopped in mid-clap. You could have heard a pin drop. I honestly thought women s golf might have died in Toledo, as conservative as cities come here in the heartland, at that precise moment, and that the Senior Tour would be coming to town starting the next year.
But times change. People change. Perceptions change. Discriminations change. We move on. Today s heated public debate centers not on two partners being gay, only whether they should be allowed to legally marry.
We know now that there have been gay major league baseball players, gay NFL players, gay college football players and gay boxers. There are lesbians coaching and playing women s college sports, and have been for years. If gay men were eliminated from figure skating, we d be left with maybe eight guys touring in a VW van. Tennis has had gay stars dating to Bill Tilden and Helen Hull Jacobs in the 1920s.
For years those were hush-hush, eye-winking secrets. Not now.
It will be interesting to see if Jones announcement prompts others, many of whom justifiably feel their sexual preference is nobody s business, to follow in her wake.
Lesbianism in women s golf has carried a negative connotation for an organization that was competing against men s tours, and other women s sports, for corporate sponsorship, endorsement opportunities, TV exposure and the public s ticket money.
It is why the LPGA elevated Jan Stephenson and Laura Baugh to pin-up-girl status. It is why the tour s PR machine cranks out feature stories on Juli Inkster and other tour moms. It is why the tour s most attractive players are featured in occasional fashion shoots.
Some media types suspected way back when that Nancy Lopez, after her sizzling debut and upon learning what her marketing potential was, married the first guy who proposed to her in an effort to erase any question marks and let sponsors know her image was suitable.
Patty Sheehan, one of the game s all-time great players, a member of the LPGA s Hall of Fame, went without any endorsement contracts - her golf bag was a blank - for a while after she and her same-sex partner adopted a child.
“I didn t really know how others would deal with the idea of Bryce having two moms,” Sheehan said in a 1998 Golf World Magazine article. “But I ve decided if they have a problem with it, it s their problem, not mine.”
The lack of any real reaction to Jones coming out might tell us all we need to know. Finally, perhaps, there is no problem.
“Fine, I m gay,” she said at the end of her New York Times piece. “Now let s go play golf.”
Exactly.
First Published March 25, 2004, 10:43 a.m.
