If you’ve been procrastinating on a Halloween costume, this is your last weekend to procrastinate a little more. Then you can procrastinate next week and go as a golfer.

Ladies first

According to an article by Josh Sens on Golf.com, Brandel Chamblee and his design partner Agustín Pizá are proposing to design a tournament venue specifically for women in Harlingen, Texas. Chamblee would like for the course to be to the LPGA Tour what the TPC Sawgrass is to the PGA Tour—a home base that hosts a big annual event. “We are still in the early stages of defining shot values and specifics,” Pizá told Sens. “But we guarantee [the course] will offer a carousel of emotions for the best women golfers in the world.”

This is a good, seemingly well-intentioned idea. Golf course design has not traditionally served women well. Most architects tend to conceptualize holes from the back tees, leaving middle and forward tees with awkward landing zones and angles into greens.

But Chamblee and Pizá’s plan is missing a crucial component: the LPGA Tour’s actual involvement. Chamblee said that commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan was “excited” about the project, but a tour representative told Sens that it was “too early to share a response.” If Chamblee and Pizá see this course as the LPGA’s TPC Sawgrass, they might want to get the tour itself on board soon.

For us, though, the even bigger question mark has to do with design philosophy. Chamblee and Pizá have plenty of sensible  ideas (adjusted fairway widths to highlight LPGA accuracy off the tee, total length around 6,200 yards, etc.), but low scores appear to be the priority. “Scoreboards should bleed red to garner the most interest, and the LPGA has applied a tourniquet in the way of courses that are set up too hard,” Chamblee said. “We want approaches that allow the women to get the ball out on the green and spinning, providing the same excitement that the men provide.”

There are a couple of assumptions at work here. One, that low scores are the best way to attract eyeballs. Two, that the men’s game is currently more exciting than the women’s. We wholeheartedly reject both. Why should the LPGA Tour follow the PGA Tour’s formula of aerial attacks, birdies, and “living under par” instead of pursuing its own style? The reason that a course designed for the world’s top women would be exciting is that it could highlight their unique skill sets. The fairways could be firm and sloped to reward accuracy and ball-flight control, and the greens could reward low-trajectory shots instead of always encouraging lofted approaches.

Of course, this is all just a mental exercise until the Harlingen project gets approved. For now, perhaps we should simply applaud Chamblee and Pizá for putting a spotlight on issues of gender in golf course design. We just hope that when it comes to the LPGA Tour, the focus is on letting the women play their games, not on suggesting that they should play more like the men.

Boards

Hideki Matsuyama, despite a lack of confidence in his game, leads the Zozo Championship in Japan.

More than a dozen South Korean women, including Sei Young Kim and In Gee Chun, are in contention in their home country at the BMW Ladies Championship.

Some fellas named Jeff Winther, Bryce Easton, and Niklas Lemke top the Mallorca Golf Open leaderboard through one round.

The Korn Ferry Tour’s Second Stage of Q-School has four sites finishing up on Friday.

The Dominion Energy Charity Classic kicks off the Charles Schwab Playoffs for the PGA Tour Champions. That’s all we have to say about that.

Quick Hooks

A few prominent women in golf and golf media—Michelle Wie West, Amanda Balionis, Hally Leadbetter, Kira Dixon, and Cheyenne Woods—talked with Golf Digest’s Joel Beall about how comments on social media affect their mental health.

Jin Young Ko had the audacity to shoot 71 in the first round of the BMW Ladies Championship, ending her record-tying streak of 14 straight rounds in the 60s.

The latest edition of Skratch’s Find the Fairway Series features friend of the program and Korn Ferry Tour hopeful Tee-K Kelly.

The Latest from The Fried Egg

The Fried Egg Podcast – ICYMI, Vince India, who first appeared on The Fried Egg Podcast way back in episode 5, returns to chat about his adventures on the Korn Ferry Tour and his feats of excellence in Q-School. Listen on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify.

The Shotgun Start – Andy and Brendan welcome the great Justin Ray, who talks about which players made 2021 leaps, data walls, and other metrics. Listen on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify.

Pro Shop

Game of Thrones may have ended in unremarkable fashion, but the saying “winter is coming” remains annually relevant. Prepare for the cold with a Fried Egg beanie!