Players must be assigned female at birth or have transitioned to female before going through male puberty to compete in LPGA tournaments or the eight USGA championships for females under new gender policies published Wednesday.
The policies, which begin in 2025, follow more than a year of study involving medicine, science, sport physiology and gender policy law.
The updated policies would rule out eligibility for Hailey Davidson, who missed qualifying for the U.S. Women’s Open this year by one shot and came up short in LPGA Q-school.
Davidson, who turned 32 on Tuesday, began hormone treatments when she was in her early 20s in 2015 and in 2021 underwent gender-affirming surgery, which was required under the LPGA’s previous gender policy. She had won this year on a Florida mini-tour called NXXT Golf until the circuit announced in March that players had to be assigned female at birth.
I would think so too, but looks like average golfing handicaps do still differ pretty dramatically between the genders. Golf is a very male dominated sport and I feel like that might be a major factor, but the numbers we’ve collected thus far do point to a difference. Not a big golfer, but the only thing I can think of is maybe driving hit range but, I wouldn’t think that could be responsible for the difference alone.
Some of it is down to biology (more strong muscle, me hit ball further) some to womens equipment being more of an afterthought, and a good deal down to the disparity in practice / coaching time. It’s not one single factor, but it is a big one that does impact how a.rpund is played. Not arguing the ethics of the above rule, I don’t think I have a particularly good solution, just these are the factors in the sport.