A Scottish-born transgender golfer has qualified and is now two steps away from joining the LPGA Tour, in a scenario that a former professional on the women’s premier circuit has branded “unfair.”
Hailey Davidson, the first male golfer to win a professional women’s minor league tournament three years ago, completed the first stages of Q School last weekend and will now advance to the next stage in October.
The 31-year-old, originally from Ayrshire but now living in Florida, has said her aim is to “make Scotland proud” by earning an LPGA card, despite the likes of Judy Murray calling the ongoing quest “wrong”.
On Monday, Amy Olson joined the opposition, having finished second in two women’s majors in her 10 years on the Tour.
“Unfair,” the American posted on social media. “These women have worked too hard and too long to stand by and watch a man compete for and take their place. The only fair way forward is a policy based on sex, not gender.”
Davidson, who nearly qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open in June, has been outspoken, however, and has recently taken a swipe at her opponents. “I will never understand athletes who blame a transgender athlete for their own athletic failures,” Davidson wrote on Instagram. “If you don’t take responsibility for your failures, you will never be good enough to make it.”
Davidson competed as a man in 2015, before starting hormone therapy. He has since dismissed claims of an unfair advantage, saying the driver can race 30 metres shorter than before the gender transition.
Other sports have announced increased protections for women’s sports in recent years, but Davidson would not be the first transgender golfer to play on one of the top tours. In 2004, Denmark’s Mianne Bagger qualified for the Ladies European Tour (LET).
Bagger was born as a boy in Copenhagen and started playing golf at the age of eight. He was so seen as a promising talent that at the age of 14 they had their picture taken with Greg Norman during a golf clinic.
Bagger underwent sex reassignment surgery and at the age of 37 convinced the LET to change its rule for female membership at birth. He spent a number of years on the Tour, finishing in the top 10 on a few occasions.
But now 58, Bagger believes there should be restrictions on transgender women competing in women’s sports. “I’m seen as a bit of a hypocritical voice, so I have to take the insults,” Bagger said in 2022. “I still think women who have transitioned should be able to access women’s sports… [but] I simply disagree with the current relaxed policy, which requires less and less medical intervention from a male body that wants to participate in women’s sports.”
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