A Scotland-born transgender golfer has come through qualifying to stand only two steps from becoming a member of the LPGA Tour, a scenario that one former professional on the women’s biggest circuit has labelled “unfair”.
Hailey Davidson, the first male-born golfer to win a professional women’s event on the minor leagues three years ago, progressed through the first stages of Q School at the weekend and now goes forward to October’s next phase.
The 31-year-old, originally from Ayrshire but now based in Florida, has said that her intention is “ to make Scotland proud” by earning an LPGA card, despite the likes of Judy Murray calling the ongoing quest as “wrong”.
On Monday, Amy Olson, who finished runner-up in two women’s majors in her decade on Tour, added her voice to the dissenters.
“Unfair” the American posted on social media. “These women have worked too hard and too long to have to stand by and watch a man compete for and take their spot. The only fair path forward is a policy based on sex, not gender.”
However, Davidson, who almost qualified for the US Women’s Open in June, is unapologetic and has recently lashed out at the detractors. “I will never understand athletes who blame a transgender competitor on their own athletic failures,” Davidson wrote on Instagram. “If you don’t take accountability for your failures then you will never actually be good enough to make it.”
Davidson competed as a male in 2015, before beginning hormone therapy and has since rejected claims of an unfair advantage, reporting that the driver goes 30 yards shorter than before gender reassignment.
Other sports have announced increased protections for women’s sport 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).
Born male in Copenhagen, Bagger began playing golf as an eight-year-old and was considered such a good prospect that as a 14-year-old, they were photographed at a golf clinic alongside Greg Norman.
Bagger underwent a sex-change operation and by the age of 37 had persuaded the LET to change its “female at birth” membership rule and spent a number of years on Tour, recording a few top 10s.
But now 58, Bagger believes there should be limits on transgender women competing in female sports. “I’m seen as a bit of a hypocritical voice, so I just have to take the abuse,” Bagger said in 2022. “I still think there could be access for transitioned women to women’s sport… [but] I just don’t agree with the current, softened policies that are requiring less and less medical intervention of a male-bodied person entering women’s sport.”
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