Woman Makes Canadian Professional Golf Tour

This is no publicity stunt. Montreal Native Isabelle Beisiegel finished ninth in the Canadian Tour’s Spring Qualifying School. In doing so, she took one of two remaining non-exempt playing positions.

The 32 year old Beisegel, who played at the University of Oklahoma, is the first woman to play her way onto a “men’s tour.”

Leaving aside the question of why a woman would actually want to compete on a men’s tour, I wonder why this hasn’t happened before. Distance always is cited as the factor, but the difference between the top female drivers and the bottom males on the PGA Tour isn’t that big

LPGA Driving Average Top Four

1 Brittany Lincicome 276.0
2 Michelle Wie 274.0
3 Se Ri Pak 273.0
4 Yani Tseng 272.0

Those are higher, or as high as the driving averages of Colt Knost, Jim Furyk, Chris DiMarco, Jerry Kelly, Kevin Na, Paul Goydos, Zach Johnson, Scott Verplank, Dean Wilson, Ben Curtis, Brian Gay and Mike Weir. I don’t think there’s any way to compare irons, however.

It’ll be interesting to see how she actually does on Tour.