| dc.description.abstract | Golf is an increasingly popular sport with tough competition at the professional level. The Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) tour is the biggest professional men’s tour, whereas the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tour is the biggest tour for women. Professional women play shorter courses than the men, but otherwise the requirements are similar for men and women, thus making the relative requirements different due to anthropometric and physiological sex differences. This would affect variables such as club choices and playing strategies. The present study aimed to identify the differences in golf performance between men and women, and to investigate whether the differences seem to correspond with the known physiological and anthropometric differences between sexes. Performance and course data were collected on the 50 PGA tournaments and the 32 LPGA tournaments in the 2021-2022 season, and differences were analysed between the two tours. Furthermore, two cases of women competing on the PGA tour were examined. The lengths of the courses and holes on the LPGA tour are approximately 90% of the lengths on the PGA tour. Women had better driving accuracy than men but were poorer in scoring eagles and rounds in the 60s. Women are approximately 90% of the size of men, and 40-60% as strong, depending on the part of the body. Anthropometric and physiological differences likely contribute to women’s adaptations of movement strategies in the swing and cause them to choose different playing strategies than men, mainly in driving and approach shots. Unsurprisingly, women on the PGA tour were less successful on performance variables requiring strength. The results suggest that women’s golf courses are probably not sufficiently scaled according to the anthropometry and physiology. Thus, golf is relatively more demanding for women, which can, at least in part, explain performance differences. | |