BRITTANY TO TAKE ON THE BOYS

THE next instalment of a top female player taking on the men in a PGA Tour event is set to be played out this month when Brittany Lincicome tees it up in the Barbasol Championship.

The Barbasol is the alternate event to The Open Championship so the field may only feature a handful of male players ranked in the top-100 in the world, which makes it an interesting prospect for the eight-time LPGA Tour title winner.

The 32-year-old will take up a sponsor’s exemption to play in the event joining the likes of Annika Sorenstam, who famously played the PGA Tour’s Colonial Tournament 15 years ago and just missed the cut. Michelle Wie has played against the men several times, while the legendary Babe Didrickson Zaharias was the first to do so in the 1938 Los Angeles Open. Dame Laura Davies played against the men in a 54-hole no cut European Senior event in Denmark last month and finished T44, a shot ahead of Jose Maria Olazabal. It was her second start against the fellas, having played the European and Australasian Tour co-sanctioned ANZ Championship in 2004. None of the aforementioned women have made the cut with their appearances, a factor not lost on Lincicome.

“I’m already nervous,” Lincicome said. “I feel like every time I walk by one of those guys they are going to look at me like, ‘Why the heck are you here?’ Hopefully they are really nice. If the tours think it’s OK and there really is no negative side to it, I guess the worst I could do is miss the cut.”

Indeed. But with few, if any, expectations Lincicome is the kind of player that just might snap the missed cut streak.