Women’s golf let down as 5 Live snubs Solheim Cup
More than 80,000 tickets have been sold for this week’s feverishly anticipated Solheim Cup at Gleneagles, making it a significant sporting occasion by any standards but a particularly encouraging endorsement for the virtues of women’s sport.
or maybe it’s just me. For I looked at the schedule that radio 5 Live have put out on the BBC website for their sports programmes from Friday to Sunday and couldn’t find a mention anywhere.
Sure, there’s a half-hour preview programme slated for Thursday evening, and fair play to them for that, but when the event actually begins? Zip.
You know 5 Live, the station that made such a song and dance of the fact they were going to broadcast more live women’s sport this summer than ever before?
Change the Game, they called it. Yet no live coverage of the Solheim, unarguably one of the biggest women’s events of all.
This is not a rights issue, by the way, and it’s hard to imagine the organisers wouldn’t have bent over backwards to accommodate the broadcaster, if given any encouragement. Look at what they’re missing out on as well.
A europe team captained by a perfect role model in Scot Catriona Matthew and featuring three childhood pals from england in Georgia Hall, Charley Hull and Bronte Law, who are among the most approachable characters in sport.
How does an event where feistiness is almost guaranteed not fit the laudable brief that 5 Live set themselves to do justice to women’s
THE Irish Open, squeezed horribly out of its usual July date next year, will take place instead over the final four days of May — partly because that was considered the best chance of tempting Rory McIlroy to play. Looking at the golf calendar, I’d say it’s a pretty slim chance. He usually plays in
sport with more live coverage? The last time the Solheim was held in europe, the interest following an incident involving Norwegian Suzann Pettersen was so vast it became the most-read item that day on the entire MailOnline website, let alone the sports section.
Are 5 Live really saying that no one’s bothered about what happens when she makes her return to the team this week?
Actually, what the BBC press office did say is there will be updates from the Solheim during the news bulletins and sports programmes from golf correspondent Iain Carter, plus television highlights each evening.
of course, what this really boils down to is yet more evidence of the apathy towards the game from 5 Live, and the BBC in general.
Change the Game? Here’s a better idea — change channels.
Jack Nicklaus’s Memorial tournament, taking place the following week in Ohio. The week after that, he’ll be defending the Canadian Open and the week after that it’s the US Open in New York. Furthermore, in the middle of May, he’s got the US PGA in San Francisco. McIlroy got plenty of stick for missing this year’s edition of the Irish Open and will probably end up getting plenty more if he decides a transatlantic trip is simply not worth the hassle in between two majors spaced so closely together. But the madness of the global golf schedule is surely where the blame really lies.