Shortly after the start of the Second World War, Winston Churchill said of a potential European ally: “It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”
Without wishing to be too glib, tournament directors probably feel much the same way about setting up a course every week for fields of naturally suspicious golfers.
For Mikael Eriksson, tournament director of the fourth edition of the DP World Tour’s Volvo Car Scandinavian Mixed which took place last week at Vasatorps Golfklubb in Helsingborg, Sweden, that puzzle is even more vexing because Eriksson isn’t just threatened by upsetting one group of players. He’s got two that might spend the week grumbling and grousing in his ear.
The Scandinavian Mixed was initiated in 2021 and hosted in the first year by Sweden’s two greatest golfers, Annika Sörenstam and Henrik Stenson. The aim of the tournament was to present men and women – half from the DP World Tour, half from the Ladies European Tour – with a unique challenge: one field, one leaderboard, one purse, one course.
The latter factor is the intriguing, and potentially controversial, one because the men and the women play from different tees. The success of the various setups (each at a different course) has been debated, but the first edition featured two females among the four-way tie for the 54-hole lead (Alice Hewson and Caroline Hedwall) and a male winner (Jonathan Caldwell). The second edition offered a runaway victory for the LET’s Linn Grant. Last year, the DP World Tour’s Dale Whitnell bounded free after 36 holes and no one could catch him.
Honours pretty much even, then, but Eriksson is aware his task is one requiring constant vigilance. “Where we want to start is that the women will play the course 15 percent shorter than the men, and we’ll take it from there when Sunday comes,” he said in a video posted by the DP World Tour on Instagram early in the week. “I don’t think you can get every hole equal, but as long as you get the balance correct after the 18 holes, then everyone comes off the course feeling that it was a fair test.”
“The more I’ve covered it, the more I’ve realised that it’s not about the yardages but about making the scoring opportunities even. Trying to achieve that is a fun test, but it’s also a difficult one."
Alison Whitaker
Alison Whitaker, a former competitor on the LET who commentates on the men’s and the women’s tours for Sky Sports, has enjoyed watching the event’s evolution.
“The more I’ve covered it,” she told GGP last week, “the more I’ve realised that it’s not about the yardages but about making the scoring opportunities even. Trying to achieve that is a fun test, but it’s also a difficult one. For example, if you’ve got a tough par-4, it’s got to be tough for both sexes, the same for short par-4s and mid-range ones.
“Last year [at Ullna Golf and Country Club in Österäker, Sweden], there were so many doglegs that the women’s shorter yardage was largely useless. Everyone was hitting to the same spot from where the men had 9-iron into the green and the women had 6-iron.”
An anonymous DP World Tour caddie recently published The Secret Tour Caddy, a diary of the 2023 season, and he makes a similar point. He wrote of the conundrum at Ullna: “If they stick pins on the small tiers or have lots of front pins [both of which require more spin on the ball to get close to the hole], that would 100% favour the men.”
Said Whitaker: “Part of the issue is that staying at one venue would help get the recipe right because they could build each year on lessons learned. The reality is that the tournament wants to move around the country, and that’s their right. But the tournament directors want feedback. They’re very open. It’s a good process.”
An Australian, Whitaker is a regular attendee of the Vic Open at 13th Beach Golf Links near Melbourne, Victoria, which hosts the men’s and women’s events on the same courses in the same week, with the pairings alternating between the two sexes.
What differences has Whitaker observed between the two events? “At the Vic Open, it’s more about how the two different fields take on a course. There’s a little more anxiety this week. People are more invested in the length of holes. It’s a bit more subjective.”
The Sunningdale Foursomes, a unique male/female, amateur/pro tournament that is a traditional seasonal opener in the U.K., also comes to mind. There is even a connection because Grant won it in 2019 alongside compatriot Maja Stark.
At Sunningdale, male pros play off plus-one, male amateurs scratch, female pros 2 and female amateurs 3, but this latter figure was 4 until 2023. It was the success of Grant and Stark, plus this year’s Augusta National Women’s Amateur champion Lottie Woad and Rachel Gourley in 2022, that prompted the change when it was observed that female amateurs are now good enough – and in the particular case of those two pairings, mentally strong enough – to use the shots ruthlessly.
The tweak was a simple example of the officials being open to keeping a popular dynamic fresh and relevant. (Although, as GGP’s Lewine Mair wryly noted, it was perhaps typical that two wins by women’s pairs forced change rather than the many more wins by male and mixed duos.)
The Sunningdale event is a festival of golf and a celebration of the game’s possibilities, which is what the Scandinavian Mixed is attempting to replicate.
Some, of course, disagree. “Is it really fair?” asked daniel.bronowski beneath the Instagram post featuring Eriksson. “Imagine a woman runs against Usain Bolt and has a 15-meter lead. She wins the race because she finishes one meter ahead of Usain Bolt. In the interview she then says, ‘I was the fastest.’ Was she really the fastest?”
Asking questions of the setup is fine, but the imaginary woman might have said: “I won a handicap race and I am chuffed.” It’s all moot, however. No LET player would win the Scandinavian Mixed and announce she is a better golfer than everyone else in the field. They’re not daft, and it isn’t what the event is about.
The Secret Tour Caddy wrote about the LET players in the field: “Their lives are quite different. And as ever it’s down to money. There must be some envious glances at the DP World Tour players the next time they tee it up because the winner will get around €360,000 [about $390,000] whereas the next time the ladies tee it up they play for a total prize fund of just €300,000 [about $325,000].
“Not a single DP World Tour player will be doing shifts in Amazon in the off-season; but that won’t be the same for some LET players. This makes the week arguably way, way more important for the ladies than the men.”
He shrewdly concludes: “So the money may be the same, and the course may be set up to offer the same challenge to both men and women, but come Thursday morning the pressure to do well definitely isn’t the same.”
Whitaker agrees that, for reasons of finance and exposure, this is a vital week for Europe’s women golfers, but she is also realistic. “As far as the setup is concerned, pro golfers and fans will moan about a setup every week,” she said. “And, look: There are no fairytale notions from me that everyone will like the concept. It’s fine if some people don’t like it.
“I just hope the men appreciate what a positive impact this is having on the women’s game and can feel good about being part of something bigger.”
E-MAIL MATT
Top: Sweden's Henrik Stenson and Annika Sörenstam played host to the inaugural 2021 Scandinavian Mixed.
LUKE WALKER, GETTY IMAGES