Divide between men and women golfers is ludicrous asAnnika Sorenstam showed

The Charles Schwab Challenge heralds the return of the PGA Tour and, boasting 18 of the world’s top 25 players, it is understandably being billed as the most notable edition in the event’s 74-year existence.

Except 2020 does have a rival in Colonial Country Club’s history and in the week Justin Rose has blazed a trail in reaching out to the women’s game, Annika Sorenstam’s gender-breaking experience in 2003 has added resonance.

As a fan who happened to be visiting a friend in Fort Worth, I was there on that famous Thursday morning when the 32-year-old stepped up for her opening drive.

The tension was as palpable as I have ever felt on a golf course. With a crowd of 50,000 it was just the second time Colonial had sold out, the first being in 1997 when Tiger Woods had teed up in just his second event following his stunning Masters breakthrough.

And, as if the spotlight did not glare intensely enough on the Swede – as the first female to play on the PGA Tour in 58 years – that nice man Vijay Singh had sent a few more thousand watts surging into the filament. “She doesn’t belong out here,” Singh had barked in the build-up. “It’s ridiculous. Hope she misses the cut.”

The scene was thus set – and so it rattled in anticipation. I recall seeing one man climbing a tree for a better vantage point. In one sense, the scenario resembled the first tee at a Ryder Cup, but then it was also wildly different, as the atmosphere was of angst, not hope. Eerie was the word.

Sorenstam later revealed that after struggling to put the ball on the tee, she had turned to speak to caddie Terry McNamara. “My lips moved but no words came out,” she said. The clips on YouTube show her laughing at the surrealness of it all.

Here was a 43-time winner on the LPGA Tour, with a competitive 59 already in her locker, petrified at the prospect of hitting a four-wood. At that moment, Sorenstam realised she was not merely playing for herself and, as photographers packed inside the ropes, the comments of the eventual champion, Kenny Perry, suddenly rang true. “She’s going to have Tiger Woods’s media,” Perry said. “I don’t think she really knows what she’s getting herself into. I certainly wouldn’t want to be in her shoes on that first tee.”

Well, Sorenstam nailed it and as it boomed down the fairway, effected a comedy wobble with her buckling legs. She was off and although Singh’s wish was eventually granted, she only fell short by four shots despite an awful time on the greens, with 20 left behind her.

“I went on to win a lot of tournaments and six more majors in the next few years, and I honestly feel my ability to rise to those occasions was due to me overcoming my nerves on that opening tee at Colonial,” Sorenstam told the Golf Channel. “It was a turning point in my career.”

Yet what did Colonial mean to the women’s game at large? Inevitably people wanted more of the same, with Michelle Wie providing the freak-show attraction in a string of increasingly ill-advised PGA Tour excursions.

In truth, it never should have been about that. Sorenstam had simply proven that the sisters could truly play and the unprecedented exposure should have led to female tours blossoming.

And in the good times, the LPGA Tour did exactly that, but here we are now, in a worldwide crisis and while the men get to compete for $7.5million (£5.8m) this week, the women have to wait for their cash-strapped circuits to reactivate. The divide is ludicrous and sadly stinks of Singh’s attitude.

Thank goodness, therefore, for Rose and his wife, Kate, realising that Britain’s female pros have nowhere to play and for establishing and funding the seven-tournament Rose Ladies Series. Sure the top men can beat the top women, but they can help them, too, and now it might even soon be classed as their duty. The women also belong out there.

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