It’s the Annika Driven by Gainbridge tournament this week, one of the most high-profile events on the LPGA Tour, and today’s pro-am is attracting more attention than usual because basketball star Caitlin Clark is competing.
I realise basketball is not a big thing in the UK, and unlike golf, it’s not a sport that I follow globally, but I keep hearing talk of the ‘Caitlin Clark effect’ and at just 22-years-old, her rise to fame has been phenomenal.
In case you don’t know, she’s regarded as one of the greatest collegiate players of all time, scoring over 3,900 points, more than any male or female. This year, she broke the WNBA’s single-season and single-game assist records and scored the most points by a professional rookie ever as Indiana Fever’s draft pick.
By the sound of it, she excels at golf too - I’m not jealous at all! It’s great that she’s helping to draw more attention to a women’s golf event, but it’s also a shame that it takes a young basketball player to generate extra women’s golf TV coverage.
It’s reported that the LPGA and the tournament's social media will live stream Clark's warm-up on the range, plus there’ll be an in-round walk-and-talk interview. The Golf Channel is shifting its schedule, moving Golf Today up by 90 minutes to include highlights and live check-ins of Clark’s round. She’s teeing off with World No. 1 Nelly Korda, then playing the back nine with 10-time Major champ and tournament host Annika Sorenstam.
The ‘Caitlin Clark Effect’ has completely shaken up women's basketball - boosting TV ratings, attendance, merch sales, and endorsement deals. Much like in golf, her rise has also sparked conversations about the glaring inequality between men’s and women’s sports contracts.
What does one of our top female golfers have to do to create the same impact on women’s golf? Nelly Korda gave it a good go when earlier this year she became the third woman in LPGA Tour history to claim five consecutive victories. Yes, she created a buzz around the women’s game, everyone was anticipating whether she could make it six in a row, but the ‘Nelly Korda Effect’ fell short of what Clark has achieved for women’s basketball in a short space of time.
It all comes down to numbers. Earlier this year, prior to being signed up by Indiana Fever, Clark helped attract an audience of 20m people to women’s college basketball. Even the peak audience figures for men’s golf pale in comparison to the basketball viewership so it’s no easy task to achieve the same impact.
It doesn’t help that golf is an individual sport because it’s easier to get behind a player who is also part of a team, but we can keep plugging away. Bring on the ‘Charley Hull Effect’, that’s what I say!
Women's Editor Golf Monthly