Chris Hanson’s gender-equal 2020protour to resume play at Cleckheaton

Hanson and Walker’s vision with the 2020protour was to give women an equal footing with men in a golf tournament.

Same prize money to play for, same terms of competition, same respect paid from tournament to players and vice-versa.

The only difference would be the placement of the tees.

“Women play the course a minimum 11 per cent shorter than the men’s tees,” explained Hanson, of a tour that was launched in March.

“We’ve done a bit of research from playing with women on good golf courses and the difference is massive. The biggest thing we found with set-up is that par-fives are just not fair. If a man can reach a par-five in two, the female player has to have a chance of reaching the green in two as well.”

So far so good.

Sixty-two players played the inaugural 2020protour event at Crosland Heath in March. Ten of them were women. Sixty-five competed two days later at neighbouring Huddersfield Golf Club. Again, more than 10 per cent of the field were women.

Then sport went into lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic and huge uncertainty engulfed the golfing calendar.

The Open is gone, the Masters rescheduled for November and the Ryder Cup is in doubt.

The men’s European Tour has been rescheduled to begin behind-closed-doors in July but there is little information coming out about when the Ladies European Tour will resume.

Which means the return of Hanson and Walker’s 2020protour at Cleckheaton next Monday (June 8) takes on added significance.

“Overnight we had 40 entries,” Hanson tells The Yorkshire Post.

Present count is 92 entries for next week’s event, including European Tour regulars Dave Horsey, Matthew Baldwin and of a more local persuasion, John Parry, Joe Dean, Nick Marsh and Marcus Armitage.

Meg MacLaren, a two-time winner on the Ladies European Tour and longtime activist for women’s equality in golf, leads a female contingent that includes Scotland’s Carly Booth and Amy Boulden from Wales.

Initially the 2020protour was set up primarily for golfers in the north of England, but such is the desperation of some players to get going again, Hanson and Walker have been inundated with interest on the resumption of their tour.

“We were due to start in February but the flooding issuesin the region knocked the first two events back, which actually worked well for us, and the Covid shutdown has also meant that with other tours getting cancelled, people have joined up with us. People are just itching to play.”

Particularly amongst women, which was the driving factor behind the 2020protour’s launch.

“If you think about the ladies game there’s nothing for them to play. You’ve got the Ladies European Tour and the Access Series, which are both expensive and around Europe,” said Hanson, considering membership to his tour is £119 for the year with tournament entries costing just £99 for the one round.

“Below that you’ve got the Santander Tour in Spain and it’s ridiculous money, but there’s nothing in the UK to play.

“So we’ve set this up. A lot of other tours said females could play in their events but for some of them they are playing off the same tees which is unfair.

“I played in a gender equal event in Jordan on the Challenge Tour last year. The idea with that event was that you would be hitting a similar club into the green; you might not be both from 150 yards in but if a man is hitting an eight-iron in, the lady should be hitting an eight-iron in.

“We did a player survey at our first event, first question was are you happy with our equitable policy? Three people said they were on the fence, everyone else said they were happy.

“We also speak to the guys at each event to make sure they’re happy with where the female tees are because it’s got to be fair for the guys as well. It’s a learning curve but so far everyone appreciates that.

“The girls appreciate we are trying to make it as fair as possible. In some cases it probably can’t be, but we’re giving them the opporunity to play.

“The amount of women playing golf full stop is 14 per cent so to get a similar percentage to that playing on our tour is brilliant.”

Of equal importance right now is finding a course that will accommodate a tournament which will take up half a day’s allocation of tee-times when clubs are prioritising getting their members playing.

“Getting a golf course to agree to take us on and giving us enough tee time when there’s so much stress on getting members on is difficult,” agreed Hanson.

“Cleckheaton have been fantastic, they see it as an opportunity to promote the course and they’re really behind it, they’re putting 18 volunteers on to rake the bunkers etc.

“They’ve been amazing. We are the first tour to get back going. We expected some criticism, someone to say it’s too soon, but surprisingly we’ve had absolutely nothing.”

Next week’s event, and the following Monday’s at Oulton Hall in Leeds will be played according to the strict social distancing guidelines, meaning no fans and certain amendments to the course.

“We’re constantly in touch with the players about being respectful of the social distancing. At Oulton it’s a good chance it will be raised cups and bunkers ‘ground under repair’, but they have to appreciate that.

“On Monday at Cleckheaton it will be pick up a card, get your playing partner to sign it and then send us a photo of it.”

Hanson will not play in the event. Like many, the former European Tour player from Huddersfield is eager to get going again as he tries to maintain a living on the European Challenge Tour.

But his role as tournament director is more important than scratching the competitive itch, particularly as he also takes on social media responsibilities.

“We live streamed our first event on Facebook and got 18,500 views. Our event at Cleckheaton will be livestreamed as well,” he said. “We do all the social ourselves. We’ve had a lot of exposure on the gender equality. We’ve had a lot of support.”

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