Former LPGA Tour professional athlete Amy Olson has claimed it would be “unfair” for transgender golfer Hailey Davidson to potentially win a card to the women’s main tour.
Davidson, a transgender golfer born in Scotland, completed the first stages of LPGA Tour Q-School over the weekend, securing her spot for the next phase in October.
Davidson, originally from Ayrshire but based in Florida, became the first male golfer to win a minor league championship three years ago and has declared her intention to “make Scotland proud” by earning a card on the LPGA Tour despite strong competition.
Davidson almost qualified for the US Women’s Open in June.
On Monday, Olson, who has twice finished runner-up in major championships in her 10 seasons on Tour, vented her frustration on social media.
“These women have worked too hard and too long to stand by and watch a man compete for and take their place. The only fair way forward is a policy based on sex, not gender.”
Davidson recently defended himself on social media: “I will never understand when athletes attribute their own athletic failures to a transgender participant,” Davidson wrote on Instagram. “If you don’t take responsibility for your failures, you will never be good enough to make it.”
Davidson raced as a man in 2015 before undergoing hormone therapy. She denied allegations that she had gained an unfair advantage, arguing that the driver’s course is now 30 yards shorter than it was before the sex change.
Davidson would not be the first transgender golfer to play at the highest level of women’s tennis, after Danish golfer Mianne Bagger was awarded a card to the Ladies European Tour in 2004 after convincing the LET to change its “female at birth” membership rule.
However, the 58-year-old called for restrictions on the participation of transgender women in women’s sports.
“I’m perceived as a somewhat hypocritical voice, so I just have to take the abuse,” Bagger said in 2022. “I still think there could be access for gender-conforming women into women’s sports … (but) I just don’t agree with the current, watered-down policies that require less and less medical intervention for a male-bodied person entering women’s sports.”
