Catriona Matthew makes call for equal pay in majors

Catriona Matthew has called for equal pay in the men’s and women’s Open and US Open championships.

Speaking to the BBC, the European Solheim Cup captain said that such a move could help to bridge the equality gulf that exists between the men’s and women’s games.

“You are seeing much more [women’s] golf on television but there is still a huge gulf between the top men and ladies,” Matthew told BBC Sport.

“It’s the chicken and the egg and it’s whether you need the money coming into the game before the TV coverage, or the other way around.

“If they could make the US Open and the British Open equal money for men and women, it would probably make other tournaments look at it.”

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Matthew will miss the US Women’s Open – which takes place at the Country Club of Charleston in South Carolina next week – for the first time since 2009. As has been the case for the last two years, the winner will take home $900,000 of the $5,000,000 prize fund.

The purse for the men’s event, which gets underway in three weeks at Pebble Beach, has yet to be confirmed but it is unlikely to be less than last year’s championship, which carried a $12,000,000 purse, of which the winner took home $2,160,000. Even the runner-up of the men’s US Open earned more last year than the winner of the women’s equivalent.

On this side of the Atlantic, the disparity is even more stark.

Francesco Molinari  took home $1,890,000 from a total prize fund of $10,500,000 after winning the 2018 Open at Carnoustie, as compared with Women’s British Open champion Georgia Hall, who received just $490,000 from a purse of $3,250,000 just two weeks later.