Annika Sorenstam, the 32-year-old Swede who won 11 events on the women's Tour in the US last year, will play alongside the men in the Colonial Tournament in Texas next month; the first woman to play in a men's PGA Tour event since the remarkable amateur Babe Zaharias qualified for the Los Angeles Open in 1945.Sorenstam did not qualify, she was invited, and it was one of a dozen invites she received after revealing her interest in playing against men. Later in the year Suzy Whaley, a club professional from Connecticut, will compete with the top male stars in the Greater Hartford Open.For both, distance off the tee will be a major disadvantage. But that is not a problem young Wie is going to face, and one of the more important aspects of Wie's development so far is that she spent most of her early days competing against boys and men. Her size and athleticism are as remarkable as her golfing ability. It is a point tirelessly prosecuted in this space that if we genuinely want to promote women's sport we must encourage girls to play with boys – and the only way to ensure that is to play one game.While women remain separate within the clubs they do belong to, with their own administration, their own competitions, their own tees and stroke indices, it is easy to regard them as a different entity and easier to keep them at arms' length in a scene traditionally dominated by men. Long before Burk recognised it as a promising cause, women were making determined attempts to batter down some of golf's most impregnable male bastions.

But trying to muscle in on the male preserves is not the tactic. If women want to get out of their golfing ghetto they should just leave it, instead of continually banging their heads against the walls that protect many of our clubs from the realities of life.It is not enough to blaze away at the custodians of the game.

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"Blazer-wearing bigots" is the clich?sed by the politically correct school of journalism to describe golf officials, and it may well be a fitting description in many cases. As a former captain of a club, I have had my share of this controversy and I have been called all the names but, rightly or wrongly, my only concern was the interests of the club.Golf is a slave to traditions and rules, many of which seem ridiculous. It is also the best-run, the most disciplined and the most sporting of any of the major games. Could you have that proud reputation without the downsides? That's the question that the stuffy old farts everywhere want to answer very slowly and deliberately.

Maligned as Augusta National is, the club have made a massive contribution to the game's continuing fascination, and we in the UK and Europe have particular reason to recognise that the US Masters had more to do with the explosion of golf's popularity here in the Eighties and Nineties than any other single factor. Watching Sandy Lyle, Nick Faldo (twice) and Ian Woosnam win the title for four consecutive years between 1988 and 1991 inspired countless numbers to take up the game, which now flourishes like few others.None of that absolves Augusta National from the need to modernise their attitudes. But forcing them to elect some rich dame from Arizona as a token lady will solve nothing and lead nowhere The answer lies in bringing equality through the game The Wies of the future will achieve that Burk is barking up the wrong tee.. Nick Faldo, having beaten the cut – and finished the second round of the Masters two shots better than the only other winner of three green jackets left in the field, somebody called Woods – went straight to the putting green. He worked for more than an hour with a specialist on the alignment of the human eye, a Swede named Kjiell Enhanger, and his coach, Jeremy Bennett.