Scottish transgender golfer sets sights on LPGA ‘dream’ after winning women’s event

Three years ago Hailey Davidson became the first male-born golfer to win a professional women’s event

A Scottish-born transgender golfer has addressed her distant dream of earning a Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tour card after winning a tournament in Florida.

Hailey Davidson, the first male-born golfer to win a professional women’s event three years ago, claimed the top prize at the NXXT Women’s Classic at Howey-in-the-Hills.

However, in a social media post hitting back at critics, she explained there remains “a lot of work to be done” before she can join the LPGA Tour, which is “incredibly far off”.

The NXXT, formerly the East Coast Women’s Pro Golf Tour, has a partnership with the Epson Tour, a developmental feeder tour for the LPGA. But having previously been criticised in recent years by the likes of Judy Murray and other campaigners for women’s sport, Davidson was quick to dismiss suggestions she is now close to fulfilling her tour ambition.

“It’s always interesting how no one gets angry until there is any form of success,” she posted on Instagram following her “amazing” win. She added that she is “so incredibly far from the LPGA Tour with a lot of work to be done to possibly earn my way there one day”.

Although the top five earners on the NXXT points list should in theory earn two exemptions into Epson Tour fields, the NXXT fields are currently short of a minimum stipulation that 10 events must have an average of 40 players. Davidson, who has previously said she wants to “make Scotland proud” by participating in elite tournaments, beat 24 players in the latest three-round event which ended on January 17.

Murray, the leading Scottish tennis coach and mother of former world No 1 Andy Murray, claimed in 2022 that Davidson’s ongoing participation was “wrong”.

But Davidson has been backed by Dame Laura Davies, Britain’s most successful female golfer. She said Davidson had met the requirements set by the LPGA and should therefore be allowed to compete.

The 30-year-old, originally from Stair in Ayrshire but now based in Florida, has suggested criticism of her is motivated by bigotry rather than a desire to protect fair competition.

She began hormone therapy in 2015, the year she last competed as a male, and has undergone gender-reassignment surgery. Davidson rejects claims she has an unfair advantage over golfers born as women, claiming she lost 30 yards from her drive as a result of hormone treatment. She has said other professional female golfers can hit the ball further than she can.

‘I don’t agree with the current, softened policies’ 

Other sports have announced increased protections for women’s sport in recent years, but Davidson would not be the first transgender golfer to play on one of the top tours. In 2004 Mianne Bagger qualified for the Ladies European Tour.

Born a male in Copenhagen, Bagger began playing golf as an eight-year-old and was considered such a good prospect that by the time she was 14 she was photographed at a golf clinic alongside Greg Norman.

But by her mid-20s she had given up the game and was transitioning to a female with hormone therapy. Bagger had a sex change operation three years later and by the age of 37 had persuaded the LET to change its “female at birth” membership rule. She duly went through qualifying school and spent a number of years on Tour, recording a few top 10s, and being widely accepted by her fellow pros, including Dame Laura.

But, now 57, Bagger believes there should be limits on transgender women competing in female sports. “I’m seen as a bit of a hypocritical voice, so I just have to take the abuse,” Bagger said in 2022. “I still think there could be access for transitioned women to women’s sport… [but] I just don’t agree with the current, softened policies that are requiring less and less medical intervention of a male-bodied person entering women’s sport.”

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