U.S. Women's Open winner Juli Inkster is "not
complaining about the $315,000 she earned" for winning the
event, but she does "wonder about the disparity between her
champion's check and the $625,000" won by U.S. Open champion
Payne Stewart, according to Leonard Shapiro of the
WASHINGTON POST. Inkster said she would "like to see the
gap narrowed" between PGA and LPGA purses, adding that it's
"discouraging" that after winning "the biggest check in the
history of women's golf ... we're not playing for as much
money." Inkster: "I think we [in the LPGA] need TV revenue,
that's where it's at. The only way to get it is that male
CEOs have to get off their behinds and watch us play a
little bit" (WASHINGTON POST, 6/24).
SAME PAY, DIFFERENT STORY? The WALL STREET JOURNAL's
Frederick Klein writes on pay equality in tennis, and says
it's an issue "that will be decided not by pros and cons but
by yeas and nays, the latter being the voice of the tennis-
watching public, and, there, the women have been persuasive
of late" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 6/25). The CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
MONITOR's Suman Bandrapalli writes that the debate over
equal pay in tennis "has rumbled for years, ... now it's
sizzling" (CSM, 6/25). In Toronto, Tom Tebbutt writes that
"it makes sense to consider tennis' Grand Slams like ... the
Olympics. Even though there isn't prize money at the
Olympics, there's no difference between men and women when
it comes to awarding medals" (GLOBE & MAIL, 6/25).
