I keep hearing talk that the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year Awards don’t matter and that it was much better in the old days.
Well, for a ceremony that nobody cares about anymore, it doesn’t half get spoken and written about a lot.
Social media and the mainstream media always have plenty of debate about who gets nominated, who doesn’t, which sports get too much attention and which ones get ignored.
The golfer Georgia Hall definitely has a strong case that her achievement didn’t get the respect it deserved.
A Brit winning our Open is a big deal, whether it’s a man or a woman.
It doesn’t happen often and certainly warrants more than 10 seconds on SPOTY and a place on the shortlist for the main award.
I’m sure there’s probably something in the fact that the BBC has pulled back from televising live golf but there must be more to it than that.
You could almost understand it more if it was one of the older players like Laura Davies or Catriona Matthew who had been snubbed but this is a 22-year-old young woman who ticks every marketing box.
From what I’m told she’s a really down to earth girl who is dedicated to her sport – basically an ideal role model for young golfers.
The worrying thing for me is that if Georgia isn’t making a big cross-over impact, who can?
I love my golf and I must admit Georgia didn’t come straight into my mind when I was thinking about who had a great 2018 in sport.
PR is a definite problem for golf and women’s golf in particular.
And, unfortunately, I can’t see it improving any time soon.
I’ve been at Scottish Opens in the past and they have to give tickets away – and when you look at the galleries, it’s not young girls who are coming, it’s middle-aged married couples.
Golf has to try and lower the age profile of the sport but you can only do so much.
Compare it with netball, for example, which did really well at SPOTY and seems to have had a genuine bounce from England’s World Cup success.
Having Gary Neville’s sister as coach helps, no doubt, but so does the fact that every girl and woman in the country will have played a bit of netball at some point in their life.
The truth is, a lot of people have never played golf and never will.
That doesn’t excuse the fact that Georgia was left off the list because it was a huge achievement winning the Open but it does mean that golfers will always have an uphill battle to win a popularity contest.
* I’m really happy with the way our last two weeks have gone.
It definitely feels like we’ve taken a big step forward.
We didn’t bring back a title but the progress is there and when you’re starting to beat teams like Hasselborg and Homan you know things are moving in the right direction.
My brothers Thomas and Glen finished third in their latest tournament so we’ll all be happy back home for Christmas this year!
