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Mianne shows she's a cut above the rest! But can she bagger title in 2005?
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A word from the Editors - We recognise that the tale of Mianne Bagger calls for sensitive handling. It would be all too easy to make coarse, salacious jokes, but we wanted to uncover the real person behind the headlines.
So, once the hoopla of her qualification had died down, we sent our reporters to meet Mianne for an in-depth interview (below). Their immediate impression was of a lady who was knackered, but happy. |
November 27, 2004; Source: AnyoneForTee
Golfing first as 37 year old Danish transexual wins a place on Ladies European Tour!
Story by AnyoneForTee's Surgical Editor, Ivor Scalpel
Interview by Dave Snippet - Photographs by Katya Takelhof
TARANTO, ITALY. Almost ten years after undergoing "sexual reassignment surgery", a woman who was born a man has finshed tenth at the qualifying school and earned a coveted spot on the full Ladies European Tour (LET) for 2005, where she will compete with the likes of Annika Sörenstam and Laura Davies, who have both tried their luck on the men's tour.
Her participation at Q-school was made possible after the LET followed the International Olympic Committee's example by dropping the "female at birth" definition of a woman.
Mianne Bagger was born Michael Bagger in Denmark on Christmas Day, 1966. During her youth her family moved several times, from Denmark to England and back, and then to Australia. She took up golf at the age of eight at the same time as her father, and played until she was twenty-three, achieving a very respectable 4 handicap.
But as her golf improved, her personal life became increasingly uncomfortable. "I have always known there was something different about me since I was young, we are born this way. You certainly don't go through surgery lightly," she says. Finally she took the decision to begin the process of transforming herself from a man to a woman.
 "I played 5 rounds of golf over the next 5 years while I was going through my transition, hormones, surgery and getting used to my new identity," she explains. Then, in 1998, she took up 'social golf' again and began to enjoy it. She entered an amateur tournament and won it. She went on to win the South Australian State Championship for amateurs in 1999, 2001 and 2002 and achieved a handicap of 1, finally turning pro in 2003 by joining the Danish PGA.
In her first major outing as a pro, she failed to qualify for the final two rounds of the 2004 Women's Australian Open in March, but persevered and determined to come to the LET Q-school where, after six qualifying rounds and a four over par total, she finished tenth overall and won her card. Here is the extremely revealing and exclusive interview she gave us afterwards.
AnyoneForTee: Mianne, congratulations! How does it feel to have made it through Q-school? They always say it sorts the men from the boys.
Mianne Bagger: It feels great. But there were no men out there, much less any boys. Just us girls.
AFT: You had a bad last round [she shot 77 - Ed]. Was it just nerves, or did you lose a couple of balls out there?
MB: I haven't lost a ball since 1995, thank you very much.
AFT: So you were just a Bagger nerves?
MB: There was a lot of pressure on me to perform here. I felt as though I was playing more than just the course and the other girls, with all the hype about me in the press.
AFT: So it was no snip?
MB: You could put it like that.
AFT: I bet you say that to all the boys. But I heard you sliced a couple out of bounds?
MB: You heard wrong.
AFT: You shot an excellent first round, however [a two under par 70 - Ed]. No boobs that I could see.
MB: I played well, yes.
AFT: What do you say to people who claim you have an unfair advantage over the other girls? After all, you were making the cut long before you came to Q-school.
 MB: Dr. Robert Lyons, who's a psychiatrist and head of the South Australian Gender Dysphoria Unit, says that I may not be genetically female, but I am hormonally female. My testosterone is only 1.8 nanomoles per litre. For a male, normal testosterone is from 8.5 to 30 nanomoles per liter and for females the range is 0-3.7. So if anything, I'm testosterone deficient. It simply is not true that I have extra strength. I have lost muscle mass and muscle strength after my sexual reassignment and hormone therapy. So now I am about as strong as a normal pre-menopausal woman.
AFT: Nanomoles? Aren't they some kind of very small burrowing animal? What have they got to do with it?
MB: Why don't you just crawl back into your hole? I refuse to answer that.
AFT: So you don't think your gender will be on the agenda next year?
MB: There are no issues with my gender. I'm a girl, ask anyone from the LET.
AFT: It's rather ironic, isn't it, that in order to become a member of the Ladies' Tour, you had to lose your member?
 MB: I'm getting a little tired of this.
AFT: Do you think length matters? Driving, of course.
MB: As a matter of fact, I am much shorter than most of the girls out here. My drives average only just over 200 yards, whereas my golfing idols like Karrie Webb, Laura Davies and Annika Sorenstam hit it 260 to 270.
 AFT: So how do you manage to keep up?
MB: I have a very tidy short game, and I putt well, that's really the secret of my game.
AFT: So you're a bit of an Artful Todger round the greens?
MB: If you wish to put it that way.
AFT: As the actresss said to the bishop... Mianne, you used to be an engineer, and worked for 16 years on the design of high-end sound speakers for movie theaters. Do you miss your woofer and your tweeters?
MB: Not at all. My dream and my goal is to play professional golf, play tour golf. I am a bit of a torchbearer, and it has taken me a long time to be this way. Fighting for the rights of transsexual women and fighting for a cause isn't really why I'm out there. I'm out there to play golf.
AFT: Your mother, Mette, says that when you were young the whole family were golf-nuts. Obviously the nuts bit has gone, but how is your relationship today with your parents?
MB: My mother says she still has her child, and that's the main thing. My father, Morten, sometimes forgets himself and calls me by my former name, and to strangers he will say his son passed away. But in private he says that he has gained a daughter, someone who is perceived as a very kind, very open, very helpful, very accommodating girl.
 AFT: Indeed, I could accomodate you.
MB: In your dreams, buddy.
AFT: You look pretty fit and trim. Do you work out a lot?
MB: I've only recently started to go to the gym again. That may seem surprising for an athletic, competitive person who hopes to be, someday, one of the best golfers in the world. But you see, for me, for all transsexual women, the last thing you want to do is bulk up. There is just that fear of looking masculine. It is the last thing we want to do, and it has always been a fear of mine.
AFT: So instead of pumping iron, you've been doing the ironing?
MB: That's a typically male, stupid remark, if you'll forgive me.
AFT: There was a famous picture of you in Golf World magazine when you were only 14, attending a Greg Norman clinic. Greg's a pretty macho sort of guy, what did he have to say to you? Did he tell you you'd have to work your balls off to become a pro?
 MB: He said nothing of the sort, he was very encouraging.
AFT: Mianne, you've had a hard time with the worst of the tabloid press. How do you react when you read headlines like The Sun's "She's a real cracker, but Ladies Tour is in turmoil over Bagger nuts!"
MB: It's childish. Society has changed. We should put these old-fashioned ideas behind us.
AFT: Talking of behinds...
MB: Don't you dare...
AFT: Let's talk about equipment. Show us your tackle.
MB: I'm warning you...
AFT: No, no, I mean have any manufacturers been especially keen to sponsor you on tour next year?
MB: Well, the people from Callaway were very kind and made me a generous offer, but after much thought I had to refuse.
AFT: Why?
MB: I just didn't feel comfortable at the idea of walking round with "Great Big Bertha" on my golf bag. I thought people might draw the wrong conclusions.
 AFT: So whose clubs will you be playing?
MB: I've decided to go with Taylor Made. They have some really cutting-edge technology which appeals to me, and they are promoting a line of ladies' clubs called 'Miscela', which means 'blend' or 'mixture' in Italian (pictured right). They felt I would the ideal person to represent them on tour, and I'm delighted to do so.
AFT: And your shafts? Stiff?
MB: Please... regular ladies flex is fine for my swing.
AFT: Your putter?
MB: An Odyssey Two Ball, of course. I'd feel lost without it.
 AFT: And shoes? If you'll forgive me, your feet are a litle larger than the average lady's.
MB: FootJoy are making me some very lovely MyJoys, which can be personalised ( picture left).
AFT: What size?
MB: That's none of your business.
AFT: Balls?
 MB: I beg your pardon?
AFT: What make of ball will you playing next season?
MB: The new Wilson Ti-DNA Womens. They have a softer feel, but give great distance.
AFT: Was the fact that they're called 'DNA' important to you?
MB: Do Not Ask.
AFT: And what about clothing? What kind of fashion  statement will Mianne Bagger be making on the tour?
MB: It had to be Cutter & Buck. I like the way their clothes are cut, and they felt the same about me - it was a natural fit. Together we are developing a ladies' range for their "Big and Tall" collection.
AFT: We've heard that you have also signed a deal with Gobra for some items of performance-enhancing intimate apparel. Can you tell us more about this?
MB: That is true, but I'm afraid I cannot comment further. I am doing some trials for them and I am not allowed to reveal the details until the technology has been fully field-tested. You'll have to ask Mr and Mrs King at Gobra.
AFT: Do you think the other ladies on tour will feel threatened or cheated by the fact that you are wearing items of underwear specifically designed for your, shall we say, unusual personal circumstances?
MB: They may say so, but it would be very hypocritical of them. You have no idea how many of the girls out there are secretly wearing Gobra underwear. They'll openly play a hi-tech golf club like the Gobra Twin Cup® Driver, but they don't like to admit that, because of their shape or size, they are resorting to a performance-enhancing brassiere. So we're really equal on that front.
AFT: Well, I'm not sure your front is quite equal to some of the girls...
MB: I've warned you before...
 AFT: Mianne. That's an unusual name.
MB: Not where I come from. There's even a joke about it.
AFT: I can believe that. Go on then, tell me.
MB: Knock, knock!
AFT: Who's there?
MB: Mianne.
AFT: Mianne who?
MB: Mianne a few of the girls are going to beat you up if you don't stop your stupid questions.
AFT: You haven't got the balls...
[Editor's note: At this point our interview came to an abrupt halt, but Dave is said to be making a good recovery in the Urological Unit of St. Thomas' Hospital.]
 To find out more about Gobra's involvement with Mianne, we talked to Joseph King (pictured left), Chairman and Chief Executive of Gobra Innovative Sports Equipment, and asked him to comment on the problems involved in designing high-performance sports underwear for transexuals:
"Transexual women were, of course, born as men, and after the operation the entire body's balance is altered: less weight down below and more up top and to the front, if I may put it like that.
"For someone who's spent much of their life as a man, this can be quite unsettling, even after many years, and for a professional sportswoman it could potentially prove ruinous when a precision movement, such as a golf swing, is called for.
"Gobra's patented Transexual Underwear Support System (TRUSS) helps to compensate for this by strategically transferring weight from the new front upper body through the brassiere straps to the wearer's back, and from there downwards, via an elasticated link, to the underpants, thus recreating the equilibrium which a formerly male body is used to. The straps and the elastic can be adjusted over time to allow the wearer to become progressively more used to the body's new balance. My wife, Diana, has become an expert in the "fine tuning" of this rather complex garment to the wearer's body.
 "Of course, for severe cases of post-operative disequilibrium, we also supply specially weighted underpants with adjustable lead inserts in the gusset, thus restoring the former male's lower centre of gravity which is lost during surgery.
 "In Mianne's case, however, this proved unneccessary, as she had found her own solution of carrying a spare golf ball in each pocket of her shorts [see picture left and, enlarged, right - Ed]. Crude, but ingenious and relatively effective, I have to admit!"
To celebrate Mianne's success in winning a place on the Ladies' European Tour, AnyoneForTee has commissioned a special song from 1960's pop idol Donovan (right), famous for his haunting "Mellow Yellow" hit. Click here to discover his version of Mianne's story.
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