Stuff Golf Women (White or Otherwise) Like

You've all seen it. Someone sent you the link at work, and you read it despite your fear that your boss or some such would notice what you were looking at and decide you must be some kind of racist. Well never fear, it's an Internet phenomenon, and you're not the only one enjoying this particular guilty pleasure: The Stuff White People Like blog.

It's such a hit that it's spawning spinoffs left and right, from Stuff Asian People Like, to Stuff White Trash People Like, even Stuff Unimaginative Bloggers Like. All popular for one good reason: They give people a chance to poke fun at themselves.

I've never been one to eschew a perfectly good bandwagon, especially considering the $300,000 Random House book deal that Stuff White People Like just landed its author. So here goes: Stuff Golf Women (White or Otherwise) Like:

• Golf lessons. No one loves golf lessons like us ladies. Some of us are known to get one every week, yet mysteriously never really improve. Male golfers consider themselves self-made, and the thought of getting a lesson makes their blood pressure rise. "They'll try to rebuild my swing!" Men have to get past their egos to even consider letting someone lend a little constructive criticism. Women on the other hand have no such hang-ups - we love having our swings analyzed and tweaked, the more the better. We go through teaching pros like most guys go through Titleists. Maybe, we think, the next one will get me to a single-digit handicap!

• Golf rules. If you were to do a survey, you'd find that nine out of 10 dentists prefer Crest, and nine out of 10 Rules Nazis are women. No one follows the rules more strictly than the group on the second tee on Ladies Day. I'm not sure why, but ladies just aren't as forgiving as their male counterparts when it comes to gimmes and mulligans. Go to any women's golf advice column, and the questions being asked are almost all rules-related. As in, "My partner picked up her ball and cleaned it and she wasn't even on the green! Should she have forfeited the hole, the match, or her firstborn child?" They say women aren't as competitive as men, but they're wrong. We're competitive all right, and no one, absolutely no one is getting an unfair advantage on our watch.

• Bathrooms. Women love potty parity, and since we can't really pee in the woods as gracefully as the guys, we like our golf courses to offer plenty of bathrooms. Clean ones, preferably placed every three to four holes. If the bathrooms have potpourri and are decorated in muted colors and floral prints, so much the better. You won't hear many women commenting one way or another if a golf course has a sufficient number of potties, but if there's a lack, you won't hear about anything else.

• Golf clothes (the cute kind). We hate looking dowdy, a message golfwear designers didn't get until about three years ago. Thank goodness, there are now plenty of flattering, sporty clothes to pick from. The funny thing is, we generally don't dress to impress you fellas; it's our female partners we want to wow. As in, "Wow, where did you find that adorable skort?" Guys like to impress each other with their long drives. Women are duly impressed by a good drive, but even more so by a cute, well-fitting outfit. As I said before, we're competitive, all right. We won't settle for being the best golfer in the group - we also want to be the best-dressed golfer.

• Annika Sorenstam. Many women golfers don't actually follow professional women's golf and couldn't tell you the difference between Lorena Ochoa and Carolina Llano, let alone differentiate between the LPGA's many Lees and Kims, but we've all heard of Annika Sorenstam. We know a few basics: she's Swedish, she's blond, and she's the best. Despite her recent back injuries, she's in the news again this year, having picked up a win in her first tournament of the season, February's SBS Open. She carries the torch for women's golf, and we love her for it.

• Caddies. Women like caddies the way men like the beer cart girl. And it's not just about eye candy, it's about service. We're suckers for a courtly male squiring us around, carrying our clubs, pacing off our yardage, and searching for our lost ball. It makes us feel championed, like the princesses we all know we are deep down inside. And while the presence of a fit male in his late teens to early twenties might add to first-tee jitters, it also provides that extra little incentive to play better - you don't want to duck hook with an additional pair of eyes watching.

Any opinions expressed above are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the management.