Every summer, during most of the four rounds of the Amundi Evian Championship in France, a major tournament in women’s professional golf since 2013, Evelyn Bayle and Agnès Meneghel do not hit a single shot, nor offer a single word of advice to the players.
Even so, the women, friends for more than 30 years, see themselves as part of the game. They are what are called starters, the announcers who read out the names of the golfers at the first hole of each round.
Meneghel, 55, and Bayle, 65, will be back at Evian this week, after the 2020 tournament was canceled because of the pandemic.