SINGAPORE - Much has changed in the women's golf game since a 20-year-old Pak Se-ri burst onto the scene in 1998, winning the LPGA Championship and US Women's Open in her rookie season.

The LPGA Tour now boasts a diverse range of talents as golfers from around the world battle for titles throughout the year - the past 16 Majors have produced 13 different winners from seven countries.

Leveraging on its international appeal has been successful for the LPGA. This season it will offer a record total prizemoney of US$75million (S$102 million) from 33 events.

Yet, the figure is not even a fifth of the US$400 million that will be offered in the men's PGA Tour 2019/2020 campaign, which has 49 events.

The lack of progress to bridge this gap over the past 22 years surprises Pak. When the South Korean joined the LPGA in 1998, its purse was US$27.68 million while the PGA's was US$96.05 million.

The five-time Major champion urged sponsors to step up and support women's golf.

Pak, who was in the Republic on Friday (Jan 17) for the launch of the inaugural Hana Financial Group Singapore Women's Open and is part of the tournament's organising committee, told The Straits Times: "The ladies and men pretty much have the same schedule; we have a lot of tournaments, same scheduling and (amount of) travelling.

"When (Swedish great) Annika (Sorenstam) and me (were playing), it seemed like the LPGA was getting bigger globally, with many players from different countries competing.

"Every Tour, the prizemoney went up, but it dropped 10 years ago (due to the economic recession) but it's slowly getting better."

The discrepancy is often attributed to the difference in eyeballs that men's and women's golf draw.

Last year's Women's British Open final round had an average viewership of 1.19 million per minute. Figures for the men's British Open was about 3.72 million.

The former's prizemoney was US$4.5 million, the latter was US$10.75 million.

The gender wage gap has been a perennial issue across various sports, with the likes of the United States' women's football team - who captured their fourth world title last year - among the biggest advocates for reforms.

Last year's Women's World Cup football competition had US$30 million in prizemoney while the 2018 men's tournament offered US$400 million.

There has however, been some headway, particularly in tennis.

After years of athletes lobbying for equal pay, all four Grand Slam tournaments have paid equal prizemoney to its male and female players since 2007.

Pak, 42, hopes her sport will also move in the same direction and said the diverse and global nature of women's golf was an attractive product for potential sponsors.

Ultimately, she said, the goal was to advance not only women's golf but women's sport.