I remember an article I read, oh, many, many years ago. I don’t remember the source but it said that given 100 fit men and 100 fit women, the top 3 women might be able to beat the bottom 3 men.
Vijah Singh caught all kinds of flak for saying essentially the same thing about female golfers. Annika Sorenstam was the Godzilla of women’s golf at the time.
They were batting around the idea of having her compete with men. Singh stepped up and said he didn’t think it was a good idea. Some of the things done to courses to make them competitive for PGA events are barbaric. They don’t do those things in prep for an LPGA event.
They went ahead and invited her, and I think Sorenstam ended up either at the bottom or very nearly the bottom.
It was almost exactly as you say.