This is the best analysis I've seen of what happened at 15, in the scorer's tent, in the committee meeting, and on teh interwebs Friday and Saturday. Way to go, Ruthless Mike!
Tiger's 4 shots back with 18 holes to go. He could still win this thing! I'll admit my opinion of Tiger the person has taken a huge hit, and it's affected my admiration of Tiger the golfer, but I would still love to see him take his next major title today!
Showing posts with label pedagogical challenges. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pedagogical challenges. Show all posts
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Dear Golf Channel
Hey there, Golf Channel! Lovin' your extra coverage of the LPGA Lotte Championship and of course I'm totally psyched that Ai Miyazato's tied for the lead at the halfway point.
I couldn't help but notice, though, that it took awhile for the commentators to come up with things to say about Ai-sama. Maybe tomorrow you might want to have them mention the following things:
So, yes, please keep talking about Ai-sama as one of the best on tour without a major, but why not get some stories from her on the driving range about some of these topics?
I couldn't help but notice, though, that it took awhile for the commentators to come up with things to say about Ai-sama. Maybe tomorrow you might want to have them mention the following things:
- Ai-sama's 65 today was her 1st sub-70 round in her last 10 starts, a huge slowdown from earlier this season, when she broke 70 in 9 of her 1st 12 starts. Even so, she's still 2nd in scoring average and 2nd in birdies per round, both to Ya Ni Tseng.
- Speaking of Tseng, she twice robbed Ai-sama of wins already this season. (Highlights welcome.)
- Ai-sama didn't finish out of the top 6 in her 1st 4 starts (despite struggling health-wise at times in that run).
- She just recently broke the $6M barrier in career earnings and is on a wins and winnings pace that's comparable to the likes of Paula Creamer and Suzann Pettersen.
- Coming from Okinawa, and winning 15 times on the JLPGA, she's pretty used to playing in the wind and definitely used to island golf.
So, yes, please keep talking about Ai-sama as one of the best on tour without a major, but why not get some stories from her on the driving range about some of these topics?
Friday, December 16, 2011
Editor's Note: A profile of Yani Tseng appears on pg. 74.
Man, those editors at Golf Magazine are quick with the comebacks! After LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan politely but resolutely roasted their ridiculous decision to name Rory McIlroy their Player of the Year instead of everyone's obvious choice, Ya Ni Tseng, they responded with the bon mot that I took for my title.
I can come up with several ways of slicing the tone of that little note. What do you got?
I'm leaning toward the last reading, given that the one line from the letter they chose to blow up in a graphic--"Yani certainly doesn't need me--or anyone else--to validate her position"--seems to suggest that Whan didn't need to write the letter and they didn't need to award her the POY.
Nicely done, editors of Golf Magazine. Well played!
[Update 1 (12/19/11, 4:30 pm): Armchair Golf has picked up this story; instead of focusing on the editors' anemic response, Neil summarizes Whan's letter and adds in telling supporting evidence that Whan didn't cite (like the fact that 96% of those Golf Magazine polled on Facebook thought Ya Ni should be POY!).]
I can come up with several ways of slicing the tone of that little note. What do you got?
- Move-it-along-nothing-to-see-here just-the-facts blaseness: "[Whistling casually] Thank you for your letter. Can we interest you in our table of contents?"
- Embarrassed defensiveness: "Hey, we screwed up, we know, but at least we mentioned her in this issue, right? Right? Come on, you guys, stop being so harsh on us! ....Please?"
- Brazen arrogance: "Yeah, Ya Ni had a pretty good year. Not a Player of the Year year. A pg. 74 year. Siddown and shaddup, Commish!"
I'm leaning toward the last reading, given that the one line from the letter they chose to blow up in a graphic--"Yani certainly doesn't need me--or anyone else--to validate her position"--seems to suggest that Whan didn't need to write the letter and they didn't need to award her the POY.
Nicely done, editors of Golf Magazine. Well played!
[Update 1 (12/19/11, 4:30 pm): Armchair Golf has picked up this story; instead of focusing on the editors' anemic response, Neil summarizes Whan's letter and adds in telling supporting evidence that Whan didn't cite (like the fact that 96% of those Golf Magazine polled on Facebook thought Ya Ni should be POY!).]
Monday, January 10, 2011
Paging the Asahi Shimbun
I've never had to call out an entire newspaper before, but after reading "S. Korean golfers dominate Japan, world," by Atsuo Negishi and Issei Sakakibara (courtesy of a thread at Seoul Sisters.com), I have to question the Asahi Shimbun's editorial judgment. The premise of the article is that the top men's and women's professional golf tours in Japan, the JGTO and JLPGA, are all of a sudden in danger because Kyung-Tae Kim and Sun-Ju Ahn, both South Koreans, each won their respective tour's money title in 2010. Oh, and because Korean women won 15 of 34 JLPGA events and 9 of 25 LPGA events in 2010. And because there are more Korean women ranked in the top 50 in the world than Japanese and Americans combined (20 vs. 19). And because Korean golfers dominated the Asian Games in 2006 and 2010. And because as the number of Koreans on the LPGA has increased, its schedule has shrunk. And because Carolyn Bivens floated an English-language requirement for LPGA membership. And because Japan's only and Asia's 1st winner of an American major is lobbying the Japanese government to increase funding to develop world-class Japanese women golfers. And because an anonymous tournament organizer implied Japanese tv viewers can't stand to see Japanese corporate types hand winner's checks to Korean winners of tournaments they sponsored. And because tv ratings went down significantly for the JLPGA's season-ending major, the Ricoh Cup. And because a Japanese tv producer envisions vague and dramatic globalization-induced changes.
Yeah, the whole thing is thinly-veiled, badly-organized, barely-thought-out editorializing--and my paraphrase actually attempted to find some coherence in the article's writing and reasoning. With its logic deficits, context gaps, and genre ambiguities, I doubt it would get better than a C- in any university-level intro to newspaper writing course (and that's after grade inflation). And yet it appeared on the English-language website of the Asahi Shimbun on January 7th!
I don't have time to do a full-blown critique--we just got back to our soon-to-be-old home from picking up the keys at the new one and are trying to push our own move up 3 days--so I'll just offer a sketch of one here.
(1) Shaky understanding of recent JLPGA history.
Consider a sentence like this: "The women's golf industry in Japan has succeeded and gained as much popularity as men's golf because female golfers became top prize winners. But this business model is becoming shaky."
What does this mean? Japanese women have been "top prize winners" on the JLPGA for its entire history, except when Ai-Yu Tu had great years and now, decades later, when Sun-Ju Ahn did. No, what kick-started the JLPGA to a new level was Ai Miyazato winning as a high schooler--and then continuing to win as a pro--on a tour that seemed utterly dominated by Yuri Fudoh. Their rivalry and all it symbolized fuelled the JLPGA's ascent and contributed to the JGTO's relative decline. Until Ai-chan left for--and struggled on--the LPGA, that is, and another high schooler won--and continued to win as a pro--on the JGTO. Ryo Ishikawa has more to do with any real or imagined shakiness of the JLPGA business model than any Korean golfer. And perhaps Mika Miyazato does, as well.
It's not like the authors are completely ignorant of this. Indeed, the sentences before the one I quoted covers virtually the same time period I discussed in the previous paragraph: "Female Japanese golfers have also been performing well and gaining in popularity since Ai Miyazato debuted as a teenager on the JLPGA Tour in 2004. In her footsteps have followed other talented young golfers such as Momoko Ueda, Miho Koga, Sakura Yokomine and Mika Miyazato." Never mind that Ai-chan's debut actually was in 2003, the real problem with the second sentence is the way it lumps Mika Miyazato, who's of an entirely different golfing generation than her sempai, into a follower of Ai-sama's footsteps. What makes Mikan distinctive is the way she didn't follow the Ai-sama path but instead chose to make her pro debut on the LPGA rather than the JLPGA. Given Mikan's big leap into the LPGA's top 20 and win and T2 in the 2 JLPGA majors she entered in 2010, she might well have provided a similar spark of a generational showdown that pushed the JLPGA to the forefront of public attention around 8 years ago had she decided to follow Ai-sama's path.
But let's face it, there's a deeper problem than lack of historical context going on here. Are the authors really claiming that the Japanese golf industry's "business model" is to hope for an extraordinarily talented Japanese teenager to come along and do nothing but wait for the next one? Where is the evidence that this really is the JLPGA's business model?
(2) Shaky use of logic and evidence.
Let me turn to a different passage that illustrates the severity and scope of these problems: "Japan is also fearing the affect [sic] that victories by South Korean golfers will have on corporate sponsors and ad revenue."
Putting aside the image of a personified Mt. Fuji appearing to one of the authors in a dream and the goddess Amaterasu appearing to the other, each with a mission to convey this urgent message on behalf of an anxious nation, as well as an error in word choice I see about 10 times a week from my own students (99% of whom grew up in English), this really is all about the affect--the feelings of Japanese television viewers and corporate executives. Here's the authors' Exhibit A:
Clearly the convenient unsourced quote is meant to provide a gloss on the facts that precede it. But hold on just a second there. Rewind. Pause. Let's do a little experiment here. Read over my Ricoh Cup posts from 2009 (Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4) and 2010 (Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4). What did you notice? Perhaps something like this:
Yeah, the whole thing is thinly-veiled, badly-organized, barely-thought-out editorializing--and my paraphrase actually attempted to find some coherence in the article's writing and reasoning. With its logic deficits, context gaps, and genre ambiguities, I doubt it would get better than a C- in any university-level intro to newspaper writing course (and that's after grade inflation). And yet it appeared on the English-language website of the Asahi Shimbun on January 7th!
I don't have time to do a full-blown critique--we just got back to our soon-to-be-old home from picking up the keys at the new one and are trying to push our own move up 3 days--so I'll just offer a sketch of one here.
(1) Shaky understanding of recent JLPGA history.
Consider a sentence like this: "The women's golf industry in Japan has succeeded and gained as much popularity as men's golf because female golfers became top prize winners. But this business model is becoming shaky."
What does this mean? Japanese women have been "top prize winners" on the JLPGA for its entire history, except when Ai-Yu Tu had great years and now, decades later, when Sun-Ju Ahn did. No, what kick-started the JLPGA to a new level was Ai Miyazato winning as a high schooler--and then continuing to win as a pro--on a tour that seemed utterly dominated by Yuri Fudoh. Their rivalry and all it symbolized fuelled the JLPGA's ascent and contributed to the JGTO's relative decline. Until Ai-chan left for--and struggled on--the LPGA, that is, and another high schooler won--and continued to win as a pro--on the JGTO. Ryo Ishikawa has more to do with any real or imagined shakiness of the JLPGA business model than any Korean golfer. And perhaps Mika Miyazato does, as well.
It's not like the authors are completely ignorant of this. Indeed, the sentences before the one I quoted covers virtually the same time period I discussed in the previous paragraph: "Female Japanese golfers have also been performing well and gaining in popularity since Ai Miyazato debuted as a teenager on the JLPGA Tour in 2004. In her footsteps have followed other talented young golfers such as Momoko Ueda, Miho Koga, Sakura Yokomine and Mika Miyazato." Never mind that Ai-chan's debut actually was in 2003, the real problem with the second sentence is the way it lumps Mika Miyazato, who's of an entirely different golfing generation than her sempai, into a follower of Ai-sama's footsteps. What makes Mikan distinctive is the way she didn't follow the Ai-sama path but instead chose to make her pro debut on the LPGA rather than the JLPGA. Given Mikan's big leap into the LPGA's top 20 and win and T2 in the 2 JLPGA majors she entered in 2010, she might well have provided a similar spark of a generational showdown that pushed the JLPGA to the forefront of public attention around 8 years ago had she decided to follow Ai-sama's path.
But let's face it, there's a deeper problem than lack of historical context going on here. Are the authors really claiming that the Japanese golf industry's "business model" is to hope for an extraordinarily talented Japanese teenager to come along and do nothing but wait for the next one? Where is the evidence that this really is the JLPGA's business model?
(2) Shaky use of logic and evidence.
Let me turn to a different passage that illustrates the severity and scope of these problems: "Japan is also fearing the affect [sic] that victories by South Korean golfers will have on corporate sponsors and ad revenue."
Putting aside the image of a personified Mt. Fuji appearing to one of the authors in a dream and the goddess Amaterasu appearing to the other, each with a mission to convey this urgent message on behalf of an anxious nation, as well as an error in word choice I see about 10 times a week from my own students (99% of whom grew up in English), this really is all about the affect--the feelings of Japanese television viewers and corporate executives. Here's the authors' Exhibit A:
TV viewer ratings stood at 12.4 percent when Sakura Yokomine won the last event of the 2009 JLPGA Tour, according to Video Research Ltd. But the ratings slipped to 7.6 percent when Park In-bee won the final tournament of 2010.
"When a non-Japanese golfer wins, viewers will change the channel before the corporate sponsor's presidents appear to hand out trophies," said a tournament organizer who wished to remain anonymous. "That's disappointing for corporate sponsors."
Clearly the convenient unsourced quote is meant to provide a gloss on the facts that precede it. But hold on just a second there. Rewind. Pause. Let's do a little experiment here. Read over my Ricoh Cup posts from 2009 (Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4) and 2010 (Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4). What did you notice? Perhaps something like this:
- Ai Miyazato and Momoko Ueda in the hunt in 2009. Not playing in 2010.
- Sakura Yokomine, Shinobu Moromizato, and Chie Arimura all vying to win the tournament and break Shiho Oyama's single-season-winnings record in the process in 2009. Sun-Ju Ahn having already clinched the money-list title the week before the Ricoh Cup in 2010, but without any hope of breaking any winnings record.
- Good scoring in 2009. Bad scoring in 2010.
- An exciting, wide-open shootout that came down to the final holes in 2009. A boring battle of attrition on Sunday in 2010.
"The next few years will be a period of dramatic change," said golf tournament producer Sho Tobari. "While the U.S. LPGA tour is reducing the number of tournaments, the European LPGA tour is aiming to expand its market size by becoming more international. Japan will be caught in that trend, too." [...] "In the short term, the golf tournament market in Japan may shrink, and the number of tournaments may decline," Tobari said. "But the golf market itself will not shrink. Corporate sponsors will have to consider ways to disseminate their message to the rest of the world and not just to the Japanese market."Huh? What does this have to do with those darn Koreans again? Somebody help me out here! From where I sit, the JLPGA is looking like an increasingly attractive option for golfers from around the world who don't want to be part-time professionals. Some, like Mi-Jeong Jeon, who's quoted explaining why she loves competing in Japan, may even choose to make the JLPGA their only, or their primary, tour. But this is a sign of the strength of the JLPGA and its potential for future growth. What am I missing?
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Paging Steve Elling
Steve Elling took the misguided meme of "parity" on the LPGA to an absurd extreme yesterday. That's the only way to understand his suggestion that having half a dozen players at the top of their games at about the same time and duelling for every single season-long award and honor this week is nothing to get excited about. Why? Because "good is not great"--it's more like "mediocre."
The fact is, we have no way of knowing if Annika Sorenstam, Karrie Webb, Se Ri Pak, and Lorena Ochoa would have been able to dominate Na Yeon Choi, Ji-Yai Shin, Ya Ni Tseng, Suzann Pettersen, Cristie Kerr, and Ai Miyazato this season. Sure, in their peak years they each posted lower scoring averages than Choi's 69.79 (not counting the 1st 2 rounds of the LPGA Tour Championship) and racked up more wins than Miyazato's 5. And one of them must have won more majors than Tseng's pair in one of their career seasons, right? But please point to a year when there were 5 players with sub-70 scoring averages--as is still statistically possible this season. Or when 5 players averaged 4 or more birdies per round (which is statistically possible this season). OK, OK, how about a year when 6 players made more than $1.5M in a season? (Yes, Miyazato needs a huge charge this weekend to become the 6th, but roll with the possibilities for a while.)
There is no way these kind of stats are products of mediocrity (that would characterize the many big names between #29 and #49 on the money list) or even just good play (which would characterize #17 through #28). In fact, everyone from #7 Song-Hee Kim through #16 Amy Yang have had very good years. It's just that the Big 6 have been excellent. Sure, only time will tell how great they'll each be. But let's wait 2 more rounds and see who has how many Hall of Fame points at what age, shall we? And then let's see how long they can sustain this level of play and who among them and their lead chase pack can find another gear and force everyone else to play catch-up (for a time). Greatness can be a product of consistent excellence, even if it doesn't result in long stretches of dominance.
The bottom line is that even if Cristie Kerr, Paula Creamer, Suzann Pettersen, and Ji-Yai Shin were in the best position to make the leap to instant greatness when Lorena Ochoa bowed out earlier this year, it's no aspersion on them that it didn't happen. If Kerr had been a little less shaky on a few Sundays over the past 2 seasons, or if the latter 3 had been healthier this season, we'd be having an entirely different conversation right now. But their losses have been Ai Miyazato's, Ya Ni Tseng's, and Na Yeon Choi's gains. At different points this season, they each played some truly fantastic golf to put themselves in the mix and in the conversation. I wouldn't at all be surprised to see In-Kyung Kim, Inbee Park, Morgan Pressel, Song-Hee Kim, and Amy Yang making similar moves next season. But the point is that very soon the battles among the Big 6 will be settled for this season. The issue at hand is not dominance or greatness but who can play the best golf over the next 36 holes. After the dust settles from this week, we can start looking back on this season and looking ahead to the next. Let's keep our eyes on the ball, shall we, Steve?
Me, I'm hoping Elling's essay has the same effect on the Big 6 that posting in your locker room what an opposing team's player or coach says is supposed to have on your team. Most of them are playing pretty crappy golf this week, truth be told. Time to get fired up, ladies! Right now, most of the mainstream golfy media (exemplified by Elling's absurdity) are on the opposing team. How about every time one of them makes a birdie this week, they tell the cameras, "This is for you, Steve!"?
[Update 1 (7:11 am): Compare Mike Southern, who attempts to put the week's world of golf in come perspective, and you'll see what's lacking in Elling's attempt to tell the LPGA it isn't all that.]
The fact is, we have no way of knowing if Annika Sorenstam, Karrie Webb, Se Ri Pak, and Lorena Ochoa would have been able to dominate Na Yeon Choi, Ji-Yai Shin, Ya Ni Tseng, Suzann Pettersen, Cristie Kerr, and Ai Miyazato this season. Sure, in their peak years they each posted lower scoring averages than Choi's 69.79 (not counting the 1st 2 rounds of the LPGA Tour Championship) and racked up more wins than Miyazato's 5. And one of them must have won more majors than Tseng's pair in one of their career seasons, right? But please point to a year when there were 5 players with sub-70 scoring averages--as is still statistically possible this season. Or when 5 players averaged 4 or more birdies per round (which is statistically possible this season). OK, OK, how about a year when 6 players made more than $1.5M in a season? (Yes, Miyazato needs a huge charge this weekend to become the 6th, but roll with the possibilities for a while.)
There is no way these kind of stats are products of mediocrity (that would characterize the many big names between #29 and #49 on the money list) or even just good play (which would characterize #17 through #28). In fact, everyone from #7 Song-Hee Kim through #16 Amy Yang have had very good years. It's just that the Big 6 have been excellent. Sure, only time will tell how great they'll each be. But let's wait 2 more rounds and see who has how many Hall of Fame points at what age, shall we? And then let's see how long they can sustain this level of play and who among them and their lead chase pack can find another gear and force everyone else to play catch-up (for a time). Greatness can be a product of consistent excellence, even if it doesn't result in long stretches of dominance.
The bottom line is that even if Cristie Kerr, Paula Creamer, Suzann Pettersen, and Ji-Yai Shin were in the best position to make the leap to instant greatness when Lorena Ochoa bowed out earlier this year, it's no aspersion on them that it didn't happen. If Kerr had been a little less shaky on a few Sundays over the past 2 seasons, or if the latter 3 had been healthier this season, we'd be having an entirely different conversation right now. But their losses have been Ai Miyazato's, Ya Ni Tseng's, and Na Yeon Choi's gains. At different points this season, they each played some truly fantastic golf to put themselves in the mix and in the conversation. I wouldn't at all be surprised to see In-Kyung Kim, Inbee Park, Morgan Pressel, Song-Hee Kim, and Amy Yang making similar moves next season. But the point is that very soon the battles among the Big 6 will be settled for this season. The issue at hand is not dominance or greatness but who can play the best golf over the next 36 holes. After the dust settles from this week, we can start looking back on this season and looking ahead to the next. Let's keep our eyes on the ball, shall we, Steve?
Me, I'm hoping Elling's essay has the same effect on the Big 6 that posting in your locker room what an opposing team's player or coach says is supposed to have on your team. Most of them are playing pretty crappy golf this week, truth be told. Time to get fired up, ladies! Right now, most of the mainstream golfy media (exemplified by Elling's absurdity) are on the opposing team. How about every time one of them makes a birdie this week, they tell the cameras, "This is for you, Steve!"?
[Update 1 (7:11 am): Compare Mike Southern, who attempts to put the week's world of golf in come perspective, and you'll see what's lacking in Elling's attempt to tell the LPGA it isn't all that.]
Friday, December 3, 2010
Paging Geoff Shackelford
Yo, Geoff! You love it when players mouth off about ridiculous (re)designs, right? Well, get a load of what Laura Davies said after her opening 70 at the LPGA Tour Championship left her 3 shots behind leaders Seon Hwa Lee and Amy Yang:
So of course the golf gods punished her with a 2nd-round 84 that ended her disappointing LPGA campaign in 2010 on a sour note. But she can still get her 6th LET win of the season next week in Dubai and take their money title. Any of this interesting to you in the slightest?
[Update 1 (11:18 pm): Nice rapid response by the Shack!]
[Update 2 (11:45 pm): Hey, visitors from Shack-land, check out this Randall Mell piece for more on Davies's year!]
[Update 3 (11:50 pm): More Randall Mell, this time with quotes from Brittany Lincicome and Paula Creamer on the greens at Grand Cypress.]
[Update 4 (12/4/10, 12:36 am): Geoff's regulars might be amused to see that I was nice to him here compared to Steve Elling. It's all about the love here at Mostly Harmless.]
Q. Tell us about the course. It's pretty challenging. What do you think of it?
LAURA DAVIES: This one? It's my favorite course in Florida. We played here years ago in the late 90s and 2000. It's always been my favorite course in Florida. I like the grass here. It's better. It's not so--the weird grass that Florida has. I don't know the difference between them but it's much spongier and I like it. The layout is fantastic, but the grass is good, too. I don't know what they did with the greens. Someone went mental on the greens. I don't know what happened there. Someone said Jack Nicklaus did it, but I don't believe that. Someone said Jack changed it; well, he must have been having a very bad day. (Laughter).
Q. Someone said that he had to oversee it for it to remain a Nicklaus design.
LAURA DAVIES: Well, he might have been in a helicopter above (laughter) or flown over and said "that will do" or something. There's no way Jack Nicklaus designed these greens. They are mental.
So of course the golf gods punished her with a 2nd-round 84 that ended her disappointing LPGA campaign in 2010 on a sour note. But she can still get her 6th LET win of the season next week in Dubai and take their money title. Any of this interesting to you in the slightest?
[Update 1 (11:18 pm): Nice rapid response by the Shack!]
[Update 2 (11:45 pm): Hey, visitors from Shack-land, check out this Randall Mell piece for more on Davies's year!]
[Update 3 (11:50 pm): More Randall Mell, this time with quotes from Brittany Lincicome and Paula Creamer on the greens at Grand Cypress.]
[Update 4 (12/4/10, 12:36 am): Geoff's regulars might be amused to see that I was nice to him here compared to Steve Elling. It's all about the love here at Mostly Harmless.]
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Is It Even Worth Paging the AP at This Point?
How it is possible that the AP's main preview story for the CVS/pharmacy LPGA Challenge gets basic facts wrong about the 2 most prominent golfers in the tournament's field, Cristie Kerr and Paula Creamer?
It's hard to tell which is worse. The one about Creamer matters less to the major thrust of the article, but it reveals how little effort was put into the writing or editing of the piece. Look, I'm not expecting anyone who doesn't cover the LPGA regularly to visit Hound Dog's site or mine, but a quick trip to LPGA.com's pre-tournament interviews page or Paula Creamer's season performance rundown page would show that this couldn't possibly be Creamer's 2nd tournament back since surgery--more like her 10th!
The more I think about that mistake, though, the worse it feels. Making Creamer an afterthought in an article with a flawed major premise puts even more pressure on that premise. The New York Times at least softens the problem by titling the piece "Kerr Trying to Regain No. 1 Ranking," and while its core claim is technically correct, it nevertheless leaves key details out:
It's almost as if the AP's reporter is unaware that while Miyazato, Tseng, and Pettersen are indeed resting or travelling this week, Shin is playing in the JLPGA's Fujitsu Ladies. Given that she's only .24 points behind Kerr and .32 points behind Miyazato in the latest Rolex Rankings, a Shin win in Japan could complicate matters in next week's ranking considerably. The scenario in which Kerr passes Miyazato but Shin passes both of them isn't even in the realm of possibility for the AP's writer. How many points each player is losing from the event 2 years ago that's dropping out of the ranking will have an impact on how likely this scenario is.
You'd think that with so much attention on Tiger and Phil--and lately Lee and Martin--in the race for the #1 ranking in the OWGR, someone working for the AP would realize the Rolex Rankings use a similar methodology--if not the writer, then maybe a fact-checker or editor. I'm not saying Kerr can't or won't be #1 with a win this week in Northern California. I'm just pointing out that the same week Miyazato won on the LPGA and Shin on the JLPGA earlier this season, it was the latter who was the 1st to overtake Lorena Ochoa and become the LPGA's new #1. Shouldn't the AP have investigated the possibility that Shin could spoil Kerr's bid to replace Miyazato at the top of the world of women's golf?
[Update 1 (8:52 am): Randall Mell gets it. Why can't the AP?]
[Update 2 (9:03 am): You can trust the local media to get Creamer's story right. So why not the national media?]
It's hard to tell which is worse. The one about Creamer matters less to the major thrust of the article, but it reveals how little effort was put into the writing or editing of the piece. Look, I'm not expecting anyone who doesn't cover the LPGA regularly to visit Hound Dog's site or mine, but a quick trip to LPGA.com's pre-tournament interviews page or Paula Creamer's season performance rundown page would show that this couldn't possibly be Creamer's 2nd tournament back since surgery--more like her 10th!
The more I think about that mistake, though, the worse it feels. Making Creamer an afterthought in an article with a flawed major premise puts even more pressure on that premise. The New York Times at least softens the problem by titling the piece "Kerr Trying to Regain No. 1 Ranking," and while its core claim is technically correct, it nevertheless leaves key details out:
Miyazato, who has held the No. 1 ranking for eight straight weeks, tied for 27th at the Navistar Classic but is skipping this week's Northern California stop on the tour. Shin, Suzann Pettersen and Yani Tseng also are bypassing the tournament.
That means Kerr can regain the No. 1 ranking for third time this year with a win. Even a top-five finish will likely push her past Miyazato.
It's almost as if the AP's reporter is unaware that while Miyazato, Tseng, and Pettersen are indeed resting or travelling this week, Shin is playing in the JLPGA's Fujitsu Ladies. Given that she's only .24 points behind Kerr and .32 points behind Miyazato in the latest Rolex Rankings, a Shin win in Japan could complicate matters in next week's ranking considerably. The scenario in which Kerr passes Miyazato but Shin passes both of them isn't even in the realm of possibility for the AP's writer. How many points each player is losing from the event 2 years ago that's dropping out of the ranking will have an impact on how likely this scenario is.
You'd think that with so much attention on Tiger and Phil--and lately Lee and Martin--in the race for the #1 ranking in the OWGR, someone working for the AP would realize the Rolex Rankings use a similar methodology--if not the writer, then maybe a fact-checker or editor. I'm not saying Kerr can't or won't be #1 with a win this week in Northern California. I'm just pointing out that the same week Miyazato won on the LPGA and Shin on the JLPGA earlier this season, it was the latter who was the 1st to overtake Lorena Ochoa and become the LPGA's new #1. Shouldn't the AP have investigated the possibility that Shin could spoil Kerr's bid to replace Miyazato at the top of the world of women's golf?
[Update 1 (8:52 am): Randall Mell gets it. Why can't the AP?]
[Update 2 (9:03 am): You can trust the local media to get Creamer's story right. So why not the national media?]
Thursday, July 8, 2010
How Low Can the AP Go?
I haven't made the effort to identify who's responsible for the latest U.S. Women's Open preview from the Associated Press, but talk about using old talking points! The title: "Americans No Longer Dominate U.S. Women's Open." The theme: how badly Americans have been doing lately against international competition on women's golf's biggest stage.
The problems:
(1) Even Beth Ann Baldry, who's not the best-informed writer on women's golf in the world, knows that Cristie Kerr is the favorite to survive and maybe even tame Oakmont. Yet our anonymous AP writer takes 5 seconds on LPGA.com's stats page and decides that because she "doesn't rank among the LPGA's Top 10 in driving distance, accuracy or putting," the fact that she's #1 in scoring average and putts per green in regulation, #2 in wins, winnings, Player of the Year points, rounds in the 60s, and rounds under par, #4 in birdies per round, and #5 in greens in regulation (72.2%) and top-10-finish rate--oh, and by the way, is averaging almost 257 yards off the tee, hitting 72.4% of her fairways, and averaging 28.68 putts per round--just doesn't matter. 2 wins in the last 3 events? Pshaw. A 2-tournament winning streak in her last 2 events entered? Not even worth mentioning.
And when he (I'll betcha anything a guy wrote this!) tries to praise Kerr, he even gets the storyline wrong:
Um, dude, Kerr had chances to win 2 majors last year and let them slip through her fingers. Nobody stepped up to challenge her in the LPGA Championship for any serious length of time. Kerr still has to prove she's a closer in majors. That and the fact that she won at Locust Hill with a leaky driver--something that Oakmont will penalize much more severely--are the doubts that any knowledgable writer should be emphasizing about Kerr's chances to get her 2nd Open, 3rd major, and 15th career victory on the LPGA. Read Mike Dudurich or Randall Mell or Tim Maitland if you want to understand where Cristie Kerr is this season. Not this hack.
(2) So when most writers (and even Seouls Sisters fans like bangkokbobby) are focusing on how important for the tour and how inspiring for other American golfers Kerr's dominating victory at the LPGA Championship has been--do you think it's a coincidence that Christina Kim almost followed Kerr's formula (change putters, get focused mentally, and bring it on) to the letter last week and moved from 73rd to 59th in the Rolex Rankings with her playoff loss to Na Yeon Choi in the process?--our dogged correspondent decides to dig even deeper. What has he discovered?
I have 2 responses. 1st, how is this news? The supposed lack of American dominance has been going on for 15 years! But 2nd, is it really fair to American golfers to hold them to a higher standard than the golfers of every other nation? Read that paragraph again: Americans have won the Open more time than golfers from any other nation in the world! We're still #1, baby! w00t!!
Let's break this down further. Of the 8 players last year with the best chance to win, 4 were American (including naturalized citizen Candie Kung). Even with Inbee Park winning by a comparatively large margin in 2008, 3 Americans were among the 9 in the mix at some point on that Sunday. Yeah, Cristie Kerr basically carried the flag alone when she won in 2007, but the year before that 4 Americans were challenging Annika Sorenstam (who beat Pat Hurst in a playoff) and Se Ri Pak among those few players less than 7 shots off Sorenstam's and Hurst's pace. In 2005, Birdie Kim beat 2 promising American amateurs, Morgan Pressel and Brittany Lang (who have since developed into elite professionals), by 2 shots with her miraculous walkoff hole-out from the bunker, and Natalie Gulbis made it 3 Americans in the top 5. My point in bringing up all this not-so-ancient history is that Americans have disproportionately been in the mix in the Open, even in the last few years when the women's game's globalization has intensified exponentially.
Yes, I know there's a big difference between being in contention and winning. My point is that expecting American domination on the LPGA is incredibly out-of-date, just as it would be to expect Korean domination, or Japanese domination, or Spanish domination--or, for that matter, any single country's domination. The world of women's golf is by no means flat, and its center of gravity may well have shifted to Asia sometime last decade, but that's all the more reason to face reality with something less than jaw-on-the-ground stupefaction and incredulity.
(3) The U.S. Women's Open has actually been the staging ground for a lot of American cinderellas in recent years, from Michelle Wie to Stacy Lewis to Alexis Thompson to Jean Reynolds. And as Stuart Hall points out, it's become the locus of a debate about attending college vs. turning pro for teenagers of all nationalities. It's pretty significant that long-heralded, big-hitting Hawaii native Kimberly Kim turned pro at about the same time that just-shy-of-Hall of Famer Meg Mallon announced her retirement, eh? And that, as David Shefter and Rhonda Glenn point out, there are plenty of great stories from other new pros and top amateurs--including Americans Jennifer Song (ok, she had dual citizenship with South Korea, so both countries get to claim her) and Tiffany Joh (who's made the Open for the 1st time in her life!).
(4) Finally, it's not like I'm loving the new flavor of the week--how gosh ding dang tough the USGA can make an already over-the-top Oakmont--but at least that one's a case of lowering casual viewer/reader expectations scoring-wise (when it's not an excuse for having fun with a damsels in distress storyline). Americans having just a slightly better chance of winning this Open than golfers from any other single country is just "dog bites man" these days.
Look, it's not that I'm expecting Pulitzer-prize winning material from the AP when it comes to covering the LPGA. I'd accept just basic competence, thank you very much. That, and this Stephanie Wei interview with Paige Mackenzie edited down into a short article and sent around to every newspaper in the country!
The problems:
(1) Even Beth Ann Baldry, who's not the best-informed writer on women's golf in the world, knows that Cristie Kerr is the favorite to survive and maybe even tame Oakmont. Yet our anonymous AP writer takes 5 seconds on LPGA.com's stats page and decides that because she "doesn't rank among the LPGA's Top 10 in driving distance, accuracy or putting," the fact that she's #1 in scoring average and putts per green in regulation, #2 in wins, winnings, Player of the Year points, rounds in the 60s, and rounds under par, #4 in birdies per round, and #5 in greens in regulation (72.2%) and top-10-finish rate--oh, and by the way, is averaging almost 257 yards off the tee, hitting 72.4% of her fairways, and averaging 28.68 putts per round--just doesn't matter. 2 wins in the last 3 events? Pshaw. A 2-tournament winning streak in her last 2 events entered? Not even worth mentioning.
And when he (I'll betcha anything a guy wrote this!) tries to praise Kerr, he even gets the storyline wrong:
Give her the 36- or 54-hole lead, like she owned last year at cross-state Saucon Valley before losing out to Ji, and it may be difficult to get it back.
Um, dude, Kerr had chances to win 2 majors last year and let them slip through her fingers. Nobody stepped up to challenge her in the LPGA Championship for any serious length of time. Kerr still has to prove she's a closer in majors. That and the fact that she won at Locust Hill with a leaky driver--something that Oakmont will penalize much more severely--are the doubts that any knowledgable writer should be emphasizing about Kerr's chances to get her 2nd Open, 3rd major, and 15th career victory on the LPGA. Read Mike Dudurich or Randall Mell or Tim Maitland if you want to understand where Cristie Kerr is this season. Not this hack.
(2) So when most writers (and even Seouls Sisters fans like bangkokbobby) are focusing on how important for the tour and how inspiring for other American golfers Kerr's dominating victory at the LPGA Championship has been--do you think it's a coincidence that Christina Kim almost followed Kerr's formula (change putters, get focused mentally, and bring it on) to the letter last week and moved from 73rd to 59th in the Rolex Rankings with her playoff loss to Na Yeon Choi in the process?--our dogged correspondent decides to dig even deeper. What has he discovered?
An American victory in its national championship, once all but a certainty, now would be a surprise. Cristie Kerr is the only American to win in the last five years and, since 1995, there have been nearly as many South Korean champions (4) as U.S. winners (5). By comparison, Americans won all but five Women's Opens from 1946-1994.
I have 2 responses. 1st, how is this news? The supposed lack of American dominance has been going on for 15 years! But 2nd, is it really fair to American golfers to hold them to a higher standard than the golfers of every other nation? Read that paragraph again: Americans have won the Open more time than golfers from any other nation in the world! We're still #1, baby! w00t!!
Let's break this down further. Of the 8 players last year with the best chance to win, 4 were American (including naturalized citizen Candie Kung). Even with Inbee Park winning by a comparatively large margin in 2008, 3 Americans were among the 9 in the mix at some point on that Sunday. Yeah, Cristie Kerr basically carried the flag alone when she won in 2007, but the year before that 4 Americans were challenging Annika Sorenstam (who beat Pat Hurst in a playoff) and Se Ri Pak among those few players less than 7 shots off Sorenstam's and Hurst's pace. In 2005, Birdie Kim beat 2 promising American amateurs, Morgan Pressel and Brittany Lang (who have since developed into elite professionals), by 2 shots with her miraculous walkoff hole-out from the bunker, and Natalie Gulbis made it 3 Americans in the top 5. My point in bringing up all this not-so-ancient history is that Americans have disproportionately been in the mix in the Open, even in the last few years when the women's game's globalization has intensified exponentially.
Yes, I know there's a big difference between being in contention and winning. My point is that expecting American domination on the LPGA is incredibly out-of-date, just as it would be to expect Korean domination, or Japanese domination, or Spanish domination--or, for that matter, any single country's domination. The world of women's golf is by no means flat, and its center of gravity may well have shifted to Asia sometime last decade, but that's all the more reason to face reality with something less than jaw-on-the-ground stupefaction and incredulity.
(3) The U.S. Women's Open has actually been the staging ground for a lot of American cinderellas in recent years, from Michelle Wie to Stacy Lewis to Alexis Thompson to Jean Reynolds. And as Stuart Hall points out, it's become the locus of a debate about attending college vs. turning pro for teenagers of all nationalities. It's pretty significant that long-heralded, big-hitting Hawaii native Kimberly Kim turned pro at about the same time that just-shy-of-Hall of Famer Meg Mallon announced her retirement, eh? And that, as David Shefter and Rhonda Glenn point out, there are plenty of great stories from other new pros and top amateurs--including Americans Jennifer Song (ok, she had dual citizenship with South Korea, so both countries get to claim her) and Tiffany Joh (who's made the Open for the 1st time in her life!).
(4) Finally, it's not like I'm loving the new flavor of the week--how gosh ding dang tough the USGA can make an already over-the-top Oakmont--but at least that one's a case of lowering casual viewer/reader expectations scoring-wise (when it's not an excuse for having fun with a damsels in distress storyline). Americans having just a slightly better chance of winning this Open than golfers from any other single country is just "dog bites man" these days.
Look, it's not that I'm expecting Pulitzer-prize winning material from the AP when it comes to covering the LPGA. I'd accept just basic competence, thank you very much. That, and this Stephanie Wei interview with Paige Mackenzie edited down into a short article and sent around to every newspaper in the country!
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
A Slice of the Life of a Touring Pro at the Wegmans/LPGA Championship
Here's a picture I took right after my interview with Mika Miyazato came to a close yesterday morning at Locust Hill's media tent. The rain was drumming overhead, thunder was rumbling around us, and some of Japanese media waiting out the storm saw an opportunity to ask Mikan questions of their own. Or maybe her agent, Kie Ito, in the back right there had arranged for all her interviews to take place at the same time. All I know is that they came fashionably late, perhaps realizing that they had originally scheduled the interview at the exact same time Michelle Wie's press conference was to take place.
If I had been smart, I would've asked the journalists' permission to tape their interviews and find out from the Full Metal Archivist how the pros do it (I have a lot to learn!). In any case, I had a great time interviewing Mikan and had unexpected fun when the reporters noticed my hat (which reads "Island Person" in Japanese and is obviously from Okinawa) and found out that the FMA is from Chiba (I believe both guys in the foreground are also from there) and her sister and her family lives in Okinawa. If I can get an electronic copy of the photos they shot of us together, I'll either post them or destroy them. I had issues with my sunscreen that morning. 'Nuff said.
By the way, as an alternate in the Tuesday pro-am, Mikan had been on the course since at the latest 6:30 am and had been working on her putting, chipping, and ball-striking for most of the morning until the rains (and her scheduled interview[s]) drove her off the driving range. True, she hadn't been out on the course, so she probably wasn't as tired as fellow rookie Amanda Blumenherst, who played both pro-ams, but even Mikan's example shows that anyone who thinks the life of a pro golfer is only about the golf has another think coming. More on Mikan when I finish my profile of Mina Harigae and her.
[Update 1 (8:32 pm): Here are a couple of posts from Christina Kim that give you a pretty good sense of what her week's been like so far.]
If I had been smart, I would've asked the journalists' permission to tape their interviews and find out from the Full Metal Archivist how the pros do it (I have a lot to learn!). In any case, I had a great time interviewing Mikan and had unexpected fun when the reporters noticed my hat (which reads "Island Person" in Japanese and is obviously from Okinawa) and found out that the FMA is from Chiba (I believe both guys in the foreground are also from there) and her sister and her family lives in Okinawa. If I can get an electronic copy of the photos they shot of us together, I'll either post them or destroy them. I had issues with my sunscreen that morning. 'Nuff said.
By the way, as an alternate in the Tuesday pro-am, Mikan had been on the course since at the latest 6:30 am and had been working on her putting, chipping, and ball-striking for most of the morning until the rains (and her scheduled interview[s]) drove her off the driving range. True, she hadn't been out on the course, so she probably wasn't as tired as fellow rookie Amanda Blumenherst, who played both pro-ams, but even Mikan's example shows that anyone who thinks the life of a pro golfer is only about the golf has another think coming. More on Mikan when I finish my profile of Mina Harigae and her.
[Update 1 (8:32 pm): Here are a couple of posts from Christina Kim that give you a pretty good sense of what her week's been like so far.]
Friday, November 27, 2009
Paging Mick Elliott
I'm beginning to think Golf Fanhouse has it in for the LPGA. After getting rid of Shane Bacon, who at least caddies for Erica Blasberg every once in a while, they've come up with a new winner in Mick Elliott, who won't let an opportunity to diss the LPGA go by without taking another cheap shot. The latest case in point? His piece promoting the Legends Tour (and in turn being promoted on Golf.com's main page).
Don't get me wrong: it's a great thing for women's golf that the LPGA's veterans have a league of their own--someday it should have all the appeal of the men's Champions Tour and more. This is the tour for golf fans who harken back to the good ol' days when women golfers were as well-known and respected as their male counterparts, when all the golfers were white, and when Americans were brave. Let the LPGA reach out to new fans in this country and around the world--who cares about that "global youth" demographic anyway? As living legend Nancy Scranton knows,
Wait, you've never heard of Nancy Scranton? Shame on you! You know, she's the player who won 3 times over a celebrated 23-year career in which she finished in the top 20 on the money list twice? The player whose last good seasons on the LPGA were in 2000 and 2001, when she helped hold the line against the barbarian invasion lead by the likes of Annika Sorenstam, Karrie Webb, Se Ri Pak, and Grace Park? If this isn't jogging your memory, than you're probably going to find it hard to relate to the players on the Legends Tour. Going from quotes like this, it's almost as if Elliott is trying to make it sound like the Legend Tour's target market is limited to those who believe the LPGA has been on a steady decline since the beginning of the Sorenstam Era in the mid-1990s. Why else would he throw in a gratuitous swipe at LPGA Tour Championship winner and Annika disciple Anna Nordqvist early in his piece?
Obviously there are many impressive players on the Legends Tour. Even lesser-known golfers like breast cancer survivor Colleen Walker, a 9-time champion on the LPGA, Vare Trophy winner in 1988, and winner of the du Maurier Classic, a major in 1997, would be a blast to watch, 27 years after her rookie season. But why set the LPGA and the Legends Tour against each other? Surely it's beneath Walker to concern-troll the LPGA for Golf Fanhouse, but there she is, quoted as saying, "It's kind of sad, all the work we did as players and to see it kind of tumble. I remember when we had 45 events. Now they're going to have 24 and most aren't even full field." Maybe if Walker's career had started a decade earlier, she'd have a better perspective on the possibility of the LPGA bouncing back from the depths. If the LPGA could recover from an American economy in the early '70s rocked by disputes over civil rights, desegregation, Vietnam, and Watergate, and roiled by the oil crisis, it can certainly bounce back by the 20-teens from a global financial meltdown.
The bottom line is, there's no need to bash the LPGA to promote the Legends Tour. With Sherri Steinhauer kicking off her return to competitive golf from 2 hip surgeries with a win at Innisbrook in the tour's 1st major this past Sunday, it's clear the tour can provide opportunities for the LPGA's mid-40-somethings to tune up their games and prepare for comebacks. As Tom Watson's near-miss at the '09 Open Championship shows, not to mention the collective successes of the PGA's own 40-somethings this decade, age does not have to be a barrier to success on the top tours in the world. Still, as Hall of Famers Juli Inkster, Sorenstam, and Webb approach the age requirement for entry into the Legends Tour, I'm hoping that these players known for nurturing young talent and supporting the LPGA take on leadership roles in it and help put a stop to the friendly fire.
If the Legends Tour were to provide a bridge between generations of LPGA fans by seeking partnerships and synchronizing schedules with the Futures Tour, both tours would benefit. Imagine if tomorrow's stars were doing pro-ams with today's legends early in the week, followed by the legends' competition in the middle of the week, and leading up to the Futures Tour event itself on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Both tours could yield expanded schedules, bigger crowds, increased purses, and more charitable giving from such an investment. Working together, they'd strengthen the LPGA and help grow the game. What's not to like about that?
Here's hoping for more 1st-time winners in 2010!
It won't be long before this year's crop are as well-known as anyone in golf not named Tiger Woods:
[Update 1 (4:36 am): Ouch, now Steve Elling, in his year-end Up & Down column, piles on the "LPGA spending too much time abroad next season" meme. What Elling fails to get is that 4 of the international events are in North America and that playing in Asia actually gives you the jump on getting your scores in the morning paper in the U.S. He's absolutely right, though, that in a schedule with so many gaps in it already, there's little reason to put the majority of the LPGA's majors in the shadow of the PGA's majors. At least with the golfy media the way they have been acting. Now, if Michelle Wie keeps being the biggest story in American golf the way Ji-Yai Shin even overshadowed figure skater Yu Na Kim last week in Korea--Elling points out the tape-delayed (?) Ochoa Invitational doubled the fall series PGA event's ratings the week before--things might change. But Elling needs to realize what it means that the LPGA has so many players who are among the biggest names in their countries' sports pantheons: Karrie Webb in Australia, Lorena Ochoa in Mexico, Suzanne Pettersen in Norway, Ai Miyazato in Japan, Ya Ni Tseng in Taiwan, Shanshan Feng in China, and so on. The LPGA would be foolish not to capitalize on one of its greatest strengths. Once more, with feeling: globalization is not the problem; the solution is for U.S. and North American sponsors to step up!]
[Update 2 (4:45 am): It's really saying something when Mark Reason, who earlier this season called on the LPGA to enact protectionist measures and limit the number of foreign players on tour, is more optimistic about the LPGA's embrace of globalization than most any American reporter. It took Michelle Wie winning to get him to go there, but hey, I'll take what I can get at this point. Not that I'm giving him a pass for his passing along the "lack of relateability" meme and dissing Western NY as the host site of an LPGA major--not to mention his lack of understanding of the complex relations between nationalisms and globalization--but if someone who recently saw the LPGA's only hope as pushing the barbarians back outside the gates now sees hope in Wie leading an American global resurgence, that's progress in my book.]
[Update 3 (12/4/09, 6:18 am): LPGA.com should be featuring the photo of Na Yeon Choi featured in this Seoul Sisters.com thread. Not bad for someone who's never owned a skirt and heels before!]
Don't get me wrong: it's a great thing for women's golf that the LPGA's veterans have a league of their own--someday it should have all the appeal of the men's Champions Tour and more. This is the tour for golf fans who harken back to the good ol' days when women golfers were as well-known and respected as their male counterparts, when all the golfers were white, and when Americans were brave. Let the LPGA reach out to new fans in this country and around the world--who cares about that "global youth" demographic anyway? As living legend Nancy Scranton knows,
[T]he people who grew up watching us are the ones who go to golf tournaments anyway. It's not the 20-somethings. It's the mid-40s and older. And they are like, "wow, I can get right up next to Pat Bradley or Patty Sheehan or Jan Stephenson and everybody is happy to chat."
....I don't want to bad-mouth the LPGA. But we are more recognizable. And fans can relate to us more.
Wait, you've never heard of Nancy Scranton? Shame on you! You know, she's the player who won 3 times over a celebrated 23-year career in which she finished in the top 20 on the money list twice? The player whose last good seasons on the LPGA were in 2000 and 2001, when she helped hold the line against the barbarian invasion lead by the likes of Annika Sorenstam, Karrie Webb, Se Ri Pak, and Grace Park? If this isn't jogging your memory, than you're probably going to find it hard to relate to the players on the Legends Tour. Going from quotes like this, it's almost as if Elliott is trying to make it sound like the Legend Tour's target market is limited to those who believe the LPGA has been on a steady decline since the beginning of the Sorenstam Era in the mid-1990s. Why else would he throw in a gratuitous swipe at LPGA Tour Championship winner and Annika disciple Anna Nordqvist early in his piece?
Obviously there are many impressive players on the Legends Tour. Even lesser-known golfers like breast cancer survivor Colleen Walker, a 9-time champion on the LPGA, Vare Trophy winner in 1988, and winner of the du Maurier Classic, a major in 1997, would be a blast to watch, 27 years after her rookie season. But why set the LPGA and the Legends Tour against each other? Surely it's beneath Walker to concern-troll the LPGA for Golf Fanhouse, but there she is, quoted as saying, "It's kind of sad, all the work we did as players and to see it kind of tumble. I remember when we had 45 events. Now they're going to have 24 and most aren't even full field." Maybe if Walker's career had started a decade earlier, she'd have a better perspective on the possibility of the LPGA bouncing back from the depths. If the LPGA could recover from an American economy in the early '70s rocked by disputes over civil rights, desegregation, Vietnam, and Watergate, and roiled by the oil crisis, it can certainly bounce back by the 20-teens from a global financial meltdown.
The bottom line is, there's no need to bash the LPGA to promote the Legends Tour. With Sherri Steinhauer kicking off her return to competitive golf from 2 hip surgeries with a win at Innisbrook in the tour's 1st major this past Sunday, it's clear the tour can provide opportunities for the LPGA's mid-40-somethings to tune up their games and prepare for comebacks. As Tom Watson's near-miss at the '09 Open Championship shows, not to mention the collective successes of the PGA's own 40-somethings this decade, age does not have to be a barrier to success on the top tours in the world. Still, as Hall of Famers Juli Inkster, Sorenstam, and Webb approach the age requirement for entry into the Legends Tour, I'm hoping that these players known for nurturing young talent and supporting the LPGA take on leadership roles in it and help put a stop to the friendly fire.
If the Legends Tour were to provide a bridge between generations of LPGA fans by seeking partnerships and synchronizing schedules with the Futures Tour, both tours would benefit. Imagine if tomorrow's stars were doing pro-ams with today's legends early in the week, followed by the legends' competition in the middle of the week, and leading up to the Futures Tour event itself on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Both tours could yield expanded schedules, bigger crowds, increased purses, and more charitable giving from such an investment. Working together, they'd strengthen the LPGA and help grow the game. What's not to like about that?
Here's hoping for more 1st-time winners in 2010!
It won't be long before this year's crop are as well-known as anyone in golf not named Tiger Woods:
[Update 1 (4:36 am): Ouch, now Steve Elling, in his year-end Up & Down column, piles on the "LPGA spending too much time abroad next season" meme. What Elling fails to get is that 4 of the international events are in North America and that playing in Asia actually gives you the jump on getting your scores in the morning paper in the U.S. He's absolutely right, though, that in a schedule with so many gaps in it already, there's little reason to put the majority of the LPGA's majors in the shadow of the PGA's majors. At least with the golfy media the way they have been acting. Now, if Michelle Wie keeps being the biggest story in American golf the way Ji-Yai Shin even overshadowed figure skater Yu Na Kim last week in Korea--Elling points out the tape-delayed (?) Ochoa Invitational doubled the fall series PGA event's ratings the week before--things might change. But Elling needs to realize what it means that the LPGA has so many players who are among the biggest names in their countries' sports pantheons: Karrie Webb in Australia, Lorena Ochoa in Mexico, Suzanne Pettersen in Norway, Ai Miyazato in Japan, Ya Ni Tseng in Taiwan, Shanshan Feng in China, and so on. The LPGA would be foolish not to capitalize on one of its greatest strengths. Once more, with feeling: globalization is not the problem; the solution is for U.S. and North American sponsors to step up!]
[Update 2 (4:45 am): It's really saying something when Mark Reason, who earlier this season called on the LPGA to enact protectionist measures and limit the number of foreign players on tour, is more optimistic about the LPGA's embrace of globalization than most any American reporter. It took Michelle Wie winning to get him to go there, but hey, I'll take what I can get at this point. Not that I'm giving him a pass for his passing along the "lack of relateability" meme and dissing Western NY as the host site of an LPGA major--not to mention his lack of understanding of the complex relations between nationalisms and globalization--but if someone who recently saw the LPGA's only hope as pushing the barbarians back outside the gates now sees hope in Wie leading an American global resurgence, that's progress in my book.]
[Update 3 (12/4/09, 6:18 am): LPGA.com should be featuring the photo of Na Yeon Choi featured in this Seoul Sisters.com thread. Not bad for someone who's never owned a skirt and heels before!]
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Something Else to Be Thankful For: Golf Channel's Spotlight on Ai Miyazato
On the road to Syracuse for Thanksgiving this morning, but couldn't resist passing along this attempt by Golf Channel to educate its viewers about Ai Miyazato during the 1st round of the Lorena Ochoa Invitational:
If GC had a different spotlight player every round of every tournament in 2010, just think what a difference it could make to public perceptions of the LPGA!
Of course, GC has a ways to go to catch up to Japanese tv. Check out this clip of a par-5 relay race and 50-foot putt to win a car featuring Momoko Ueda, Sakura Yokomine, Miho Koga, and Chie Arimura of the JLPGA:
Now that's entertainment!
If GC had a different spotlight player every round of every tournament in 2010, just think what a difference it could make to public perceptions of the LPGA!
Of course, GC has a ways to go to catch up to Japanese tv. Check out this clip of a par-5 relay race and 50-foot putt to win a car featuring Momoko Ueda, Sakura Yokomine, Miho Koga, and Chie Arimura of the JLPGA:
Now that's entertainment!
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Paging Bill Huffman...and Geoff Shackelford
Bill Huffman is a very angry man right now. And it's hard for me to blame him. If it were the Wegmans in Rochester that had bitten the dust and not the Phoenix event in his neck of the, uh, desert, I'd be far madder than he is. But with Geoff Shackelford egging him on, the twin targets of Huffman's rant are likely to be lost, with the spotlight likely to be on the "LPGA leaving Phoenix," as Shackelford puts it, and not on Huffman's more accurate "we will rue the day we let this tournament get away" line.
What Huffman inconsistently acknowledges is that it takes 2 to tango (see my 4th and 5th points in my own hitchhiker's guide to the 2010 schedule). If there's no LPGA tournament in Phoenix next season, they have only themselves to blame. Check the following lines from his piece where he as much as acknowledges this:
So just who should Huffman be pissed off at here? Michael Whan for recognizing that the women's game has gone global? Uh, Bill, it was Marty Evans and Zayra Calderon who were in charge of salvaging the 2010 schedule after Bivens left town with 9 tournaments set in stone. How about the LPGA leadership for taking the tour where the most committed fans, sponsors, and tv entities are based? So they're supposed to pass up opportunities abroad out of, what, patriotism? OK, how about the tour for not having the financial resources to float the Phoenix event for the 2nd-straight year? Ah, now we're on to something! Huffman is mad because the LPGA wouldn't provide Phoenix with another year of corporate welfare. Let's see, they're losing revenues, laying people off, on the hook for the LPGA Tour Championship (which is riddled with TBAs and TBDs), and they should make their #1 priority doing for Phoenix what Phoenix can't do for itself?
Look, Bill, this is no time to wax nostalgic:
Don't mourn: organize! If Huffman would take a chill pill, stop, and think, he'd realize he should be talking to everyone in Phoenix (and, I suppose, some people in Portland) about putting in a bid to host the LPGA Tour Championship next season in Arizona. If the LPGA is going to lose domestic events in the short run, far better to upgrade the tournaments that have shown the most loyalty and support to the tour than to let them die. With the LPGA Championship coming to Rochester, NY--masking, as Hound Dog pointed out, a net loss of 1 tournament from the 2008 schedule--why doesn't Phoenix follow suit and put up some serious money to host the tour's season-ending event?
For the longer term, the issue is not globalization or the success of golfers of Asian descent. I'm a fan of both trends, but even I don't see all that much room for the LPGA to expand in the Asian Pacific. Let's say Whan follows my advice and seeks co-sponsorships with the tours in that region, so that, say, by 2012--following the return of the ADT Championship to Florida and the upgrading of the unofficial event in Rio to the HSBC Women's World Match Play Championship in late January--the LPGA goes from Korea (with the KLPGA) to Thailand (with the JLPGA) to Taiwan (and now I'm really dreaming here, with the CLPGA) to Australia (with the LET and ALPG) to Singapore (with everyone) for 6 events in February and March--all regular full-field tournaments, with cuts. Wouldn't taking the risk on that kind of international travel be a better deal for the LPGA's rank-and-file than tuning up on the Cactus Tour and the SunCoast Series? After all, the top players can miss cuts just like everyone else. That's kind of how they stop being top players.
Not only could such globalization benefit American players, but so would moving the later Asian swing to follow fairly directly upon the European swing, as Happy Fan has suggested over at Seoul Sisters.com, and upgrading them to full-field events with cuts. The weather would be better in late August and early September than late October and early November in China, Korea, and Japan (and perhaps 1 or 2 more Asian countries, but more likely India than Malaysia or the Philippines, as Huffman snarks at the end of his piece), plus it would be a great follow-up to the annual mid-August synchronized Solheim/Kyoraku-Pinx Cup global showdown I've been calling for for awhile now. And best of all, doing this would allow the LPGA to concentrate its North American events--including the ones in Canada and Mexico, which almost everyone not named Bill Jempty is counting toward the international total when they're played in the same time zones as American ones--in a stretch run in the fall that could capitalize on the momentum from the late summer abroad and drum up more interest in what are just as likely to be tight pennant races then as now.
So even a globalization booster like myself can't envision more than 10-12 LPGA events in the Asian Pacific and South America in the medium term--and just about all of them would be co-sponsored with other women's tours, if I had my way. That puts the ball squarely in the court of the LPGA's North American sponsors. If they would step up and commit to doubling the number of events outside North America, the LPGA would have a minimum of 30-36 events by 2012 and globalization would end up being a win-win for everyone. I don't see why this scenario is any less realistic than Huffman's Chicken Little act.
In the meantime, there's nothing stopping American players from trying to get dual membership on the KLPGA (or, more likely) the JLPGA starting in 2011. Let's say you're a LPGA player or hopeful who doesn't finish in the top 100 on the money list or the top 20 in Q-School at the end of 2010. Why supplement your limited LPGA schedule in 2011 by playing the Futures Tour for peanuts when you could be making a half-million dollars on a minimal schedule on the JLPGA? Sure, the competition is tougher over there than on the FT, but the rewards are much much greater. And if you're tanking against LPGA competition, struggling to make $125K and keep your card for the following season by finishing in the top 80 on the money list, why not play more events and give yourself a fighting chance for the top 50 on the JLPGA (where you'll be making the equivalent of $150K or more)? Language barriers? Culture shock? Fear of the unknown? Ah, so you must really believe the Asian players who come over here are a lot better than you, eh?
The bottom line is, American sponsors and players are going to have to step up their games if they want to compete on a planetary scale. Enough ranting and joking, already! It's time to get serious!
[Update 1 (9:00 am): Are my eyes deceiving me? Is Sal Johnson making more sense than Bill Huffman? Well, Huffman remains the better writer, that's for sure. But Johnson is showing himself to be the better thinker, on the schedule and on Whan, in particular.]
[Update 2 (2:15 pm): Wonder if John Paul Newport has been drinking the Mostly Harmless koolaid, as well?]
[Update 3 (2:25 pm): Hmm, unofficial talks with ADT for 2011? The only change I'd want to see in the format is start with 64, get it down to 32 with a stroke-play cut, then do 2 rounds of match play, and have the final 8 play 18 for $1M.]
[Update 4 (2:30 pm): Nice job by Randall Mell on the players and Whan. And Wie's ankle.]
[Update 5 (11/23/09, 12:53 pm): Karen Crouse looks at how one bad season has affected Reilley Rankin's finances and how the 2010 schedule puts extra pressure on her to perform in her final events this season. Too bad for her she's +6 over her last 18 holes at the LPGA Tour Championship after putting herself in contention over the 1st 25....]
[Update 6 (3:12 pm): Just noticed Bill Jempty's critique of Huffman. Check his link to Dave Seanor's piece, too.]
[Update 7 (7:34 pm): Just got a chance to actually read Seanor's piece. Turns out it's literally SF. And Seanor makes the mistake of many bad SF writers of extrapolating from blips. His look at the "International LPGA" in 2019 is basically calling for all women's tours to merge (saving their national tours as developmental paths to the planetary circuit) and then to merge with the PGA Tour. I don't see it happening in this half of the 21st century. As anyone who paid attention to the globalization bust after the '90s bubble popped knows, there's nothing inevitable about it. Competitive nationalism, particularly among the Asian tours, will only increase with the run-up to the 2016 and 2020 Olympics. Barring a serious economic crisis in Asia, there's no way the fast-growing CLPGA and KLPGA would agree to merge with the JLPGA, much less the LPGA. Furthermore, Seanor's scenario is predicated on the LPGA continuing to decline domestically. I just don't see that happening.]
[Update 8 (1/4/09, 6:41 am): Don't know how I missed Jeff Skinner's mid-October call for the LPGA to embrace globalization.]
What Huffman inconsistently acknowledges is that it takes 2 to tango (see my 4th and 5th points in my own hitchhiker's guide to the 2010 schedule). If there's no LPGA tournament in Phoenix next season, they have only themselves to blame. Check the following lines from his piece where he as much as acknowledges this:
After all, it wasn’t that long ago--2005--that the LPGA left Tucson after a similar run ended with no corporate sponsor.
In fact, with no real group in charge of pushing to bring the women's tour back to the Valley any time soon, there was not even anyone to call locally for a reaction. I did try the Portland-based Tournament Golf Foundation, which had managed the event for the past six years, but its spokesperson failed to call back....
[W]hen the LPGA's shrunken 2010 sked was released Wednesday, there really were no surprises as far as Phoenix was concerned. Most people had expected Arizona to be left off the master plan chiefly because corporate sponsorship for golf in the Valley has been nil since the economy went belly up. Or did you forget that the Champions and Nationwide tours met a similar demise here, and that the FBR Open is desperately searching for a title sponsor?
So just who should Huffman be pissed off at here? Michael Whan for recognizing that the women's game has gone global? Uh, Bill, it was Marty Evans and Zayra Calderon who were in charge of salvaging the 2010 schedule after Bivens left town with 9 tournaments set in stone. How about the LPGA leadership for taking the tour where the most committed fans, sponsors, and tv entities are based? So they're supposed to pass up opportunities abroad out of, what, patriotism? OK, how about the tour for not having the financial resources to float the Phoenix event for the 2nd-straight year? Ah, now we're on to something! Huffman is mad because the LPGA wouldn't provide Phoenix with another year of corporate welfare. Let's see, they're losing revenues, laying people off, on the hook for the LPGA Tour Championship (which is riddled with TBAs and TBDs), and they should make their #1 priority doing for Phoenix what Phoenix can't do for itself?
Look, Bill, this is no time to wax nostalgic:
What's hard to believe is the LPGA in Phoenix died without a whimper despite it being so successful, annually drawing over 100,000 fans for the week. A truly amazing downward spiral considering all that’s happened here since one-time superstar Jan Stephenson captured the original event in Sun City way back in 1980.
I mean who can forget Annika Sorenstam's one-and-only 59 recorded here in 2001, one of her three victories in Phoenix? Or Laura Davies' record-breaking four in row at Moon Valley from 1994 to 1997? Or the fact that Lorena Ochoa helped propel herself to No. 1 in the world thanks in part to her back-to-back victories at Superstition Mountain in 2007-08, a stunning feat that thrilled her Hispanic following and created a truly rare moment in the lily-white sport of golf?
Don't mourn: organize! If Huffman would take a chill pill, stop, and think, he'd realize he should be talking to everyone in Phoenix (and, I suppose, some people in Portland) about putting in a bid to host the LPGA Tour Championship next season in Arizona. If the LPGA is going to lose domestic events in the short run, far better to upgrade the tournaments that have shown the most loyalty and support to the tour than to let them die. With the LPGA Championship coming to Rochester, NY--masking, as Hound Dog pointed out, a net loss of 1 tournament from the 2008 schedule--why doesn't Phoenix follow suit and put up some serious money to host the tour's season-ending event?
For the longer term, the issue is not globalization or the success of golfers of Asian descent. I'm a fan of both trends, but even I don't see all that much room for the LPGA to expand in the Asian Pacific. Let's say Whan follows my advice and seeks co-sponsorships with the tours in that region, so that, say, by 2012--following the return of the ADT Championship to Florida and the upgrading of the unofficial event in Rio to the HSBC Women's World Match Play Championship in late January--the LPGA goes from Korea (with the KLPGA) to Thailand (with the JLPGA) to Taiwan (and now I'm really dreaming here, with the CLPGA) to Australia (with the LET and ALPG) to Singapore (with everyone) for 6 events in February and March--all regular full-field tournaments, with cuts. Wouldn't taking the risk on that kind of international travel be a better deal for the LPGA's rank-and-file than tuning up on the Cactus Tour and the SunCoast Series? After all, the top players can miss cuts just like everyone else. That's kind of how they stop being top players.
Not only could such globalization benefit American players, but so would moving the later Asian swing to follow fairly directly upon the European swing, as Happy Fan has suggested over at Seoul Sisters.com, and upgrading them to full-field events with cuts. The weather would be better in late August and early September than late October and early November in China, Korea, and Japan (and perhaps 1 or 2 more Asian countries, but more likely India than Malaysia or the Philippines, as Huffman snarks at the end of his piece), plus it would be a great follow-up to the annual mid-August synchronized Solheim/Kyoraku-Pinx Cup global showdown I've been calling for for awhile now. And best of all, doing this would allow the LPGA to concentrate its North American events--including the ones in Canada and Mexico, which almost everyone not named Bill Jempty is counting toward the international total when they're played in the same time zones as American ones--in a stretch run in the fall that could capitalize on the momentum from the late summer abroad and drum up more interest in what are just as likely to be tight pennant races then as now.
So even a globalization booster like myself can't envision more than 10-12 LPGA events in the Asian Pacific and South America in the medium term--and just about all of them would be co-sponsored with other women's tours, if I had my way. That puts the ball squarely in the court of the LPGA's North American sponsors. If they would step up and commit to doubling the number of events outside North America, the LPGA would have a minimum of 30-36 events by 2012 and globalization would end up being a win-win for everyone. I don't see why this scenario is any less realistic than Huffman's Chicken Little act.
In the meantime, there's nothing stopping American players from trying to get dual membership on the KLPGA (or, more likely) the JLPGA starting in 2011. Let's say you're a LPGA player or hopeful who doesn't finish in the top 100 on the money list or the top 20 in Q-School at the end of 2010. Why supplement your limited LPGA schedule in 2011 by playing the Futures Tour for peanuts when you could be making a half-million dollars on a minimal schedule on the JLPGA? Sure, the competition is tougher over there than on the FT, but the rewards are much much greater. And if you're tanking against LPGA competition, struggling to make $125K and keep your card for the following season by finishing in the top 80 on the money list, why not play more events and give yourself a fighting chance for the top 50 on the JLPGA (where you'll be making the equivalent of $150K or more)? Language barriers? Culture shock? Fear of the unknown? Ah, so you must really believe the Asian players who come over here are a lot better than you, eh?
The bottom line is, American sponsors and players are going to have to step up their games if they want to compete on a planetary scale. Enough ranting and joking, already! It's time to get serious!
[Update 1 (9:00 am): Are my eyes deceiving me? Is Sal Johnson making more sense than Bill Huffman? Well, Huffman remains the better writer, that's for sure. But Johnson is showing himself to be the better thinker, on the schedule and on Whan, in particular.]
[Update 2 (2:15 pm): Wonder if John Paul Newport has been drinking the Mostly Harmless koolaid, as well?]
[Update 3 (2:25 pm): Hmm, unofficial talks with ADT for 2011? The only change I'd want to see in the format is start with 64, get it down to 32 with a stroke-play cut, then do 2 rounds of match play, and have the final 8 play 18 for $1M.]
[Update 4 (2:30 pm): Nice job by Randall Mell on the players and Whan. And Wie's ankle.]
[Update 5 (11/23/09, 12:53 pm): Karen Crouse looks at how one bad season has affected Reilley Rankin's finances and how the 2010 schedule puts extra pressure on her to perform in her final events this season. Too bad for her she's +6 over her last 18 holes at the LPGA Tour Championship after putting herself in contention over the 1st 25....]
[Update 6 (3:12 pm): Just noticed Bill Jempty's critique of Huffman. Check his link to Dave Seanor's piece, too.]
[Update 7 (7:34 pm): Just got a chance to actually read Seanor's piece. Turns out it's literally SF. And Seanor makes the mistake of many bad SF writers of extrapolating from blips. His look at the "International LPGA" in 2019 is basically calling for all women's tours to merge (saving their national tours as developmental paths to the planetary circuit) and then to merge with the PGA Tour. I don't see it happening in this half of the 21st century. As anyone who paid attention to the globalization bust after the '90s bubble popped knows, there's nothing inevitable about it. Competitive nationalism, particularly among the Asian tours, will only increase with the run-up to the 2016 and 2020 Olympics. Barring a serious economic crisis in Asia, there's no way the fast-growing CLPGA and KLPGA would agree to merge with the JLPGA, much less the LPGA. Furthermore, Seanor's scenario is predicated on the LPGA continuing to decline domestically. I just don't see that happening.]
[Update 8 (1/4/09, 6:41 am): Don't know how I missed Jeff Skinner's mid-October call for the LPGA to embrace globalization.]
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Paging Global Golf Post
Following a suggestion from a long-time reader, I subscribed to Global Golf Post, a new Orlando-based digital magazine edited by Brian Hewitt (formerly of Golf Channel), in hopes that I'd learn something new about golf on this planet. Well, after reading their November 9th issue, I've come to the conclusion that the editorial staff put a lot more effort into their media kit.
Consider this: in their 19-page inaugural issue, Futures Tour Q-School got slightly more inches than the Mizuno Classic (and they were better inches, as they were drawn from a Lisa Mickey press release instead of from the AP). And that was it from the world of women's golf. Seriously.
Anything on the joint LET-KLPGA event with the silly name going on that week? On Hee Kyung Seo clinching KLPGA Player of the Year? On Shinobu Moromizato, Sakura Yokomine, Mi-Jeong Jeon, and Chie Arimura battling it out down the stretch on the JLPGA? On the sharp rise in dual LPGA-JLPGA membership attempts this year--mostly from Koreans on the LPGA planning to try out JLPGA Q-School in the last week of November and 1st of December? Or even on the no-brainer: the global nature of the LPGA's pennant races--the tightest since the days when Karrie Webb and Grace Park were challenging Annika Sorenstam for the dominance in wins, winnings, and scoring average? Of course not. But, hey, there was room for a moderately funny (and half-page!) top 10 to-do list for incoming commissioner Michael Whan. w00t!
I mean, come on! Not even a Rickie, Jamie, Rory, Ryo, Danny, Tadd, etc., Global Generation Next piece? Or a cautionary tale on the last crop of Global It Boys' recent travails? You got a week to get each issue out and this is what you come up with? Really?!
As for the sequel, well, I expected to have the link to it in my inbox by now and was eager to see what Hewitt & Co. decided to do with Michelle Wie's breakthrough win in Lorena's tournament in Guadalajara coming the same week Tiger won down under. Hasn't happened. Still waiting.
Opening-issue glitches are no big deal in the big picture. But they do make me worry that the Global Golf Post people don't yet get that their main competition is not print media. The week before their 1st issue came out, I learned more from the blogs on my sidebar and my twitter feed (and yes, the golfy media's web outposts) than they could gather and get permission to reprint. Yeah, it's great that they have Lewine Mair, Lorne Rubenstein, and Leonard Shapiro, among others. But if they don't approach content in a more comprehensive and creative way and really commit to covering the wide world of golf, they won't even be able to keep giving this thing away for very much longer.
To be sure, they're just getting out of the gates...have room to grow...are just finding their sea legs...and all that. Cliches well taken. But the last thing Global Golf Post needs right now is an "Attaboy" or "You go, girl!" They say they "know precisely what super avid core golfers want in a weekly golf publication...and as importantly, what they do not want." I call bullshit. It's not just that they're not even 25% of the way to that "weekly summary of the competitive game as played the previous week at both the professional and amateur levels, around the world" goal from their media kit. No, the problem is much bigger than that. As long as they rely on the "news, results, and commentary" model from print journalism, they are dead dead dead. How about artistry, background, and context? How about depth, expertise, and flair? Shall I go through the rest of the alphabet?
Seriously, the "super avid core golfer digital native" audience Global Golf Post is supposedly targeting already knows how to find out the results of pretty much any competition around the world and can find all kinds of news and commentary from existing corporate media web sites, high- and low-traffic blogs and microblogs, player and fan sites, and google searches. So basically the only ones willing to pay for this digital magazine down the road will be, uh, people who don't want to do any of that for themselves? Aren't those precisely the people who seem to be pretty satisfied with the online offerings of ESPN, Golf.com, Golf Channel, Golf Digest, Golfweek, Golf Observer, and Golfstat.com? Or at least who will reluctantly migrate to them when the last golf magazine has finally been printed? Last I checked, I got plenty of Tiger and Phil in Shanghai and Tiger Down Under from those sources. I don't need more of the same and I don't see why the "super avid core golfer digital newbies" that Global Golf Post is really targeting would, either.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not cancelling my subscription just yet. But basically I'm getting the feeling so far that I'm driving by a car wreck, craning my neck to see who was hurt, how bad the damage was, and what the paramedics are doing. That's not even close to what I was hoping for. Or what Global Golf Post could be and do.
[Update 1 (10:21 am): Whoops, turns out Hewitt doesn't pick up editing responsibilities until January 1, 2010, so I'll give him a little more time to change my mind than most people will give Michael Whan when he starts his job as LPGA Commissioner a few days later!]
Consider this: in their 19-page inaugural issue, Futures Tour Q-School got slightly more inches than the Mizuno Classic (and they were better inches, as they were drawn from a Lisa Mickey press release instead of from the AP). And that was it from the world of women's golf. Seriously.
Anything on the joint LET-KLPGA event with the silly name going on that week? On Hee Kyung Seo clinching KLPGA Player of the Year? On Shinobu Moromizato, Sakura Yokomine, Mi-Jeong Jeon, and Chie Arimura battling it out down the stretch on the JLPGA? On the sharp rise in dual LPGA-JLPGA membership attempts this year--mostly from Koreans on the LPGA planning to try out JLPGA Q-School in the last week of November and 1st of December? Or even on the no-brainer: the global nature of the LPGA's pennant races--the tightest since the days when Karrie Webb and Grace Park were challenging Annika Sorenstam for the dominance in wins, winnings, and scoring average? Of course not. But, hey, there was room for a moderately funny (and half-page!) top 10 to-do list for incoming commissioner Michael Whan. w00t!
I mean, come on! Not even a Rickie, Jamie, Rory, Ryo, Danny, Tadd, etc., Global Generation Next piece? Or a cautionary tale on the last crop of Global It Boys' recent travails? You got a week to get each issue out and this is what you come up with? Really?!
As for the sequel, well, I expected to have the link to it in my inbox by now and was eager to see what Hewitt & Co. decided to do with Michelle Wie's breakthrough win in Lorena's tournament in Guadalajara coming the same week Tiger won down under. Hasn't happened. Still waiting.
Opening-issue glitches are no big deal in the big picture. But they do make me worry that the Global Golf Post people don't yet get that their main competition is not print media. The week before their 1st issue came out, I learned more from the blogs on my sidebar and my twitter feed (and yes, the golfy media's web outposts) than they could gather and get permission to reprint. Yeah, it's great that they have Lewine Mair, Lorne Rubenstein, and Leonard Shapiro, among others. But if they don't approach content in a more comprehensive and creative way and really commit to covering the wide world of golf, they won't even be able to keep giving this thing away for very much longer.
To be sure, they're just getting out of the gates...have room to grow...are just finding their sea legs...and all that. Cliches well taken. But the last thing Global Golf Post needs right now is an "Attaboy" or "You go, girl!" They say they "know precisely what super avid core golfers want in a weekly golf publication...and as importantly, what they do not want." I call bullshit. It's not just that they're not even 25% of the way to that "weekly summary of the competitive game as played the previous week at both the professional and amateur levels, around the world" goal from their media kit. No, the problem is much bigger than that. As long as they rely on the "news, results, and commentary" model from print journalism, they are dead dead dead. How about artistry, background, and context? How about depth, expertise, and flair? Shall I go through the rest of the alphabet?
Seriously, the "super avid core golfer digital native" audience Global Golf Post is supposedly targeting already knows how to find out the results of pretty much any competition around the world and can find all kinds of news and commentary from existing corporate media web sites, high- and low-traffic blogs and microblogs, player and fan sites, and google searches. So basically the only ones willing to pay for this digital magazine down the road will be, uh, people who don't want to do any of that for themselves? Aren't those precisely the people who seem to be pretty satisfied with the online offerings of ESPN, Golf.com, Golf Channel, Golf Digest, Golfweek, Golf Observer, and Golfstat.com? Or at least who will reluctantly migrate to them when the last golf magazine has finally been printed? Last I checked, I got plenty of Tiger and Phil in Shanghai and Tiger Down Under from those sources. I don't need more of the same and I don't see why the "super avid core golfer digital newbies" that Global Golf Post is really targeting would, either.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not cancelling my subscription just yet. But basically I'm getting the feeling so far that I'm driving by a car wreck, craning my neck to see who was hurt, how bad the damage was, and what the paramedics are doing. That's not even close to what I was hoping for. Or what Global Golf Post could be and do.
[Update 1 (10:21 am): Whoops, turns out Hewitt doesn't pick up editing responsibilities until January 1, 2010, so I'll give him a little more time to change my mind than most people will give Michael Whan when he starts his job as LPGA Commissioner a few days later!]
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Paging Shane Bacon
I usually reserve this kind of title for established golf journalists who write a boneheaded column, but Shane Bacon really brought teh stupid yesterday over at Golf Fanhouse, so he can join Ron Sirak, Steve Elling, Gary Van Sickle, and Jason Sobel in the Mostly Harmless hall of shame.
Psssst, Shane, the LPGA Season Isn't Over! When your 1st 3 words--"It's golf's offseason"--are wrong, wrong, and wrong, maybe it's time to rethink the premise of your piece. Let's put aside the face that the PGA Tour's season is not yet over and that the WGC-HSBC Champions tournament this week is the Biggest. Tournament. In. Asia. Ever. If missing Tiger vs. Phil isn't bad enough, Bacon doesn't even bother to take a look at the schedule of the tour he's purportedly analyzing. The LPGA season is in full pennant race mode, with defending champion Ji-Yai Shin facing off against Ai Miyazato, who's hoping that a 2-week rest and home-country advantage in this week's Mizuno Classic will help her overtake Shin in the races for money list and scoring titles, not to mention a little something called Player of the Year. After that, the other 2 top contenders for these titles, Lorena Ochoa and Cristie Kerr, get home-country advantage in turn in the last 2 events of the season. This is the kind of photo finish the guys wish they could manage. Imagine if Tiger, Phil, Sergio, and Padraig were this close with 3 events to go....
Hey, Buddy, the LPGA Has Plenty of Marketable Stars! Bacon is hung up on the idea of a female Tiger:
That Wie girl he talks about as if her season were over? She's playing in Lorena's tournament next week and is eligible to play in Houston the week after. That 1st win everyone's been waiting for could still happen this season.
How about the player who beat her in the Rookie of the Year race? Ji-Yai Shin may end up being the biggest thing to hit the LPGA since Nancy Lopez. She almost single-handedly turned the KLPGA from a dozen-event mini-tour to the 3rd-best women's tour on the planet as she racked up a couple of dozen wins in a few short seasons there. Only in America could she be dismissed as one of a slew of nameless, faceless "tournament-winning golfers with no appeal." Yeah, I know Shane ranks Shin with Angela Stanford as players known to "serious golf fans" only, but that's certainly not true of her fan base in Korea. Nor is it true of In-Kyung Kim, Na Yeon Choi, Eun-Hee Ji, or Song-Hee Kim.
Same goes for Ai Miyazato, Sakura Yokomine, and Shinobu Moromizato, the 3 Japanese players from the Rolex Top 20, of which Shane claims, "Fans are familiar with about 20 percent of that list, and have no clue about the other players." Maybe that's true of American fans, but let's try the google test he uses on Michelle Wie and Suzann Pettersen on the Japanese trio. If you search "Ai Miyazato" in English and Japanese, she ends up with just shy of a million hits. Yokomine? Over 650K. Moromizato? Around 400K. And that doesn't come close to capturing the attention that Japanese TV lavishes on Ai-sama, Momoko Ueda, Shiho Oyama, and Mika Miyazato on the LPGA or Yokomine, Moromizato, Miho Koga, Chie Arimura, and the rest of the Japanese and Korean superstars on the JLPGA.
So, yeah, the LPGA is definitely a niche sport in the U.S. But it has mass appeal in Korea, Japan, and Taiwan (where Ya Ni Tseng is from). Top Americans like Paula Creamer, Cristie Kerr, Angela Stanford, and Michelle Wie aren't going away any time soon. If Natalie Gulbis and Jane Park can get their backs healed up, they could join those ranks as soon as next season. Sure, Americans love winners, and although Kerr and Creamer have won a lot, they're no Tiger and Phil. But Americans also like underdogs. Christina Kim, Brittany Lang, and Kristy McPherson have already stepped it up on a global stage in the Solheim Cup. If Michael Whan is as smart as I've heard he is, he'll find a way to globalize it. International team match play is a great way to showcase the best women golfers in the world and help American fans connect Asian names and faces.
But, there's no need to wait for that to happen. Every week on the LPGA global superstars, national heroes, and up-and-coming youngsters are battling it out. Maybe 1 "marquee player" will emerge from this cauldron of competition and connect with the "generic viewer." Maybe not. But shooting for the lowest common denominator in the U.S. is a no-win proposition for the LPGA. The tour's issue is not just marketing: it's about finding new ways to reach out to people who aren't yet fans, to share the great stories on tour, to let the players' personalities shine through on the course and via social media--and, above all, to find ways to keep enticing the best female players on the planet to make the LPGA their tour of choice.
[Update 1 (5:41 pm): Brent Kelley reports that not only will Michelle Wie play the last 2 LPGA events, she'll also play in the LET's season-ending Dubai event. Ryan Ballengee explains why American guys will catch up with American gals when it comes to playing abroad. And he focuses on the LPGA's POY race.]
[Update 2 (11/5/09, 5:38 am): Nice interview with Natalie Gulbis from the Armchair Golfer. She explains why she skipped Korea last week and is sitting out the Asian swing and gives guarded answers on the state of her back.]
[Update 3 (11/14/09, 11:10 am): To give Shane credit, he's done some good writing on his experiences looping for Erica Blasberg earlier this season. And he'll get another chance to caddie for her and write about it in Houston next week!]
Psssst, Shane, the LPGA Season Isn't Over! When your 1st 3 words--"It's golf's offseason"--are wrong, wrong, and wrong, maybe it's time to rethink the premise of your piece. Let's put aside the face that the PGA Tour's season is not yet over and that the WGC-HSBC Champions tournament this week is the Biggest. Tournament. In. Asia. Ever. If missing Tiger vs. Phil isn't bad enough, Bacon doesn't even bother to take a look at the schedule of the tour he's purportedly analyzing. The LPGA season is in full pennant race mode, with defending champion Ji-Yai Shin facing off against Ai Miyazato, who's hoping that a 2-week rest and home-country advantage in this week's Mizuno Classic will help her overtake Shin in the races for money list and scoring titles, not to mention a little something called Player of the Year. After that, the other 2 top contenders for these titles, Lorena Ochoa and Cristie Kerr, get home-country advantage in turn in the last 2 events of the season. This is the kind of photo finish the guys wish they could manage. Imagine if Tiger, Phil, Sergio, and Padraig were this close with 3 events to go....
Hey, Buddy, the LPGA Has Plenty of Marketable Stars! Bacon is hung up on the idea of a female Tiger:
Plain and simple ... the superstars on the golf course aren't the same superstars that companies are turning to. It's confusing the fan base. It's making it strange to see no-name golfers hold the trophy. The LPGA is in need of a marketable superstar.
That Wie girl he talks about as if her season were over? She's playing in Lorena's tournament next week and is eligible to play in Houston the week after. That 1st win everyone's been waiting for could still happen this season.
How about the player who beat her in the Rookie of the Year race? Ji-Yai Shin may end up being the biggest thing to hit the LPGA since Nancy Lopez. She almost single-handedly turned the KLPGA from a dozen-event mini-tour to the 3rd-best women's tour on the planet as she racked up a couple of dozen wins in a few short seasons there. Only in America could she be dismissed as one of a slew of nameless, faceless "tournament-winning golfers with no appeal." Yeah, I know Shane ranks Shin with Angela Stanford as players known to "serious golf fans" only, but that's certainly not true of her fan base in Korea. Nor is it true of In-Kyung Kim, Na Yeon Choi, Eun-Hee Ji, or Song-Hee Kim.
Same goes for Ai Miyazato, Sakura Yokomine, and Shinobu Moromizato, the 3 Japanese players from the Rolex Top 20, of which Shane claims, "Fans are familiar with about 20 percent of that list, and have no clue about the other players." Maybe that's true of American fans, but let's try the google test he uses on Michelle Wie and Suzann Pettersen on the Japanese trio. If you search "Ai Miyazato" in English and Japanese, she ends up with just shy of a million hits. Yokomine? Over 650K. Moromizato? Around 400K. And that doesn't come close to capturing the attention that Japanese TV lavishes on Ai-sama, Momoko Ueda, Shiho Oyama, and Mika Miyazato on the LPGA or Yokomine, Moromizato, Miho Koga, Chie Arimura, and the rest of the Japanese and Korean superstars on the JLPGA.
So, yeah, the LPGA is definitely a niche sport in the U.S. But it has mass appeal in Korea, Japan, and Taiwan (where Ya Ni Tseng is from). Top Americans like Paula Creamer, Cristie Kerr, Angela Stanford, and Michelle Wie aren't going away any time soon. If Natalie Gulbis and Jane Park can get their backs healed up, they could join those ranks as soon as next season. Sure, Americans love winners, and although Kerr and Creamer have won a lot, they're no Tiger and Phil. But Americans also like underdogs. Christina Kim, Brittany Lang, and Kristy McPherson have already stepped it up on a global stage in the Solheim Cup. If Michael Whan is as smart as I've heard he is, he'll find a way to globalize it. International team match play is a great way to showcase the best women golfers in the world and help American fans connect Asian names and faces.
But, there's no need to wait for that to happen. Every week on the LPGA global superstars, national heroes, and up-and-coming youngsters are battling it out. Maybe 1 "marquee player" will emerge from this cauldron of competition and connect with the "generic viewer." Maybe not. But shooting for the lowest common denominator in the U.S. is a no-win proposition for the LPGA. The tour's issue is not just marketing: it's about finding new ways to reach out to people who aren't yet fans, to share the great stories on tour, to let the players' personalities shine through on the course and via social media--and, above all, to find ways to keep enticing the best female players on the planet to make the LPGA their tour of choice.
[Update 1 (5:41 pm): Brent Kelley reports that not only will Michelle Wie play the last 2 LPGA events, she'll also play in the LET's season-ending Dubai event. Ryan Ballengee explains why American guys will catch up with American gals when it comes to playing abroad. And he focuses on the LPGA's POY race.]
[Update 2 (11/5/09, 5:38 am): Nice interview with Natalie Gulbis from the Armchair Golfer. She explains why she skipped Korea last week and is sitting out the Asian swing and gives guarded answers on the state of her back.]
[Update 3 (11/14/09, 11:10 am): To give Shane credit, he's done some good writing on his experiences looping for Erica Blasberg earlier this season. And he'll get another chance to caddie for her and write about it in Houston next week!]
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Whither the LPGA? Or, the Michelle Wie Effect, Revisited
There's been a lot going on off the course in LPGA-land as we head into the U.S. Women's Open. For those who need catching up, here's a run-down. What follows it are some thoughts on the issues facing the tour, and some advice.
Last week, Ryan Ballengee (following up on Beth Ann Baldry) laid out the effects of a terrible economy--and what's looking more and more like a terrible strategy from Commissioner Carolyn Bivens and company--on this year's and next year's schedule. Hound Dog considered its repercussions on the tour's rank-and-file. Emily Kay worried that even great play and great competition on the course can't make up for what's been happening off the course. John Strege collected Ron Sirak's tweets on the LPGA's gloomy outlook. Brent Kelley passed along the million-dollar question from a fellow about.com guide, "Is the LPGA dying?" (I put my own 2 cents in on the discussion forum and I encourage you to, too.) And Dave Andrews surveyed the most recent writings by Jim Gorant and the SI guys. In response (and anticipation of some of these posts), Stephanie Wei suggested we all take a chill pill, stop blaming the Biv, and wait for the tour to bounce back, even if it takes a few years.
But then the bombshell hit. Ryan Ballengee (again following up on a Baldry story) summarized the most recent round of now-confirmed rumors--that prominent players have signed a letter demanding Bivens's resignation--and laid out his own vision for the LPGA's future. Jeff Skinner thoughtfully linked the crisis at the LPGA with the debate over the USGA's new entrance criteria for this year's U.S. Women's Open.
So that's where we stand right now. I should have known something big was going on last week when I noted signs of desperation leaking out from LPGA HQ. Remember the heat they were taking at the start of the season for deciding not to go out of their way to hype Michelle Wie? Well, it turns out she may not have been crucial to their media strategy, but all along they were counting on the Michelle Wie effect to get sponsors, tournament organizers, and television executives committed to the tour. Just listen to David Higdon spinning wildly in the wake of the collapse of the Kapalua event:
I can imagine how hard it has been to sell a bunch of ifs in this economy. If this is what Mission 2010 (or is it Vision 2010?) is built on, if this is the reason the LPGA brass decided to have so many tournament contracts come up for negotiation simultaneously, if this is why Bivens decided to take such a huge gamble, then, wow, she deserves everything she gets. Because this strategy had to have been crafted when Wie was injured, playing terribly, and getting lambasted for it. And she was pitching it while Wie was playing fine for a rookie, but only showing flashes of brilliance. In fact, it's only in the last couple of weeks that Wie has really begun to impress me, as she's played much better than I expected her to on courses that don't suit her game as it stands.
And that's precisely where things get very interesting. Is Wie on the verge of breaking through for her 1st win since 2003, as her supporters suggest? You can see now why the LPGA brass have delayed serious negotiations with tournament organizers as long as they possibly could, right? They're literally waiting to see what happens if the hypotheticals that ground their business strategy come true.
But whoever emerges as the LPGA commissioner after the ongoing power struggle plays out--and it could well be Bivens herself--won't have the luxury of waiting. No matter who sits in the commissioner's seat, the same issues will be facing the LPGA.
The Players
The LPGA attracts the vast majority of the best professional women golfers on the planet. Sure, a handful of KLPGA and LET players could do well on tour, and maybe more than a dozen of the JLPGA's finest, as well. Some might even be top 20 material on the LPGA, or better. Therein lies the LPGA's promise, and its curse. If even Lorena Ochoa has been finding it difficult over the last year to stay ahead of the curve, it's pretty safe to say what's defined professional golf for many fans' and sports writers' memory--the Annika Era, the Tiger Era, the Lorena Era--is coming to a close. Everyone is going to have to adjust to the idea that rivalries, not a single dominant player, are the wave of the future in women's professional golf. And it goes beyond the Big 6 I focused on last week. When the last 2 1st-time winners on tour didn't even make my top 20 of those seeking their 1st win as an LPGA member, the tour, the media, and the fans are going to have to learn a lot--and quickly--about a much wider range of players than they're used to.
But the LPGA is so much better positioned now than they were in the mid-to-late '90s, when new stars Annika Sorenstam, Karrie Webb, and Se Ri Pak joined a resurgent Juli Inkster as the tour's Big 4. Back then, the media worried that Sorensam and Webb were too reserved to connect with existing fans or make new ones and that Americans wouldn't warm up to the furriners stealing their tour. Today, even taking into account that anti-Asian prejudice and ignorance of Asia is exponentially greater even today than what the Swedish and Australian Hall of Famers had to negotiate last decade, the fact is that information technology and social networking have made it possible for players and the tour to take the initiative. They can help shape the media's coverage and even bypass it entirely. They can reach out to bloggers like Hound Dog, Happy Fan, Golf Girl, Ryan Ballengee, Bill Jempty, and Stephanie Wei (not to mention others I follow in the Mostly Harmless Golfarama sidebar). They can speak directly to fans through facebook, twitter, and their own blogs. It's going to take some work and some creativity to take full advantage of these possibilities, but it can be done.
And time is on their side. There's a global youth movement changing the face of women's professional golf. Who would have predicted in 2006 that Ya Ni Tseng and Ji-Yai Shin would have gotten multiple LPGA wins before Michelle Wie? Who knows who the LPGA's elite will be in 2012? And who knows what kind of schedules they'll put together?
The Schedule
As I've already noted, we can expect to see more players with "dual citizenship" and more choices where to play any given week in the world of women's golf. Sometimes that can lead to strange decisions, as in the recent cases of Ai Miyazato and Sakura Yokomine each deciding to skip an LPGA major to play on the JLPGA. But overall it helps to grow the game.
And the players are ahead of the tours on this. With the LPGA's plans for a U.S. network deal in shambles, it's about time to revisit an idea I floated back in February: shore up the spring schedule by co-sponsoring events in Australia and Asia with the JLPGA, KLPGA, LET, and ALPG and shore up the spring and summer schedule in the U.S. by keying fees for tournament sponsors and organizers to market and population sizes. The only thing that's really changed since then is the need to repair relationships with long-running events and communities that have been put off by Bivens's hardball tactics. Whether it's a newly-contrite and flexible Bivens doing that, or a player-commissioner like Juli Inkster, or someone else entirely (what do you say, Annika?) matters less to me than a commitment by the tour to keep the Corning, Wegmans, and Farr going, reach out to Shoprite, and lower the start-up costs for those wanting to bring the LPGA to smaller cities with strong golfing communities.
To keep the best players committed to the LPGA, the tour brass ought to preserve old ADT Championship's qualifying criteria and format for the season-ending Tour Championship (unless, of course, they can get ADT back or find someone else to start the 2011 season off with a bang). Sure, they could expand the number of qualifiers in each half of the season to, say, winners of any LPGA event and those in the top 30 on the money list, and offer 4 more spots for the highest on the season-long money list who haven't already qualified, to expand the initial field from 32 to 64. And if they started on a Wednesday, they could use match play on Saturday to winnow the Sweet 16 down to an Elite 8 playing 18 holes of stroke play on Sunday for the $1M prize. Rather than fearing the "any given round" vagaries of match play and a shootout, they could use the uncertainty and surprises to introduce new players to new audiences. After all, if it were a season-opening event, they would have the entire off-season to hype it up and to prepare bite-size profiles of each of the competitors (and have more ready to go when dark horses emerge from the pack).
The chance to qualify for and compete for such a big prize and get such exposure would provide even more incentive for the world's best female pros to make the LPGA their tour of choice. No matter how long it takes for Michelle Wie to win once or repeatedly on the LPGA, following this plan would ensure that more media and fans would come to appreciate the meaning and value of her being able to defeat the world's best.
[Update 1 (11:31 am): Thanks for the link over at Devil Ball Golf. If you're not in the habit of reading comments there, or just want an executive summary of my own thoughts on where the LPGA has to go, I had to respond to Jay's teaser set-up, "Changes must come, sooner rather than later, and the one person who could save the entire organization is ... Michelle Wie? Read on and see if you agree." Here it is:
Also, I encourage you to check out Waggle Room regular courtgolf's thoughtful response to (and critique of) this post in the comments here--and join in!]
[Update 2 (11:45 am): My U.S. Women's Open preview goes live at midnight. Until then, I recommend Golfweek's coverage and Golf Channel's blogging over at Shag Bag.]
[Update 3 (2:12 pm): Dave Seanor speculates on a Bivens successor and wonders whether IMG or the PGA will be the LPGA's white knight. I think the former is premature: Bivens is a hardball negotiator and isn't likely to be intimidated even by Hall of Famers playing hardball with her; it's going to take everyone on the LPGA Player Executive Committee acting in concert to oust her; and a negotiated settlement is just as likely as any other outcome, particularly with the money at stake to terminate her contract. On the latter, I don't see why the LPGA needs a white knight. More coordination with other major women's tours will handle the spring and more flexibility with tournament organizers will handle the summer and the fall. Bivens's bullishness on the LPGA for the long term is well-founded. All the LPGA has to do is survive for the next few years and let the players speak for themselves on and off the course. Stephanie Wei was absolutely right to stress that now is the time to lay the foundation for future growth.]
[Update 4 (4:11 pm): Steve Elling isn't happy with Cristie Kerr's refusal to speak about the Bivens imbroglio. I can understand the logic of the players leaking their grievances this week--Independence Day symbolism, media attention on the LPGA b/c of the U.S. Women's Open, giving Bivens a taste of her own medicine--but this is sure going to make it difficult for the players and the media to focus on the actual tournament at hand, particularly when writers like Seanor and Elling usually have so much trouble focusing in the first place. Plus, it's a potentially divisive issue heading into the Solheim Cup. I have to wonder if it would have been better to air the concerns privately and, if Bivens hadn't shown flexibility, go public to the Board of Directors after the Cup. Yes, that would have been a risky strategy, as well, particularly if the Wegmans and Farr organizers decided to call Bivens's bluff in the mean time. But it would have given the dissidents more time to lobby their peers and make sure the BOD voted their way. Given all the risks to going forward now, I have to believe the players thought the rewards were both attainable and worth it.]
[Update 5 (5:02 pm): Gotta clear up a misconception I'm seeing all over--it's not that the LPGA isn't marketing a wider range of players than ever before (just check out LPGA.com) or doing a better job of it (although they really gotta make every player's page a portal for finding out more than golf, like, say, links to their web sites, good articles on them from all over the web, and photos/videos, as well as for communicating with them). It's that their marketing's been most successful with local media--yet these are the very people who won't be writing on the LPGA if it no longer comes to their region. Yet another reason the LPGA needs small-to-mid-market events.]
[Update 6 (5:09 pm): Elling, take note. Instead of just emoting, Ron Sirak did some old-fashioned reporting, giving much-needed context on the timing of the dissidents' letter, reasons for everyone's (HQ as well as players) silence, and a sense of how the players on the Executive Committee may vote (5-2 in favor of the dissidents).]
[Update 7 (7:44 pm): I must be a bad writer; Stephanie Wei misreads my post in a similar way as Jay Busbee did, on the way to expressing more enthusiasm for Seanor's PGA buyout scenario than I have. So let me try to be clearer here: it's not that I think betting the farm that Wie would rapidly become a rainmaker vis a vis sponsors was a good idea; sure, it could still work out if Wie rocks the European swing and qualifies for the Solheim Cup (or is a captain's pick and plays great), but, man, what a risk! You can see the same risk-taking mentality in the decision to double down during a bad economy and pressure tournament organizers and sponsors to pony up more (and risk giving less). While I admire that bravado at some level, the tour could well be headed for an epic fail if Bivens continues to stick to her guns. I don't care who's in charge; I want to see a change in tactics and strategy from LPGA HQ.]
[Update 8 (7/8/09, 10:31 am): Baldry has more news; read it to see why a Christina Kim-Suzann Pettersen singles match in the Solheim Cup woud have an extra spark to it.]
[Update 9 (10:39 am): Joe Juliano reports that Helen Alfredsson (who's on the LPGA Board of Directors) knew nothing about this. The plot thickens.]
[Update 10 (11:41 am): Ryan Ballengee (responding in part to Seanor) thinks through the short term if Bivens were to step down or be forced out.]
[Update 11 (8:08 pm): More thoughts from Stephanie Wei, links from Geoff Shackelford, and a preview of the Open itself from yours truly.]
[Update 12 (7/9/09, 2:18 pm): I'm not blogging on Bivensgate until after the Open, but if Shackelford's linkage isn't enough for you, here's some more from Ryan Ballengee. BTW, the LPGA has issued a statement explaining their no-statement policy.]
[Update 13 (6:24 pm): Here's a more thoughtful Steve Elling.]
[Update 14 (10:37 pm): Whoops, Sirak trumps Elling, again.]
[Update 15 (10:42 pm): Hound Dog is back from vacation and has a response to Baldry's latest.]
Last week, Ryan Ballengee (following up on Beth Ann Baldry) laid out the effects of a terrible economy--and what's looking more and more like a terrible strategy from Commissioner Carolyn Bivens and company--on this year's and next year's schedule. Hound Dog considered its repercussions on the tour's rank-and-file. Emily Kay worried that even great play and great competition on the course can't make up for what's been happening off the course. John Strege collected Ron Sirak's tweets on the LPGA's gloomy outlook. Brent Kelley passed along the million-dollar question from a fellow about.com guide, "Is the LPGA dying?" (I put my own 2 cents in on the discussion forum and I encourage you to, too.) And Dave Andrews surveyed the most recent writings by Jim Gorant and the SI guys. In response (and anticipation of some of these posts), Stephanie Wei suggested we all take a chill pill, stop blaming the Biv, and wait for the tour to bounce back, even if it takes a few years.
But then the bombshell hit. Ryan Ballengee (again following up on a Baldry story) summarized the most recent round of now-confirmed rumors--that prominent players have signed a letter demanding Bivens's resignation--and laid out his own vision for the LPGA's future. Jeff Skinner thoughtfully linked the crisis at the LPGA with the debate over the USGA's new entrance criteria for this year's U.S. Women's Open.
So that's where we stand right now. I should have known something big was going on last week when I noted signs of desperation leaking out from LPGA HQ. Remember the heat they were taking at the start of the season for deciding not to go out of their way to hype Michelle Wie? Well, it turns out she may not have been crucial to their media strategy, but all along they were counting on the Michelle Wie effect to get sponsors, tournament organizers, and television executives committed to the tour. Just listen to David Higdon spinning wildly in the wake of the collapse of the Kapalua event:
"Why do we have three tournaments in Mexico? Players drive our business," said Higdon, referring to the draw of top-ranked Lorena Ochoa. "If Michelle Wie took off, the business model will probably change a little bit more and we'll be fielding more calls and options.... You look at how amazing Tiger Woods has been and what a draw he is. Of our players, Michelle Wie has that quality," Higdon said. "So we hope that she can develop because she already has that strong following. If she turns into a great player, it will be amazing for the sport...and those are the kinds of things that will play in Hawaii's favor down the road."
I can imagine how hard it has been to sell a bunch of ifs in this economy. If this is what Mission 2010 (or is it Vision 2010?) is built on, if this is the reason the LPGA brass decided to have so many tournament contracts come up for negotiation simultaneously, if this is why Bivens decided to take such a huge gamble, then, wow, she deserves everything she gets. Because this strategy had to have been crafted when Wie was injured, playing terribly, and getting lambasted for it. And she was pitching it while Wie was playing fine for a rookie, but only showing flashes of brilliance. In fact, it's only in the last couple of weeks that Wie has really begun to impress me, as she's played much better than I expected her to on courses that don't suit her game as it stands.
And that's precisely where things get very interesting. Is Wie on the verge of breaking through for her 1st win since 2003, as her supporters suggest? You can see now why the LPGA brass have delayed serious negotiations with tournament organizers as long as they possibly could, right? They're literally waiting to see what happens if the hypotheticals that ground their business strategy come true.
But whoever emerges as the LPGA commissioner after the ongoing power struggle plays out--and it could well be Bivens herself--won't have the luxury of waiting. No matter who sits in the commissioner's seat, the same issues will be facing the LPGA.
The Players
The LPGA attracts the vast majority of the best professional women golfers on the planet. Sure, a handful of KLPGA and LET players could do well on tour, and maybe more than a dozen of the JLPGA's finest, as well. Some might even be top 20 material on the LPGA, or better. Therein lies the LPGA's promise, and its curse. If even Lorena Ochoa has been finding it difficult over the last year to stay ahead of the curve, it's pretty safe to say what's defined professional golf for many fans' and sports writers' memory--the Annika Era, the Tiger Era, the Lorena Era--is coming to a close. Everyone is going to have to adjust to the idea that rivalries, not a single dominant player, are the wave of the future in women's professional golf. And it goes beyond the Big 6 I focused on last week. When the last 2 1st-time winners on tour didn't even make my top 20 of those seeking their 1st win as an LPGA member, the tour, the media, and the fans are going to have to learn a lot--and quickly--about a much wider range of players than they're used to.
But the LPGA is so much better positioned now than they were in the mid-to-late '90s, when new stars Annika Sorenstam, Karrie Webb, and Se Ri Pak joined a resurgent Juli Inkster as the tour's Big 4. Back then, the media worried that Sorensam and Webb were too reserved to connect with existing fans or make new ones and that Americans wouldn't warm up to the furriners stealing their tour. Today, even taking into account that anti-Asian prejudice and ignorance of Asia is exponentially greater even today than what the Swedish and Australian Hall of Famers had to negotiate last decade, the fact is that information technology and social networking have made it possible for players and the tour to take the initiative. They can help shape the media's coverage and even bypass it entirely. They can reach out to bloggers like Hound Dog, Happy Fan, Golf Girl, Ryan Ballengee, Bill Jempty, and Stephanie Wei (not to mention others I follow in the Mostly Harmless Golfarama sidebar). They can speak directly to fans through facebook, twitter, and their own blogs. It's going to take some work and some creativity to take full advantage of these possibilities, but it can be done.
And time is on their side. There's a global youth movement changing the face of women's professional golf. Who would have predicted in 2006 that Ya Ni Tseng and Ji-Yai Shin would have gotten multiple LPGA wins before Michelle Wie? Who knows who the LPGA's elite will be in 2012? And who knows what kind of schedules they'll put together?
The Schedule
As I've already noted, we can expect to see more players with "dual citizenship" and more choices where to play any given week in the world of women's golf. Sometimes that can lead to strange decisions, as in the recent cases of Ai Miyazato and Sakura Yokomine each deciding to skip an LPGA major to play on the JLPGA. But overall it helps to grow the game.
And the players are ahead of the tours on this. With the LPGA's plans for a U.S. network deal in shambles, it's about time to revisit an idea I floated back in February: shore up the spring schedule by co-sponsoring events in Australia and Asia with the JLPGA, KLPGA, LET, and ALPG and shore up the spring and summer schedule in the U.S. by keying fees for tournament sponsors and organizers to market and population sizes. The only thing that's really changed since then is the need to repair relationships with long-running events and communities that have been put off by Bivens's hardball tactics. Whether it's a newly-contrite and flexible Bivens doing that, or a player-commissioner like Juli Inkster, or someone else entirely (what do you say, Annika?) matters less to me than a commitment by the tour to keep the Corning, Wegmans, and Farr going, reach out to Shoprite, and lower the start-up costs for those wanting to bring the LPGA to smaller cities with strong golfing communities.
To keep the best players committed to the LPGA, the tour brass ought to preserve old ADT Championship's qualifying criteria and format for the season-ending Tour Championship (unless, of course, they can get ADT back or find someone else to start the 2011 season off with a bang). Sure, they could expand the number of qualifiers in each half of the season to, say, winners of any LPGA event and those in the top 30 on the money list, and offer 4 more spots for the highest on the season-long money list who haven't already qualified, to expand the initial field from 32 to 64. And if they started on a Wednesday, they could use match play on Saturday to winnow the Sweet 16 down to an Elite 8 playing 18 holes of stroke play on Sunday for the $1M prize. Rather than fearing the "any given round" vagaries of match play and a shootout, they could use the uncertainty and surprises to introduce new players to new audiences. After all, if it were a season-opening event, they would have the entire off-season to hype it up and to prepare bite-size profiles of each of the competitors (and have more ready to go when dark horses emerge from the pack).
The chance to qualify for and compete for such a big prize and get such exposure would provide even more incentive for the world's best female pros to make the LPGA their tour of choice. No matter how long it takes for Michelle Wie to win once or repeatedly on the LPGA, following this plan would ensure that more media and fans would come to appreciate the meaning and value of her being able to defeat the world's best.
[Update 1 (11:31 am): Thanks for the link over at Devil Ball Golf. If you're not in the habit of reading comments there, or just want an executive summary of my own thoughts on where the LPGA has to go, I had to respond to Jay's teaser set-up, "Changes must come, sooner rather than later, and the one person who could save the entire organization is ... Michelle Wie? Read on and see if you agree." Here it is:
To be clear, I believe Bivens has bet the house on Wie--and who knows, the bet may still pay off if she can put together 4 good rounds. But I don't think the LPGA has the luxury of waiting for this to happen. Could be later this season. Could be next. Could take longer. (Me, I'm still waiting and rooting for Ai Miyazato [14 JLPGA wins] to get that 1st LPGA win, and she's in her 4th year on tour. ) Waiting and hoping is not a viable business model in this economy. So I lay out areas where the LPGA ought to rethink their tactics and strategy, short-run and long-term. Even if Wie starts winning, I'm not at all confident she can do for the LPGA what Tiger did for the PGA. So in my book, Wie is part of the answer, not the answer. No single player is going to be the answer.
Also, I encourage you to check out Waggle Room regular courtgolf's thoughtful response to (and critique of) this post in the comments here--and join in!]
[Update 2 (11:45 am): My U.S. Women's Open preview goes live at midnight. Until then, I recommend Golfweek's coverage and Golf Channel's blogging over at Shag Bag.]
[Update 3 (2:12 pm): Dave Seanor speculates on a Bivens successor and wonders whether IMG or the PGA will be the LPGA's white knight. I think the former is premature: Bivens is a hardball negotiator and isn't likely to be intimidated even by Hall of Famers playing hardball with her; it's going to take everyone on the LPGA Player Executive Committee acting in concert to oust her; and a negotiated settlement is just as likely as any other outcome, particularly with the money at stake to terminate her contract. On the latter, I don't see why the LPGA needs a white knight. More coordination with other major women's tours will handle the spring and more flexibility with tournament organizers will handle the summer and the fall. Bivens's bullishness on the LPGA for the long term is well-founded. All the LPGA has to do is survive for the next few years and let the players speak for themselves on and off the course. Stephanie Wei was absolutely right to stress that now is the time to lay the foundation for future growth.]
[Update 4 (4:11 pm): Steve Elling isn't happy with Cristie Kerr's refusal to speak about the Bivens imbroglio. I can understand the logic of the players leaking their grievances this week--Independence Day symbolism, media attention on the LPGA b/c of the U.S. Women's Open, giving Bivens a taste of her own medicine--but this is sure going to make it difficult for the players and the media to focus on the actual tournament at hand, particularly when writers like Seanor and Elling usually have so much trouble focusing in the first place. Plus, it's a potentially divisive issue heading into the Solheim Cup. I have to wonder if it would have been better to air the concerns privately and, if Bivens hadn't shown flexibility, go public to the Board of Directors after the Cup. Yes, that would have been a risky strategy, as well, particularly if the Wegmans and Farr organizers decided to call Bivens's bluff in the mean time. But it would have given the dissidents more time to lobby their peers and make sure the BOD voted their way. Given all the risks to going forward now, I have to believe the players thought the rewards were both attainable and worth it.]
[Update 5 (5:02 pm): Gotta clear up a misconception I'm seeing all over--it's not that the LPGA isn't marketing a wider range of players than ever before (just check out LPGA.com) or doing a better job of it (although they really gotta make every player's page a portal for finding out more than golf, like, say, links to their web sites, good articles on them from all over the web, and photos/videos, as well as for communicating with them). It's that their marketing's been most successful with local media--yet these are the very people who won't be writing on the LPGA if it no longer comes to their region. Yet another reason the LPGA needs small-to-mid-market events.]
[Update 6 (5:09 pm): Elling, take note. Instead of just emoting, Ron Sirak did some old-fashioned reporting, giving much-needed context on the timing of the dissidents' letter, reasons for everyone's (HQ as well as players) silence, and a sense of how the players on the Executive Committee may vote (5-2 in favor of the dissidents).]
[Update 7 (7:44 pm): I must be a bad writer; Stephanie Wei misreads my post in a similar way as Jay Busbee did, on the way to expressing more enthusiasm for Seanor's PGA buyout scenario than I have. So let me try to be clearer here: it's not that I think betting the farm that Wie would rapidly become a rainmaker vis a vis sponsors was a good idea; sure, it could still work out if Wie rocks the European swing and qualifies for the Solheim Cup (or is a captain's pick and plays great), but, man, what a risk! You can see the same risk-taking mentality in the decision to double down during a bad economy and pressure tournament organizers and sponsors to pony up more (and risk giving less). While I admire that bravado at some level, the tour could well be headed for an epic fail if Bivens continues to stick to her guns. I don't care who's in charge; I want to see a change in tactics and strategy from LPGA HQ.]
[Update 8 (7/8/09, 10:31 am): Baldry has more news; read it to see why a Christina Kim-Suzann Pettersen singles match in the Solheim Cup woud have an extra spark to it.]
[Update 9 (10:39 am): Joe Juliano reports that Helen Alfredsson (who's on the LPGA Board of Directors) knew nothing about this. The plot thickens.]
[Update 10 (11:41 am): Ryan Ballengee (responding in part to Seanor) thinks through the short term if Bivens were to step down or be forced out.]
[Update 11 (8:08 pm): More thoughts from Stephanie Wei, links from Geoff Shackelford, and a preview of the Open itself from yours truly.]
[Update 12 (7/9/09, 2:18 pm): I'm not blogging on Bivensgate until after the Open, but if Shackelford's linkage isn't enough for you, here's some more from Ryan Ballengee. BTW, the LPGA has issued a statement explaining their no-statement policy.]
[Update 13 (6:24 pm): Here's a more thoughtful Steve Elling.]
[Update 14 (10:37 pm): Whoops, Sirak trumps Elling, again.]
[Update 15 (10:42 pm): Hound Dog is back from vacation and has a response to Baldry's latest.]
Friday, June 12, 2009
How Would You Fix the LPGA's Approach to Web 2.0?
The LPGA has been talking a good game about social networking and reaching new audiences through new technologies, but so far I'd rate their actual efforts a C- at best. I know a thing or two about blogging, and one thing I know is that they ought to hire Hound Dog as their official blogger. He's informative, interesting, level-headed, and consistently covers a wider range of players and issues than any professional golf writer out there. Plus he could help upgrade the stats and preserve the historical record. What can I say? The guy is multi-talented!
I don't do twitter or facebook, but I watch a lot of youtube with my girls, and I have to say that the LPGA's youtube channel is about as bad as it gets. The Corning weekly wrap, for instance, featured a slow mo slideshow of still photos with a voiceover that sounded like it belonged in a Hollywood movie trailer, but what he was saying was about as interesting as those high school informational films The Simpsons is always parodying. Does anyone at the LPGA actually understand the concept of a viral video? They should hire Stephanie Wei rightawei away, who's done more with video blogging in a couple of months than the LPGA has in a couple of years. With the number of great personalities on tour and full access, Wei would have a field day.
She certainly could do better than this guy, who's light years ahead of the LPGA:
Sorry, we're leaving Okinawa in a few hours, so had to slip in that little tribute to Ai and Mika Miyazato (who are sisters only in the sense that the Seoul Sisters are). Seriously, as much as I appreciate this better-designed video page at LPGA.com, it's way too soon for them to give up on youtube.
Now, since hiring new personnel is probably around about #168 on the LPGA's priority list, may I humbly suggest that we in the golfosphere donate a few suggestions to help the tour improve its social networking efforts? How can we help the LPGA get Web 2.0?
I know, so 2007, right? So what's the deal for 2010 and beyond? Beyond, like, updating their Players on the Web page, encouraging the rookies to write more interesting blogs, keeping all stats at every single tournament, and getting more live streaming video from tournaments on the site (put all that footage Golf Channel won't be using to work for the tour)....
I don't do twitter or facebook, but I watch a lot of youtube with my girls, and I have to say that the LPGA's youtube channel is about as bad as it gets. The Corning weekly wrap, for instance, featured a slow mo slideshow of still photos with a voiceover that sounded like it belonged in a Hollywood movie trailer, but what he was saying was about as interesting as those high school informational films The Simpsons is always parodying. Does anyone at the LPGA actually understand the concept of a viral video? They should hire Stephanie Wei right
She certainly could do better than this guy, who's light years ahead of the LPGA:
Sorry, we're leaving Okinawa in a few hours, so had to slip in that little tribute to Ai and Mika Miyazato (who are sisters only in the sense that the Seoul Sisters are). Seriously, as much as I appreciate this better-designed video page at LPGA.com, it's way too soon for them to give up on youtube.
Now, since hiring new personnel is probably around about #168 on the LPGA's priority list, may I humbly suggest that we in the golfosphere donate a few suggestions to help the tour improve its social networking efforts? How can we help the LPGA get Web 2.0?
I know, so 2007, right? So what's the deal for 2010 and beyond? Beyond, like, updating their Players on the Web page, encouraging the rookies to write more interesting blogs, keeping all stats at every single tournament, and getting more live streaming video from tournaments on the site (put all that footage Golf Channel won't be using to work for the tour)....
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