From course to catwalk: a new image for women's golf

Women's tennis vamped up its image thanks to the look, and actions, of Anna Kournikova. Now women's golf is looking to do the same, writes RICHARD GLLIS

THE EARLY summer of 2001 was a seismic moment that altered the development of women’s professional sport, the aftershocks of which can be felt this week as the best women golfers from Europe and America contest the Solheim Cup.

In the weeks running up to that year’s Wimbledon tournament, hundreds of advertising billboards across London began showing a poster of Russian tennis player Anna Kournikova. Travellers on the British capital’s underground Tube network were confronted by the image of Kournikova wearing a Berlei sports bra, smiling sweetly alongside the strapline: “Only the balls should bounce”. The poster was wallpapered across every station concourse, to the extent that no other advertiser was allocated any space. Newspapers picked up on it, editorials were run, what’s going on?

The results were astonishing. Sales of the Berlei Aftershock sports bra sky rocketed, creating a hot new market in the previously moribund sector of sports underwear. More than that, the campaign marked the start of Anna Kournikova’s rise to super stardom.

Rival players noted the size and number of her endorsement deals – Berlei reputedly paid €2.3 million, as did Adidas – and event promoters reported jumps in ticket sales of between 50-70 per cent when she appeared, offering generous appearance fees. Most significantly for the future of women’s sport, the only figure that remained on zero was in the column devoted to Kournikova’s singles tournament victories.

There had been attractive sportswomen before; Chris Evert was the darling of Wimbledon throughout the 1970s. But Evert was also a multiple Grand Slam winner with millions in career tournament earnings, maintaining a more than healthy balance between style and substance.

Kournikova broke that model. For her, sport became a platform from which to shift product, as she crossed over into the realm of showbusiness at a time when sports such as women’s tennis and golf are struggling for media coverage on the back pages; her ability to generate column inches boosted by her life with Spanish crooner Enrique Inglesias and her penchant for Versace clothes.

Supporters of Kournikova cite the benefits she had on the image of women’s tennis, that she was a better player than she is given credit for (she was the world number one as a junior) and that she was merely using the assets she had at her disposal. It would also be very unfair to suggest that women golfers who are now showing more flesh than their predecessors are “the next Kournikova”. But it was the Russian who created the new sporting landscape, one in which today’s generation of women golfers are now operating with mixed results.

Morgan Pressel and Michelle Wie for example, both quickly caught the eye of the marketing industry. When Wie turned professional on her 16th birthday the event was carried by global news channels and triggered a series of lucrative endorsement contracts. Since then however, her name has become a byword for unfulfilled potential, while Pressel, who first qualified for the US Open when just 12 years old, turned her potential into achievement by becoming the youngest woman ever to win a “Major” – the 2007 Nabisco Championship. She, along with Natalie Gulbis and Paula Creamer, are promoted as the new faces of women’s golf, mirroring the WTA’s post-Kournikova strategy.

Similarly in Europe, Henrietta Zuel was the youngest golfer ever to play on the Ladies European Tour aged 13. Five years later, she has signed up with pop impresario Simon Fuller’s 19 management company, taking her place alongside David Beckham and Claudia Schiffer on their roster.

And last season, the Ladies European Tour welcomed the attractive young Russian player Maria Verchenova in to its ranks; after playing in a small handful of events, she was used by promoters of the Turkish Open as the poster girl for the tournament, the image of her in a short skirt, bending over to put a tee in the ground was plastered on billboards and bus shelters across the town of Belek, where the event was held.

Recently, IMG the powerful sports agency, signed up Verchenova as a client, with an eye to using her as the public face of golf in Russia, where they have extensive course design and contruction plans. If golf becomes an Olympic sport – the decision is to be made by the IOC in October this year – IMG and Verchenova will be well placed to access the increased government funds that are sure to flow from the Kremlin.

AT A SMALL tournament in Australia, another beautiful young sports woman was making a media splash, but for different reasons. Anna Rawson played for three years on the Ladies European Tour before heading off to the US at the beginning of this year to try her luck on the LPGA, the ladies American tour. In January however, she was in her own backyard, being interviewed for a local television station. The reporter posed a question, the roots of which could be traced back to the summer of 2001.

What can women’s golf do to make itself more popular, more like tennis?

Rawson was familiar with the line of questioning. When she’s not playing golf she makes a good living as a fashion model, so her views on “sexing up” golf have an added frisson. She threw out a few suggestions – joint events with the men’s tours, mike up the players, link golf more closely to the fashion world – but said that, on the whole, she felt things were improving. But she didn’t just say that. She went as far as to say that the game was shedding its “dyke” image. This was a big mistake. The interview was quickly relayed to LPGA headquarters in the States where a few weeks later, the then tour commissioner Caroline Bivens, welcomed Rawson to the LPGA by making her stand up at a full meeting of the tour’s players and apologise for using the “D-word”.

Bivens was more than aware that Rawson’s reference to player sexuality was not just crass and insensitive, it was also potentially damaging to the bottom line. Ironically, Rawson’s public humiliation was to be one of Bivens’ final actions as LPGA commissioner, who was ousted last month, the victim of player power.

Since taking over the reins of the LPGA in 2005, she found fame as the person who suggested that all LPGA players pass an English oral test, an idea that was later withdrawn in the face of accusation of racism, and that players should Twitter in the middle of a round.

But she would have survived these PR gaffes had she not lost the faith of the tour’s real powerbrokers, the event sponsors. Next year, the LPGA will host just 14 events, compared to the 31 it boasted at the start of the 2009 season. Some of this is due to the dire financial picture, but crucially, not all. Bivens went in heavy to clear the events on the tour that lost money and had to be supported by the LPGA’s central funds. Some of these, however, were run by promoters and sponsors who had supported the tour for decades, and her demands for more money were met with the sound of doors closing as sponsors exited the sport.

Personality was also an issue. Laura Davies, the veteran English player and former US Open winner, asked one of the departing sponsors whether the decision was credit-crunch related. The answer was, said Davies, “No, our business is great. I can’t deal with that woman”.

As commissioner of a major sports tour, said one marketing expert, you are balancing the demands of three main constituencies: players, sponsors and event promoters. You can afford to lose one, but all three?

Sensing that their playing (and marketing) opportunities were being compromised, a group of leading LPGA stars, including Paula Creamer, Morgan Pressel and Michele Wie, met over dinner at the Jamie Farr tournament and cooked up a plan to overthrow Bivens.

A letter was drafted and signed. From there it was a matter of time before the commissioner was forced to fall on her sword, leaving the American game in a demoralised state and looking to the Solheim Cup for a welcome week of good news.

Anna Rawsons guide to promoting women’s golf (as told to ESPN last week):

Rock the tee

Every player tees off on the first and is introduced on the 18th to their favourite tune.

Play with Tiger

A small number of tournaments with limited fields of 75 from the mens and womens tours.

Course to catwalk

At each event a designer creates a piece of clothing or an accessory for the winner who is then flown to LA or New York on the Monday to shoot it for Vogue, Elleand Cosmopolitan.

Get in close

Every group should be miked up and followed by its own camera crew.