Golf magazine with attitude takes off

Golf Punk is a bit different. It's a peculiar mix of Bunker Babes and PG Wodehouse references, a place where the famously tetchy Nick Faldo is happy to be interviewed sitting in a tree and readers' on and off course problems are dealt with firmly by the Golf Nurse.

It's the brainchild of former Loaded editor Tim Southwell, a man who knows a zeitgeist when he sees one. "We just have a more fun take on the game of golf than the other magazines," says Southwell, "and if we make golf into a sexier sport than it was before that has to be in everyone's interest".

Loaded was the first "lads' mag". And in its original incarnation, in the early 90s, it talked to a generation of 20-something men, bored rigid by the pomposity of the style press, with its pictorials of £1,000 Italian suits and endless ads for face cream.

The problem was it started a trend. It was copied and diluted to the extent that "lads' mag" is now a shorthand for witless, vapid dross fronted by D-list celebrities in their pants.

Golf Punk attempts to take the gonzo element of Loaded and apply it to a sport not known for its willingness to embrace youth culture. "The idea was to create a magazine based on instinct rather than science," says Southwell, who says the big publishing houses are over-reliant on focus groups, and lack the flair required to create something genuinely new.

"The guys running them would be quite happy working on any magazines in the company's stable, it's a career thing. As a result the magazines lack passion. They try to pickpocket a niche in the market, but the great magazines have always created their own market or galvanised an existing one in a way no one else has thought of before".

Southwell's first taste of the sport was at the age of 20, but was put off by the stuffiness he encountered. "I didn't play again for six years because I thought that golf was a boring, staid game played by boring, staid people obsessed by rules and regulations, particularly if you were a junior or, Heaven forbid, a woman. I found that whole side to golf abhorrent."

The magazines available, he says reflected this atmosphere. "They were safe reading for boring people".

Whilst working on Loaded Southwell went to interview Phil Babb and Jason McAteer, fresh from their adventures in the 1994 World Cup. They got on well, and Southwell kept in touch. So much so that when the time came to launch Golf Punk, Babb was his first port of call.

"Phil was at Sunderland at the time, so we did a presentation to him and several other players, including McAteer, Stephen Wright, Thomas Sorenson and Michael Gray, who each took an initial stake in the company," says Southwell. "Since then we have had to raise a significant amount of money from more orthodox channels. But last year Phil bought a bigger stake in the company, making him the largest single shareholder in the KYN Publishing, the company that makes Golf Punk."

The next step for Southwell is to sell the concept of Golf Punk abroad, a process that has begun by selling licences in countries including Italy, Germany and Indonesia. And although the magazine is available in Ireland, he is keen to increase the magazine's circulation here over the next year.

"We want to create magazines with global potential which become brands in their own right," he says. "Golf Punk is probably a more powerful brand than it is a magazine. We punch above our weight."

It is an approach that has captured the imagination of many of the top golfers, who have been happy to submit themselves to interviews and photo shoots that may be a bit left-field.

"We do things differently. When we do an interview the players think it is not more of the same. Let's face it, we are in awe of these people really. Our approach makes the situation a bit more democratic. Some of them can be defensive because it sounds aggressive or unconventional. But once they have got to know us they realise it is in our interests to make them look as good as possible. We are glamorising them and emphasising that they are more interesting people than they appear to be in the media. Who wouldn't like it?"

Many of these relationships have been forged in the Golf Punk Bar, when the magazine takes over a local bar close to the British Open venue each year. At St Andrews, Michael Campbell, Colin Montgomerie, Sam Torrance, Paul Casey and Ian Poulter among others all hung out and had a drink.

"What we really need is for Tiger to come in and have a pint of Boddingtons," says Southwell. Don't bet against it. ...