LPGA included in shrinking list of businesses that don't get the Internet

As far as I can figure out, I’ve been writing for TravelGolf.com longer than anyone else on staff – eight years now. Based on this experience, I want to reassure Stacy and Barry at the Golf for Beginners blog that their experience with the LPGA denying them tournament credentials is nothing personal.

The LPGA can just be added to the list of businesses and organizations that are utterly clueless about the Internet and its popularity among golfers.

I have covered the 2004 U.S. Women’s Open, the made-for-TV Tylenol Par-3 Shootout, and the Ford Seniors Championship. At one time I wanted to cover more professional events, but found the endless e-mails, faxes, and calls necessary to convince the powers that be that an Internet publisher was a legitimate news outlet to be more trouble than the events were worth.

Even golf courses were slow to come around to welcoming electronic media back in the day. I recall the first phone call I made to Kevin O’Brien, Director of Golf at the acclaimed St. Ives Golf Club in Stanwood, Mich. After identifying myself and asking him to schedule a visit to review the course and interview him, he told me that I’d need to bring a portfolio of my work first, driving the 3 hours to the course beforehand to meet with him to explain to him exactly what I wanted to do and prove to him who I was.

Huh? I told him to forget it. That was 1999.

Fast forward two years, when St. Ives’s even more acclaimed sister course Tullymore opened. All of the sudden, I’m on the list of invited media for the gala media event.

At the event, O’Brien thanked me for attending. I mentioned our conversation two years earlier, and asked what the change of heart was. He apologized profusely (and sincerely), and admitted that in 1999, he didn’t know all that much about the Internet, and hadn’t realized how many golfers research golf courses and trips online.

Fast forward to today, and it appears that the none other than the LPGA STILL hasn’t figured out what this whiz-bang fad called the Internet is all about. Pathetic, really. As William K. Wolfrum points out, women’s professional golf stays alive due to a small core of fanatical fans – many of whom fanatically read our blogs for the latest news on their favorite players and events.

One would think that a tour that is struggling financially, and so far below the radar screens of mainstream sports fans that ESPN hardly mentions tournament results, would be thrilled with ink – electronic or not. Courses and resorts have figured out how important an Internet presence is for business. The LPGA is apparently not as bright.

So, Stacy and Barry, you’re not being picked on. This fact makes the LPGA’s Luddite ways no less frustrating, I know. But I predict that in a couple of years, the LPGA will be contacting you to provide credentials.

That is, if the LPGA isn’t hoisted by its own petard before then – that petard being its utterly astounding lack of self-promotion savvy.