8 Jun 2011

In what is claimed to be an attempt to shake a stuffy image of golf as a game for your Dad and his retired friends (does it really even have that image?), the Australian PGA recently embarked on a bold, new marketing campaign to give the game a youthful, fresher appearance. The results can be seen here below, in a photograph that forms part of its Pro Golf Exposed campaign!

Glamour photography and exposed skin have worked in the past for the LPGA as well as niche sports like water polo and surfing, but the wisdom behind ‘sexing’ up the image of a group of male golf professionals to order to increase interest in the game is lost on us here at Planet Golf.

In a sports-mad country like Australia, golf faces stiff competition from a number of more professionally run sporting organisations, both in terms of player participation but also television exposure. There can be no dispute that our tournament schedule and TV ratings started dwindling as Greg Norman’s career started winding down, so rather than airbrushing a number of no-name PGA members, wouldn’t a more effective strategy be to work on increasing the profile of our leading overseas stars? Surely focusing on how exciting Jason Day is with his golf sticks is a more productive spend that showing us James McLean’s six-pack.

Presumably this latest Pro Golf Exposed marketing campaign was aimed at women, and based on the assumption that women who see glamour black & white images of male golfers are more likely to want to pick up the game and then watch coverage of our three marquee events on television at the end of the year. That may well be true, but if so it means we need to hope that it’s Scott, Day and (insert other local golf hunk) fighting out for our major golfing titles rather than, with respect, guys like Peter Senior and Craig Parry.

The PGA of Australia claim that their new advertising campaign was aimed at ‘attracting more people to the game’, but it’s unclear as to precisely which part of golf this target audience is supposed to be attracted to. If the PGA want viewers to watch our local tournaments they surely need to build better events, while if they want people to hit the course and try to learn the game they need to make the actual playing of golf seem fun and inviting.

Doesn’t seem like rocket science to us, the problem with golf in this country is that the administration of the game, for years now, has been run by older suits that are devoid of initiative and disconnected with the general sporting population. We hate to be negative, but this campaign only further heightens the view that it’s the running of golf in Australia, rather than the image of golf, that needs a big shake-up.

To view the Pro Golf Exposed campaign click here

 

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