Ladies Golf Is In Trouble

This will be a brief entry since it is a simple problem and was touched on briefly here: Men's Golf: PGA Tour.

The LPGA is in trouble.

The main problem that the LPGA is experiencing is the dominance of Asian, mostly Korean, golfers.  There's nothing wrong with having Korean champions.  However, it is unfortunately true that their success is bad news for the overall health of the LPGA.

Why?  Americans are notoriously fickle about who they cheer for and who they label as their heroes.  Foreigners  have never been popular in American sports.  The media does better portraying foreign athletes as villains for American athletes to overcome than it does embracing them.  A good question rises from this: is the media demonizing foreigners making it difficult for Americans to embrace and cheer for them or do Americans naturally spurn foreigners and the media simply know which side their bread is buttered on?

Either way, foreign success generally means Americans tune out and find other things to do with their time.  The LPGA already has to deal with the enormous gender bias present in American society.  Men are almost completely disinterested in consuming any women's sports, amateur or professional.  This is almost assuredly a symptom of discrimination.  Men who desperately try to portray themselves as not being sexist pigs argue that the women just don't play the sports well enough to warrant watching them.  That's total BS.  If men loved the sport they would watch anybody play it, including totally inept children.  Their insistence on watching men only has more to do with idol worship and vicarious dream fulfillment than any lack of skill, imagined or real, that female athletes may have.  The rest is entirely sexism.  As a result, tournament purses are tiny when compared to their male counterparts.  Virtually all events on the Champions' Tour, formerly known as the Seniors' Tour, and even some 'minor league' men's golf tour events have larger purses than LPGA events!  Advertisers and sponsors know that LPGA audiences are smaller and pay accordingly.  The fact that many corporations seem to value male customers more than female customers and that LPGA audiences are predominantly female make matters worse.  (BTW, I've never understood this -- is women's money less green than men's, or is this an institutional admission of significant gender inequality in earning, and thus spending, power?)

The only exceptions to this disinterest are the not-as-rare-as-one-would-think female athletes that become sex- or fashion symbols (past or present), like tennis' Anna Kournikova, Maria Sharapova, the Williams sisters, Gabby Sabatini, and Caroline Wozniacki; figure skating's Katarina Witt; downhill skier Lindsey Vonn; the endless WWE and UFC divas; volleyball's Gabrielle Reece and Misty May; cycling's Elizabeth Hatch; racing's Danica Patrick and Ashley Force; swimming's Amanda Beard; and golf's own Natalie Gulbis, Maria Verchenova and Jan Stevenson.  They get men's attention, but not because of their athletic exploits.  It is questionable as to whether these male viewers count as consumers where advertisers are concerned.  Perhaps they are considered to not be in the right, ahem, frame of mind at that time to be influenced by advertising?

Of the three LPGA icons mentioned above one has long since retired (there is no equivalent of the Champions' Tour for women) and one hasn't yet made an impact on the golf course.  Only Gulbis is relevant and popular with men.  Michelle Wie could conceivably join that list.  She has the looks for it and also has the game, but is perhaps too squeaky clean to do the kind of modeling that propels women to sex-symbol status.

While we're on the topic of Wie, she should be a reason for people, male or female, to tune in to the LPGA, sex-symbol or not!  Unfortunately, she's spent a significant part of past decade (she started competing at 13 and she's 22 now) trying to make it among the men instead of learning to win against or dominate the field of women.  She never did manage to make a cut on the men's tour events in which she received a sponsor's exemption and I think it has been much too much of a distraction for her.  She hasn't yet won a major championship, although she has been runner-up and is still quite young.  She has the talent to be #1 and the beauty and personality to be the iconic American LPGA champion but hasn't yet realized that potential.  She also has major appeal in Asian markets for obvious reasons.  At least she's stopped chasing the Woman Power dream of competing with the men.  When Annika Sorenstam tried to achieve the same milestone she had already been at the very top of the LPGA leader board for years.  She earned the right to eschew the LPGA in favor of making a breakthrough for women in the PGA.  I blame Wie's father for this distraction at a point far too early in her career.

In any case, the foreign dominance has been exacerbated by the fact that many of the Asian champions haven't been able to communicate effectively with their American audiences.  Instead of speaking in fluent or even marginal English, of which they were incapable or uncomfortable doing, they spoke in halting, broken English or through interpreters.  It is difficult for a winsome personality to shine through under these circumstances.  This has alienated an already unwelcoming American audience.

Recognizing this problem, the LPGA attempted to pass regulations requiring players to learn English.  This didn't go over well.  The foreign players (and their home nations) cried foul and amazingly so did the American public.  Complaints cited the rule as being discriminatory and basically unenforceable.  Does the fact that Americans largely rejected this attempt at making Asian players more US-friendly mean that they are ready to embrace non-English-speaking Asian champions?  Of course not!  It means that the American public is fickle and wants to be able to have things both ways.  They want to have their cake and eat it too.  In other words, Asian players shouldn't be forced to learn and communicate in English, the expectation is that they should do it of their own accord, presumably for love of the American paycheck if not the American public!  If it hasn't already happened then it's probably not going to happen and the American public will forget that they shot themselves in the foot by complaining and will continue to be disinterested due to foreign player dominance.

I don't know what the solution is.  Maybe the problem with their earlier attempt at regulating communication skills was that they did it openly?  Maybe this is something that has to be done behind the scenes?  How you would keep such an effort under wraps is beyond me but that might be the only 'easy' way out.  Barring that, the LPGA has to hope that the trend changes and some American players begin to dominate.  And, as sexist as it may be, it really wouldn't hurt if they also happen to be totally hot super cuties!

Ladies golf is in trouble.