When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
In Golf World's year-end "newsmakers" issue, I pitch an alternate scenario the PGA Tour should consider for the conclusion to the FedEx Cup. Granted, I'm simply advocating that they adopt an ADT Championship-like format for the finale.
Doug Ferguson captures the excitement that the NBC announce crew kept suggesting was almost inevitable: Lorena Ochoa and Trump International's perilous 17th hole:
Despite being the No. 1 player in women's golf, Ochoa has a short history of blowing tournaments, and this would have been a doozy. After blowing away the seven other players who qualified for this 18-hole shootout, she had a four-shot lead with two holes to play.
But she butchered the par-3 17th with an 8-iron over the back of the green, a putt that got hung up in the fluffy rough, and three more putts from 20 feet for a double bogey. Gulbis made a 7-foot birdie putt, narrowing the lead to one shot with one hole to play.
It was about the only drama of the balmy afternoon, certainly more than Ochoa needed.
"It was fun for the fans and for all of you," she said, "but it didn't feel very good."
Ochoa hammered a tee shot over the corner of the lake and the bunker, but it wasn't enough to hop out of the rough, and the ball sank to the bottom of the grass. Gulbis hit first, a hybrid 3-iron that covered the flag and put even more pressure on Ochoa.
"Lorena was spending a lot of time looking at her lie, so I was assuming that the lie was not very good," Gulbis said. "She's the best player in the world, so I thought that at least we'd get kind of an eye-for-an-eye putt at it."
Steve Elling considers Ochoa's 8-win season and offers these incredible numbers along with her place in the game:
Most impressively, she finished in the top 10 in 21 of 25 starts and won five of her past nine starts. It was her eighth victory of the year, or for those who like their news with a lyrical bent, ocho for Ochoa. It has been a long, productive year.
"It's time to go home," Ochoa said.
As further testament to her emergence, the tour is doing likewise with its events. Next year, Ochoa will become the second active player to host her own tournament, one of a trio of events scheduled in Mexico in 2008. In 2004, there were nada.
Not that pesos are the best yardstick of success, since the purses only continue to head north, but Ochoa obliterated the old earnings mark, set by Annika Sorenstam during her 11-win season in 2002, by $1.5 million. She finished the season with $4,364,994, roughly 2½ times what runner-up Suzann Pettersen took home.
"It's been amazing from the start to the end," Ochoa said.
Doug Ferguson seems to be warming to the ADT Championship, which again proved incredibly compelling. It doesn't hurt that Sunday's final 8 chasing $1 million includes Ochoa, Webb, Creamer, Kerr, Gulbis, Mi Hyun Kim, Sarah Lee and the charismatic Christina Kim.
Especially impressive is how well the LPGA seems organized when it comes time for the sudden death playoffs, starting them on the 17th hole as soon as the last group is in.
Another nice touch is the $1 million in cash sitting by the 18th green (pictured, left, courtesy of golf.com).
Kim was asked about it:
As if they needed additional pressure, the LPGA Tour placed $1 million cash -- or what looked like it, anyway -- in a glass case with a big lock and big bodyguard nearby, a reminder of what's at stake.
"I'm not Rain Man, so I wasn't able to calculate whether it was actually $1 million," Kim said. "You always see in the movies they've got the $1 million, and it's a very think briefcase. I don't know. Maybe there's just a lot of air packed in there. It's awesome."
From Steve Elling's write-up of Saturday's wild finish:
In other words, perhaps the most unpredictable event in golf followed the LPGA headquarters' script to the letter. Well, make that the current brass' script, anyway.
You want an eyeful of awful irony? Sophie Gustafson was the poster child for the volatile cruelty of the format, blowing up with a double-bogey and bogey on the last two holes of regulation, forcing her into a four-way playoff for two spots. Her first swing in sudden death went in the water on the 17th and she was officially toast.
The funky format was the brainchild of Gustafson's husband, former LPGA commissioner Ty Votaw, who was on hand to watch the carnage. They must have had a wonderful drive up Interstate 95 to their home in Ponte Vedra Beach, huh?
Unlike the FedEx Cup, which extends playoff drama over four weeks, the ADT Championship compresses it into four days. There are some players -- make that quite a few players -- who don't like the $900,000 difference between first and second place, feeling that is too severe of a punishment for what could be a one-stroke loss. But it is exactly that drama that gives this event its identity.Meanwhile Greg Stoda misses the point of the ADT and laments the entire thing, longing for rewards to those who play well along the way.
While it seems odd that the goal of the first two days is to finish 16th and Saturday's mission is to be no worse that eighth, that's part of the charm of this tournament. And with the quality of the players that advanced, it seems certain that Sunday will be a scintillating shootout for a million bucks.
Mi Hyun Kim probably could have lost the ear muffs for this interview. Where's the LPGA brand team monitoring their own product to prevent fashion boondoggles like this?
Shocking as it may seem, apparently the Brand Lady was not entirely accurate in her Wednesday remarks about control of the ADT Championship's television production. Craig Dolch reports:
Who's calling TV shots?: When LPGA Tour Commissioner Carolyn Bivens said Wednesday that for the first time her tour would be producing all nine hours of television for this week's ADT Championship, that was news to NBC Sports executives. Especially executive producers Tommy Roy and Tom Randolph.
"We are doing the production of everything," Bivens said. "That means we are covering the nine hours of this tournament. We've worked in combination with the Golf Channel and with NBC, but for the first time the LPGA will be guiding what is seen on television."
Jon Miller, executive vice president of NBC sports, said Thursday that's not the case.
"I believe the commisisoner mis-spoke," Miller said. "They are producing some of the below-the-lines aspects of the telecast on site and the LPGA did oversee the productions of some vignettes on some players.
"But clearly the television you see this week, the guys calling the shots and having the final say will be Tom Randolph (Thursday-through-Saturday on Golf Channel) and Tommy Roy (Sunday on NBC). No golf ever goes on air of our 29 golf telecasts without our executive producers doing the producing."
Brian Hewitt reports that Natalie Gulbis' rebranding reps deny ever telling Jeffrey Smith that she was going to be turning in her G-strings for slacks.
It was reported in this space last week that Natalie Gulbis and her representatives were unhappy about a story in the Richmond Times-Dispatch saying, among other things, that Gulbis was changing her image. The newspaper based much of its story on quotes from a Gulbis marketing representative.
A spokesperson for Gulbis subsequently told GOLF CHANNEL that Gulbis was not re-branding and that the newspaper had gotten the story wrong.
For the record, the Times-Dispatch says it has a tape recording of the interview with the Gulbis marketing representative and stands by its original story.
Stay tuned!
Posted by: Rachael McMillen | November 14, 2007 at 02:14 PMI'm inspired just reading this.
Annika, I have heard you mention your "brand." What exactly do you mean by "build your brand?"
Posted by: Matt | November 14, 2007 at 02:18 PM
Jerry, great question!
In order to have a genuine brand, you must consistently deliver a promise that is genuine and distinct in people's minds. I try to deliver the promise of "inspirational experiences" through all of my businesses. I hope that makes sense.
The Brand Lady got off to a great start in her lecture to the assembled scribblers who dared to show up for her pre-ADT Championship press conference. Paragraphs of dialogue without anything to make fun of?
But she's still the Brand Lady...
They say that every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. So with that in mind, as we come to the end of our 2007 season, we deliberately chose the ADT Championship as the first tournament to exclusively display our brand new logo, the LPGA's first new logo in 15 years, and one that truly reflects and celebrates the diversity, the global strength and the evolution of our brand.
This tournament and our logo both epitomize our commitment to a bold new look and to bold business, especially when you look at the LPGA has taken ownership of the ADT Championship for the first time. This year everything you see, from beginning to end, the LPGA is calling the shots. Another first, we are actually producing all nine hours of television that you'll see.
I don't know a lot about golf and television, but in general is that really something to brag about? Isn't it better when someone pays you to do the production?
As we acquire more strategic assets, the LPGA brand will continue to flourish. Last month's launch of our first-ever on-line pro shop opened for business. For those of who have not visited, LPGAproshop.com is part of a merchandising program that we expect will grow to be a significant revenue stream for the LPGA.
Is that definition of significant like the USGA's?
Also located very closely to the media tent, not by accident, is our first-ever pro shop and merchandise shop, so please visit. You have all week.
Please, slingers in attendance, tell me that last sentence was said with a wink and a laugh? Oh how would you know, you had already made your way to the door shop 'til you drop.
All of these are signs that point to the strength of our product, to our members and to our brand. I want to thank you all for recognizing the talents and the attributes of our players and for sharing their stories with your readers.
Outside the world of golf, coverage of the LPGA could be found in airline magazines, Business Week, Newsweek. In fact, in mid-October Lorena was actually the cover story on the Latin American edition of Newsweek. One of our greatest strengths is the fact that we don't separate our people from our product. Our people are our product. The LPGA is an organization, and our members as individuals are not afraid to assume greater responsibility and to hold us all to a higher standard.
I wonder how many times she practiced that mantra in front of the mirror? Try saying "our people are our product." It isn't easy (on many levels). That's why she gets the big bucks.
Q. I think, Carolyn, you said that the LPGA was producing the TV for this week. What exactly does that mean?
CAROLYN BIVENS: It means that we hired a production company, Castro Communications, somebody we've worked with before. We've worked with the Golf Channel, with ESPN to get our production crew, accepted as the ones who would be producing and calling the shots.
We've done profile pieces on just about every woman who's competing here. Those will run periodically during the telecast. We are doing the production of everything. That means we are covering the nine hours of this tournament.
We've worked in combination with the Golf Channel and with NBC, but for the first time the LPGA will be guiding what is seen on television.
Gee and I was looking forward to watching some of this.
Craig Dolch asked Natalie Gulbis whether the shocking news of her rebranding was really true. Gulbis thankfully assures us that she will continue to show as much as humanly possible without revealing her most private parts and that news of her "rebranding" was premature.
“That’s not true at all,” she said of a story that originally appeared last week in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “I haven’t tried to tweak my image at all. I’ve been proud of everything I’ve come up with.”
Gulbis said what happened is a PR person for a Richmond-based branding agency that produces her calendar, Circle C Studios, overstepped her boundaries when she said Gulbis was trying to downplay her sexy image.
And...
“My calendar is a lot of different shots,” she said. “It’s a golf calender (with) no glamour shots. We’re just trying to do something different. You can’t do the same pictures every time.”
Oh I don't know about that. Looking tan in a skimpy bikini?
More good news, Brian Hewitt has official confirmation that the rebranding of Gulbis will not happen yet!
Thanks to reader Jeff for this Jeffrey Kelley story on the planned "rebranding" of Natalie Gulbis.
I know I say this a lot, but really, you couldn't make this up...
Natalie Gulbis, the 24-year-old golfer best known -- at least until recently -- for her good looks, will be rebranded by Circle S Studios.
A 2008 calendar and day planner designed by the marketing shop in Old Manchester follows Gulbis' first LPGA Tour title at the Evian Masters in France in June.
The blonde Gulbis has done calendars since 2004. Pictures in her 2005 calendar -- in swimsuits or dresses -- were deemed provocative by the U.S. Golf Association. Though it was criticized for overreacting, the USGA banned the calendar's sale at the U.S. Women's Open.
The 2008 calendar, by contrast, is all golf and pushes Gulbis' game face.
"With the original stuff, she was in a beautiful bathing suit, tights and things and that certainly got the attention of a lot of people," said Circle S President and Managing Partner Susan Hogg. "But we're trying to scoot it more to who she is and where she wants to take [her career and name] . . . and being a role model, specifically to young girls and women in general. That's the brand we're trying to portray."
What a great idea. This is beautiful:
Hogg described the company's work as "a refinement of a truer image of who she is. Sometimes the media can start to control your brand, and we're trying to take control of the brand."
Just put some glasses on her, feature calendar photos of her signing her scorecard or taking a lesson from Butch, and I guarantee you'll have control of the brand as it heads right down the toilet.
Still, it's not as though the tall, blue-green-eyed Gulbis will leave the minds of the males who know her. "They're still beauty shots. She's an attractive, wonderful athlete," Hogg said.
Whew, I was worried.
Ah, more #@&%!#$:
"The calendar is just one element of how you get perceived in the marketplace, so we tried to step back and look holistically in terms of how is she being positioned" in public, Hogg said.
That's why they get the big bucks. Helps pay for the therapy when they decide to look back at their life accomplishments and see quotes printed like that.
The firm, which occupies a converted box warehouse, is putting together "a series of recommendations, a strategic marketing plan" to Gulbis' sports-marketing firm, Octagon, Hogg said. Circle S is considering new merchandise and interactive features on the Web to help cater to the female teenage demographic -- conveying an all-American girl who eats well, exercises and works hard. "That's how you rise to the top, instead of the sex symbol, which is how it started out," Hogg said.
And it isn't doing so bad is she?
A follow up to the Korea golf tournament uh, riot, from the English edition of The Chosun Ilbo (I type that like I'm a longtime reader...LPGAFan apparently is):
On Sunday, around 500 spectators shouted curses and threw water bottles for about 50 minutes at a golf resort hosting an LPGA tournament in Kyongju. They demanded a refund of their entrance fees and transportation costs after the contest was suspended for a third day because of strong winds. One of the spectators even flashed an obscene hand gesture and verbally threatened a foreign golfer who had come out to sign autographs. Fearing for their safety, the LPGA golfers left the club in a hurry.Whoa there. No, no...they just love their LPGA golf!
Contest officials say they were just following regulations when they delayed and canceled the matches because of sudden showers and lightning storms. The spectators who attend matches also know the rules. Those golfers will talk about the violence displayed by Korean spectators as they travel around the world. This is a tremendous embarrassment.
Both the unionists and the spectators have abandoned their sense of order and dignity. They are behaving as they please. Korea has become a chaotic place where violence reigns.
The Commissioner was present for Suzanne Pettersen's trophy ceremony, most impressive.
Wonder what's going through the mind of the dude on the left.
From The Golf Channel:
From the wire, and thanks reader LPGAFan:
Norway's Suzann Pettersen captured the US LPGA Tour's Hana Bank Kolon Championship at three-under par in Gyeongju in South Korea on Sunday.
And it might have been the easiest of the four victories she has had this year. The final round of the 54-hole tournament was cancelled due to strong winds, which the tournament officials said made some greens "unplayable" on the 6,270-yard course at Mauna Ocean & Golf Resort.
Balls would roll off the greens in the gusts, and the final round play was suspended at 9:15 a.m. local time (2345 GMT).
Libba Galloway, deputy commissioner of the US LPGA, told reporters that the tour tried to resume the play at 12:45 p.m. (0245 GMT), but after discussions with officials, players and sponsors, it was best not to continue playing.
An estimated 5,000 fans had gathered at the course, and some had to be restrained from entering the tournament headquarters in protest.
Perhaps they heard about the trophy ceremony, where the winner would don one of Natalie Portman's costumes from the Stars Wars saga.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
