Can LPGA Survive Without Marketing Sex Appeal?

(photos courtesy of Getty Images)

Anna Rawson has outlined her five-point plan for saving the LPGA, and, frankly, I think she's onto something. The tour is struggling to keep sponsors and it's without a marquee player to market to the masses. The former is due primarily to poor management decisions, the latter is just bad luck.

So can women's professional golf survive without a bona fide star? Will they need to rely on other, less traditional means of attracting fans? Rawson's strategy weighs elements of both while Golfweek's Alistair Tait wonders if the LPGA's future hinges on Michelle Wie.

That sounds like an awful lot of responsibility to heap on the shoulders of a 19-year-old college student, but women's golf needs Wie more now than it did when she first burst on the scene five years ago as a 14-year-old prodigy.

I can't disagree with any of that, although their isn't much the LPGA higher-ups can do, save some Quiz Show-type funny business, to make Wie suddenly successful. Which, inevitably perhaps, leads to this: marketing sex appeal. Rawson hinted at it -- "For each tournament, I would have a fashion designer create a piece of clothing or accessory for the trophy ceremony." -- but her suggestion just scratches the surface.

Via Sports Illustrated's Alan Shipnuck:

The W7 was born last year when Wilhelmina Models, the global beauty factory that counts Rebecca Romijn, Fergie and countless runway glamazons as clients, decided to break into women's golf. The inspiration came when Dieter Esch, then the Wilhelmina chairman and now a company consultant, attended an LPGA tournament in Florida. "Like many people, I had certain stereotypes of LPGA players," Esch says. "I was surprised to discover how many of the players were young and athletic and attractive and very personable. To be honest, the tour has done a pretty pathetic job marketing its product, and I knew we could do much, much better."

The plan: to market young, attractive members of the LPGA because, well, sex sells. Unsurprisingly, some players aren't crazy about the perception this creates.

Said one of the players: "Why do we have to take our clothes off to get noticed? At least with Natalie [Gulbis] and her bikini calendars you could dismiss it as just an aberration. But now there's seven more of these girls and just because of the sheer number it sends the message that this is all the tour is about, which is untrue and unfair."

And that's the rub. Even Gulbis, after the calendars, looked to change her image.

All else equal, unless some of the young, marketable-to-the-masses players start winning consistently, the LPGA will continue to languish. Which is why whoever ends up replacing Carolyn Bivens should seriously consider hiring Rawson as a consultant. She may not be much of a golfer (or an extemporaneous speaker, for that matter), but she knows how to create a buzz. And more than ever, that's exactly what the LPGA needs.