David,
The beautiful Aussie in the bathtub of Titleists understood marketing - and clearly was loyal to our Tour. I think that poster was on more walls back then than the famous Farrah Fawcett print.
Instead of girl's golf growing in America, the LPGA has essentially become a globetrotting world tour. In the current state of their organization, I don't think the venue moves the needle enough to throw a victory parade - and that includes Augusta.
Okay, good for the world game, but I do not see women players elevating to household names - which is all about marketing, which is all about sponsorships, which ties into advertising that shovels coal into the box that moves the train.
The US Women's Open at Olympic looked to be a financial failure, relative to its potential.
And the other point Jan was making is use of pure sex appeal.
That is one thing women's tennis has in spades . . . . .
Because rank & file women - as a rule, despite controlling some insane amount of discretionary income in America - do not support women's sports like men.
I really like watching NCAA girls basketball out there fighting for their school because it is such an emotional game - and the alumni & parents support it like the students.
(Slight vector, how USC does not dominate BB drives me batshit.)
By contrast The WNBA is NEVER, EVER, EVER going to be anything but an irrelevant footnote. Nobody cares in the national sports press but writers trying to virtue signal for whatever reason.
Some of that is a complete lack of sex appeal and CHARMING THE CROWD . . . . . that is part of the gig.
If the LPGA wants to boost to the next level in America, a good starting point (follow the money) would be less androgynous players, frumping and scowling their way down the fairway - and more pizazz.
It can be done, relatively unknown Megha Ganne was already a rock star, BEFORE the final round!
And if Lexi (gawd, I just love her whole chi) had just hit one more club on #17 and closed out the deal, you could have heard the cheers at Tour headquarters.
But Yuka Sasso? C'mon, polite applause - but the people's choice never wins at our home track (*one of yours,* actually).
If Megha had somehow won, the second she turned professional, it would be like the 2nd coming of a female Tiger.
Because no American girl dreams of growing up to be humorless, androgynous Yuka Sasso. That is not the way to lure American girls into the fold.
How come everybody knows who Grace Park is? Even now? If you are going to have a bunch of foreign players, stylish and talented is a good start. Or at least irresistibly charming like Inbee Park.
You gotta have a hook! Even those two sisters from Thailand - whose last name are random consonants I cannot spell - bring a compelling story, but it is not enough to get viewers to tune in, especially with so much entertainment competition.
How come Nancy Lopez was on THE COVER of S.I. and every sports page in America? Watching a Juli Inkster chase down a leaderboard with a swashbuckling flamethrower made fabulous theater.
JoAnne Gunderson made Babe Zaharias look like a bikini model, but you didn't turn the channel when she was storming down the fairway, now did you? So it is also about personality . . . . . . the ability of the hoi polloi to connect on some visceral level.
Pretending it should only be about the "quality of golf" (sniffs the tight-asses who cannot admit the role of sex appeal or personality) is just more pretending, because the Senior Tour men are still WAAAY better than the top LPGA players.
We gotta do better!
As far as Scotland is concerned, I have no answers. Golf is genetically encoded in the culture, families play together in the afternoon - and there is no shortage of wildly attractive, hot shit players north of the Anglo-Scottish DMZ. Totally counterintuitive . . . . . maybe they are hiding all their golfing Susan Boyles up there.
You live up there part time, why?