Golf : LPGA Needs Selling Job, and New Commissioner Says He’s Man to Do It

As a public address announcer at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion in the 1960s, Bill Blue was accustomed to introducing athletes.

Specifically, he was the freshman game announcer while getting his master’s degree in business at the school.

He had some marquee names to introduce, Lew Alcindor (now Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), Lynn Shackelford and Lucius Allen, among others.

Now he’s trying to put the Ladies Professional Golf Assn. into the spotlight as its new commissioner. Blue, 48, succeeded John Laupenheimer, who resigned last summer.

In terms of popularity, exposure and prize money, the LPGA tour lags behind the PGA Tour. Moreover, now that the Senior PGA Tour is flourishing, the LPGA has a bit of an indentity problem.

Blue, a former director of international marketing, only talks about the positive aspects of the LPGA.

A salesman with a plan, he is visible at all tournaments, such as the recent Nabisco Dinah Shore in Rancho Mirage. And he’ll be bustling around the press room and golf course this week at the AI Star/Centinela Hospital tournament at Rancho Park.

“I don’t find any negatives,” Blue said of the LPGA. “What I found was an organization going through growing pains, that didn’t have any of the marketing acuity that the other two tours had.

“It’s so simple. The focus is that we concentrate on being the premier women’s professional sports organization in the world.

“We’re competing against women. We aren’t competing against anyone else. And we have to go out and let enough sponsors know that our targets are women. I think it will take care of itself.”

Whereas the men’s tour is on television every week, either cable or network, the women’s sometimes operates in the dark.

“The only competitive area (with the other tours) is for available television time,” Blue said. “And with the explosion of cable network, we don’t see that as a problem. We have plenty of opportunities and we’re going to exercise those by next year.”

Blue estimates that the LPGA will have 19 cable or network exposures this year, having lost a few televised events from 1988.

“We just haven’t been terribly active in this area,” he said. “Next year, when it’s all said and done, we should have a total of 27 to 30 events.

“All I can say is that if I had been here two years earlier, we would be significantly ahead of where we are right now, simply because of common-sense marketing and working to get windows (of publicity) ahead of the fact, rather than relying on each individual tournament to sell itself.”

As a marketing man, Blue said, he is contacting advertising agencies and specific corporations who already have women as a target market.

“We are making presentations to them on the benefits of looking at the LPGA as an adjunct to their marketing program,” he said.

“It isn’t just the tour. We have a fast-growing teaching division, which is our equivalent to the PGA of America. We are also working with communities in terms of building a junior golf program and programs for women only.”

Although Nancy Lopez and Amy Alcott are women golfers who are generally known to the public, the women’s tour lacks the name attraction that goes with the PGA and senior tours.

“The way we can (promote the players) is to get ourselves on television and be more involved with the press,” Blue said. “If we could have had the exposure that the PGA Tour and seniors had on a normal basis, the names of Betsy King, Sherri Turner and Juli Inkster would be much better known than they are. They are every bit as good as, and in some instances, better players than the women stars we once knew.”

So for Blue, an avid golfer who plays to an eight handicap, it’s blue skies ahead for the LPGA.

“They couldn’t have designed a better position for me,” he said. “Nobody could be happier than I am to get a chance to exercise business, leadership and public relations skills and love of the game.”

Lopez will defend her title in the AI Star/Centinela event, beginning with first-round play Friday over the 6,191-yard Rancho Park course.

She shot a six-under-par 210 in 1988 and was tied with Marta Figueras-Dotti at the end of 54-hole regulation play. Lopez won the tournament on the second playoff hole

A field of 144 will begin teeing off at 7:30 a.m. Friday. First prize in the $450,000 event is $67,500.

Separate pro-ams Wednesday and Thursday at Rancho will precede tournament play. There also will be a free junior clinic Tuesday, starting at 4:30 p.m. on the Rancho Park practice range. About 300 juniors, 8 through 17, are expected.

Hord Hardin, chairman of the Masters tournament, is concerned that escalating purses at other tournaments may lure the pros away from the Masters in the future.

Curtis Strange, who became the first player to earn $1 million in a tour season in 1988, said that Hardin’s concern is unfounded.

“I think Mr. Hardin is exaggerating if he actually believes that,” Strange said. “He doesn’t know what the Masters means to the players. I’ve been thinking about this tournament for a long, long time. The purse means nothing.”

Apprised of Strange’s comments, Hardin said: “I like to hear that, but I don’t know if the younger players have the same feeling.”

The Champions Locker Room at the Augusta National course is reserved for past winners of the Masters.

Some of the former winners are uneasy about their exclusive quarters. Others favor it.

“It’s nice, but in a way it’s not nice that they separate the guys,” Bernhard Langer said. “You’ve won and you can come in here and the people who haven’t won can’t. We don’t don’t like to think that way.”

Said Craig Stadler: “I don’t believe it is any advantage at all. I don’t eat up there very often. I eat at the other locker room, with some of the guys.”

But he added: “However, it’s kind of nice, a special thing for the champions, and I think they should keep it that way.”

Said Tom Watson: “There are so many media people here that you can’t go anywhere to get away from the questions. When you’re contending for the Masters, you need some time to think and get ready. When we were down in the other locker room, we didn’t have that time.”

Earlier in the week, Lanny Wadkins and Blaine McCallister were playing the par-three course at Augusta in preparation for the Masters.

They had a $100 bet if either made a hole-in-one.

On the eighth hole, Wadkins hit his tee shot down the slope on the back of the green. He figured that his ball had gone into the water behind the green.

So he teed up another ball and aced the hole with a pitching wedge. Did he win the bet?

No way. McCallister told Wadkins the bet was off, saying, “I don’t count mulligans.”

Golf Notes

The Pride of the Foothills invitational tournament is scheduled May 5-7 at the Glendora Country Club. . . . The $2.5-million Nabisco Championships, richest event on the PGA Tour, will be played at Houston’s Champions Golf Club in 1990.