Greenskeepers Magazine Goes Girly

A strange story in the Independent chronicles the missteps of the editors and publishers of Golf Course News International, a European publication for greenskeepers, course managers and club golfers.

The magazine has apparently long been a serious publication whose distribution included the pro shop at St. Andrews. No longer. When purchased by a new ownership group, it was redesigned in a format that the Independent says “appears to be inspired by the lads’ mag Loaded.” (No, I’m not providing a link to Loaded. You can use a search engine just as well as anyone. But I love the term “lads’ mag.”)

In first issue of the relaunched magazine:

GCNI ditched the traditional, staid front cover for one featuring a blond model in her underwear with a golf ball in flames lodged between her breasts and the headline: “Woman & Golf: the burning issue”. In the same edition a doctor wrote about improving your game by having more sex and female Italian golfer Sophie Sandolo was pictured posing on a course in a revealing dress.

You have to wonder what would inspire the publisher of a greenskeeper’s magazine to go girly. Maybe it was the enduring image of the greenskeeper as social outcast Carl Spacker. A guy like that can’t get a date, so he probably needs a girly mag.