T&L Golf, R.I.P.

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A sad day whenever a golf publication disappears and especially frustrating when it's one covering course design and golf travel. Travel and Leisure Golf, which rose above the temptation to regurgitate junk by giving several unque writers a place to reinvent the golf travel story, will be sorely missed. Their website is still up and according to some of the stories filed today, they may keep the site around in some form.

"While the award-winning editorial product has enjoyed a loyal and passionate following, the current advertising climate has severely impacted the magazine’s bottom line to where the short-term and mid-term prospects for the magazine are not viable,” president and CEO Ed Kelly said in a statement.

AdAge added this:

Ad pages at Travel & Leisure Golf sunk 13.9% in 2008, according to the Publishers Information Bureau. It reported average paid circulation of 194,047 in the second half of 2008, 32% lower than the 286,053 paid circulation it reported for the second half of 2007, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations and BPA Worldwide. Including free copies distributed to public places such as doctor's offices, the title reported average overall circulation of 637,048 in the second half of last year, according to BPA.

Not All Bad News For Golf!

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Keith Kelly in the New York Post looks at Conde Nast's advertising slide but notes:

Only one magazine in its stable is showing a rise over a year ago: Golf World, a small circulation weekly, that is up 16.5 percent through the Feb. 23 issue.

And Sean Martin reports that despite executive upheaval and huge losses at Nationwide, the insurance giant is continuing its support of the PGA Tour’s developmental circuit:

John Aman, Nationwide’s associate vice president of strategic sponsorships, said he does not expect any “wholesale changes” to the company’s marketing approach.

“We remain committed to the Nationwide Tour, as well as our other sponsorships,” Aman told Golfweek. “That’s a question we’re getting asked across the board, and it’s part of what we think we need to do to be in the marketplace in a competitive insurance climate.”

Blow For The Written Word: GWAA Awards Shut Out "For Immediate Release" Entries!

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Suicide prevention hotlines in South Florida, greater Wilton and pockets of Manhattan reported an uptick in calls Monday as the Golf Writer's Association of America handed out its annual awards for golf's Kleenex-assisted-required reading most compelling writing of 2008. Notably absent this year were any winning entries that originally included a phone number and contact number. A nice improvement over last year.

"What courage! What insight!"

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John Huggan on Rory McIlroy's impact, with this jab at what's left of the American golf media:

Interestingly – and tellingly – the flurry of banner and admittedly over-the-top headlines that duly followed O'Meara's remarks set off something of a backlash across the Atlantic. Perhaps feeling a little touchy over the almost complete and continuing lack of excitement created by homegrown players on their own tour, a few American journalists felt able to pooh-pooh any comparison with the incomparable Woods. What courage! What insight! If only some of them had actually seen the young Irishman play even once.

Boo: "I'm looking at the WCWs, the WGWs"

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The Golf Watch's Richard Simon has posted a two-part Q&A with Jeff Babineau on the state of Golfweek, but even more fun than that is his his link to Boo Weekley's recent 19th Hole interview with Vince Cellini and John Hawkins where the PGA Tour's finest tries twice to refer to the WGC events, and fails.

"I'm looking at the WCWs, the WGWs...

I don't think it's online, but that episode of the show also featured a priceless Hawkins rant about the 2018 Ryder Cup-to-Dubai talk.

"Golf Channel is a news organization, not a public relations firm."

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As Jim Herre predicted recently, we're seeing a more discerning Golf Channel when it comes to covering their PGA Tour "partner." Besides the front page GolfChannel.com item, "Tim Finchem's Nightmare" (pictured left), check out Brian Hewitt's defense of the recent Rich Lerner interview with Tadd Fujikawa.

Of course we can celebrate the good in golf and nobody celebrates that good better than Golf Channel. What some people don’t seem to get, however, is that Golf Channel is a news organization, not a public relations firm. 

"It is what it is."

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Immediately after Tim Finchem's Sherwood media chat Saturday, I asked the Commish about layoffs in the media world and whether the PGA Tour is concerned about how the situation might impact coverage.

Yes, we have. It's a changing communication world. The bad news is that, I guess, you don't have as many different heads evaluating the sport or reporting back, which is not good. On the other hand, it's a more global reach with anything that happens in the Internet environment and that's a good thing. So I'm not so sure you can reverse the trend. It is what it is.

You can just feel the empathy, eh?

Now, I would never presume to tell someone making $4.8 million a year how to do his job, however, if I were Commish and standing on enemy turf (in thise case, a nicely heated and fully furnished cart barn with excellent food), I might have said something like:

Of course we're monitoring the situation and naturally we are sad anytime anyone loses a job. From a more selfish perspective, we know that newspaper and print coverage is where our fans and broadcast partners learn more about our players. All of those great little anecdotes and insights humanize them and make out tour better. So anytime you see less coverage in print it is one less opportunity for our fans to experience a unique perspective and that's a concern.

I can dream, no?

"The caricature of Tiger Woods eating Rocco Mediate as a snack is unfair and an inaccurate characterization of the facts."

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I'm always reluctant to check into Bob Carney's Editor's Blog for fear of reading something that gives me little faith in the people reading golf magazines. Today was one of those items.

Reader Alan Archer writes to complain about the Tiger-Rocco drawing from the recent Golf World newsmaker's issue.

Archer opens his letter with this line:

"The caricature of Tiger Woods eating Rocco Mediate as a snack is unfair and an inaccurate characterization of the facts."

Now, last I heard, a caricature is an unfair, inaccurate and totally not-factual representation. That's why they are fun.

Carney handled the response much more diplomatically than I would have.