Sexy Golfers...Good for the Game?

This girl is a golfer? Haha, yeah. More and more over the last decade or so, women's golf has become sexy. Natalie Gulbis was one of the modern day trailblazers who glamorized golf. Her swimsuit calendars and short skirts on tour was marketed, and still is, toward the middle-aged-Miller-Lite-public golfer who doesn't give a rats ass about what goes on on the LPGA yet they buy the calendars and watch her reality shows. Now, seven women known as the Wilhelmina 7 or the W7, sponsored by the Wilhelmina modeling agency have created a new kind of gossip on tour: Who's going to be Miss January, because its not just Natalie Gulbis making calendars now! Before the likes of Gulbis, female golfers wore knee length shorts, shirts down to their elbows and lacked any kind of fashion on the golf course. Now, the women's golf industry has incorporated fashion icons to model their clothing and created en vogue clothing to sport on the course.

The other day I was approached by my employer because my golf shirt was not "fit to the dress code". My shirt was a sleeveless polo but the back was cut out like a sports bra and apparently wasn't acceptable. In somewhat of a shock, I started pondering about this whole subject. Does she not know that women's golf is trying to make ground on this subject? Women athletes, especially golfers, have been known to be "masculine" if they possess elite athletic skills. They are butch. These girls posing in their swimsuits are proving they have the beauty and the skill. For example, Anna Grzebien, pictured above, won three national championships at Duke and is now playing on the LPGA. I remember when I saw her at a tournament and I would have never thought that she would be part of the W7, but its getting people's attention toward golf.

The obvious argument is that this is degrading to women's character, making a mockery of their actual athletic skill and just using their bodies to give the sport notice. For Gulbis, the argument is that she hadn't won a tournament for the first 6 years she was a professional. She had the beauty but not the game to win. She was noticed for her good looks before her game. That kinda gets at me because being a girl playing a male dominated sport, it seems like I'm always swimming against the current. People don't want to play with me because I'm a girl, or they doubt my talent or skill just because I am female. This all really pisses me off but after I hit one, they shut up. Ha.

However, these girls are bringing that temporary glance at golf. They are showing people that female athletes, like I said before, have the skill and the good looks. However they arrive at the conclusion that they play professional golf for a living, golf is being noticed so I would think that is good for the game. In every aspect of a females life, they are more noticeable when wearing a short skirt and if that gets people's attention, maybe, and hopefully they will notice what great athletes they are as well.

Any thoughts??