LADIES EUROPEAN TOUR: Richard Gillisgets some dancing tips from 30 women golfers as he watches events unfold successfully in Antalya, Turkey
IT'S 2am in a hotel nightclub in southern Turkey and I'm dancing with 30 of the best women golfers in Europe. I came here because Antalya, on the country's Mediterranean coast is hosting the first ever Ladies Turkish Open.
The plan was to profile the new generation of players on the Ladies European Tour ahead of its return to Ireland next month (July 11th-13th, Portmarnock Hotel and Golf Links), and to assess the legacy of Annika Sorenstam, the greatest ever European woman golfer and Swedish icon, who has announced she is to retire from the sport at the end of this year.
But I got sidetracked.
The dance floor is divided in to two distinct groups: me on one side, everyone else on the other. Im not so much dancing with them as parallel to them.
The them in question are the group of players who, this being Friday night, mainly consists of those who have missed the cut. Around them are a few miscellaneous hangers on, mostly guests at the hotel, including a huge shaven-headed Russian bloke who seems to have spent the post Cold War period lifting weights with his neck.
And then there's me. It's a sign of how much free wine I've drunk that I'm here at all. If David Leadbetter ever got in to dance academies, I'd be the end product. The whole process has been pared down to a series of simple, repeatable actions, using just the big muscle groups.
Any hint of enjoyment has long been sacrificed at the altar of efficiency. Like former Australian cricket captain Steve Waugh, I've cut out the flashy stuff that was getting me in to trouble and have become a ruthless dancing machine, the type you'd choose to perform for your life, but not one you'd particularly want to watch while he's doing it.
The golfers are larking about in a cool, loose limbed Swedish way, with one of their caddies throwing some shapes. He looks just like Stefan Edfors, who in turn looks like Roger Federer.
It's like being at a Christmas party for a lookalike agency. Gloria Estefan is taunting me through one of the giant speakers about a foot from my left ear. Rhythm Is Gonna Get You - yeah right. Dancing requires such concentration that my face has been contorted into a fake rictus grin for about 40 minutes and as a result I've got a stinging headache. That and the fact my wine glass has not been empty since I left my hotel room six hours ago. As the first bars of Radio Ga Ga brings squeals of delight from my dance partners, I make good my escape, a travel pack of Solpadeine in hand.
Next morning, the business of winning the event is on the minds of the 20 or so later starters hitting balls out on the practice ground, sited a short walk from the first tee, tucked away behind the tall red pine and eucalyptus trees that line the pathways and fairways of the National Golf Club.
Spain's Paula Marti, who is lying in second place, is hitting three woods down toward the 250 marker, each one following the same high drawing arc as the last. Seen from behind, the club points an inch or so to the right at the top of the backswing. Occasionally, with no perceptible difference in swing, the ball doesn't draw, instead going straight right, landing 20 feet or so from the main cluster. Each of these rebels is met with a snort of derision from Marti, and followed with yet another high draw. She and the others in the line know it is going to be a hard day at the office.
Out on the course, the wind and the set-up of the greens is playing havoc with the scoring. I take position next to the third hole, most of the players are hitting six or seven irons into the green, but very few are holding the cut area. Irelands Martina Gillen hits a high fade, landing on the green around 15 feet short of the pin, only for the ball to bounce head high over the flag stick and into the rough at the back. In the same group, Melodie Bourdy of France pitches into the soft green bank at the front and dies, leaving a tricky chip up the length of the green.
It is these playing conditions, along with the stiff wind coming in from the Mediterranean, that pushed the cut score on Friday afternoon up toward 13 over par. Back at the clubhouse, things are getting heated. "You wonder why we get annoyed?" says Irish player Rebecca Coakley as she walks off the 18th on 12 over par.
To the administrators, the high cut score is a cause for concern. They want the course to be altered for the Sunday to ensure a fair test for the players. And there is the external audience to consider: How will the high scores look to people reading their papers tomorrow morning? "The worry is that the scores are not a fair reflection of the quality of the golf being played," says Bethan Cutler, the tour's communications manager.
"They should make the courses easier," says Margherita Rigon, the Italian player in her fourth season on tour, who started brightly on Saturday before falling back down the field. "We don't hit it as far as the men, but the courses are set up for people hitting 300 yard drives."
By contrast, the following week, Norway's Suzann Pettersen broke the Ladies European Tours record for the lowest 54-hole total after shooting an eight-under-par 64 in the third round of the Deutsche Bank Ladies Swiss Open. After opening with a 67 and posting a course record-equaling 63 in the second round, the 27-year-old from Oslo emerged six shots clear of the field after 54 holes, on a total of 22-under-par 194 at Golf Gerre Losone.
But here in Turkey, the high cut pricks a sensitive "style over content" issue for the tour's administrators. This week's punters have been lured to the National Golf Club by a poster campaign featuring leggy Russian player Maria Verchenova. In their attempts to snare the interest of the media, attention is often drawn to pretty young players, such as Henrietta Zuel who has signed up with Pop Idol impresario Simon Fuller's 19 management agency, or Australian Anna Rawson, whose career as a catwalk model runs parallel to her golfing one.
"Watching good golf, watching putts go in is one part of it," says Alexandra Armas, the executive director of the LET and one of the architects of its commercial revival. "But if you have a relationship with the players that helps you feel closer to the sport. Players from different nationalities are important. Journalists are interested in national heroes. I saw at first hand the impact of Alonso on Formula One in Spain. Everyone is F1 mad now. It's important to make the most of what we have, get the players out there and let the public get to know them."
It's a strategy that's working. The Ladies European Tour is one of the best kept secrets in golf. As a spectator sport it has a lot going for it: friendly players, good quality golf and an absence of the hassle that has become a feature of watching the men's tours.
"It's a treat to be able to get so close to the players," said one convert. Another, a British holidaymaker who had taken a day off his golf trip to come and watch, said: "You see so much more golf than you do at the men's events. And they don't just blast it down there, you learn much more from watching them, you can relate to it."
There is more concrete evidence that the LET is enjoying a boost in popularity as a more professional approach to the marketing of the game is paying dividends. The Turkish Open is one of four new events added to the 2008 schedule, making a total of 28 tournaments, offering total prize-money of €11 million. Not so long ago, the tour was close to going out of business, the number of events plummeted to just eight in 2000 due to lack of sponsorship and the apathy of promoters. The LET went through five chief executives in as many years. Clearly, something is going right.
Dr Bulent Goktana, a Mergers and Acquisitions financier, is one of the driving forces behind golf in Turkey and the majority owner of the National Club. His company put up the €500,000 required to stage this event. "I wanted to bring the Ladies Tour to Turkey before, but it was a shambles at the time, fragmented and disorganised. But I've been watching them recently. And I noticed they had become a much more attractive proposition."
Goktana says his investment represents a fraction of that demanded by the European Tour to fund an equivalent men's event. "We can't compete with the Arab money," says Goktana, referring to events such as the Dubai World Championship, the €12.6 million end of season extravaganza to the 2009 men's European Tour. "It's silly money."
Sponsors, too, have noticed the increased media exposure. The tour has inadvertently benefited from Setanta Sports' entry into the pay TV market. Since losing its rights to the American PGA Tour to Setanta Golf last year, Sky Sports has found more space in its schedules for the women's game.
The early season events such as these are critical in building towards the summer's big ticket events, the Evian Masters and the Ricoh British Open, both of which are co-sanctioned with the LPGA of America and will draw the best fields of the year, including world number one Lorena Ochoa and Annika Sorenstam.
For differing reasons, the two biggest stars of the women's game will be desperate to win the British Open, held at Sunningdale in July, the only major on this side of the Atlantic. Mexican-born Orchoa, is on one of the most startling runs of form in the history of the game: she has won 20 events since her first tour victory in April 2006. She has won six times this season, taking her career earnings past €7.7 million.
But for the players and followers of the LET, this summer is all about Sorenstam's swansong. Sorenstam has won 10 major championships including a career Grand Slam and 72 professional events worldwide. She is the only woman to shoot 59 in competitive play and was the first in 58 years to compete on the men's PGA Tour when she missed the cut by four shots at the Colonial event in 2003.
More than the statistics, Sorenstam's career has created the blue print for today's members of the Ladies European Tour to follow. It's appropriate, that come Sunday afternoon, one of the next generation of young Swedish players announces herself on the world stage.
On the final day 22-year-old Lotta Wahlin holds off Paula Marti, to win her first event, posting a seven-under-par total. This was Wahlin's first tour win and the 12-shot margin of victory suggests the emergence of a major talent. As the final putt drops, she's engulfed by a group of 30 or more of her fellow competitors and their caddies, some wrapped in the blue and yellow of the Sweden flag, others pumping bottles of champagne in true Formula One style.
As Annika Sorenstaum prepares to exit the world stage, the next generation of European women golfers are preparing to fill the vacuum.
"The Ladies European Tour is one of the best kept secrets in golf. As a spectator sport it has a lot going for it: friendly players, good quality golf and an absence of the hassle that has become a feature of watching the men's tours
