It was bound to happen. In recent months we have had innovative formats for tournaments, a return to team competition and discussions about how to overcome golf’s somewhat outdated image, especially among the younger population.
Now the LPGA Tour, the American Women’s Tour, has taken its already strong commitment to social media promotion to a new level by awarding its latest sponsor exemption at the Shoprite Classic (June 2-4 in Galloway, N.J.) to one of the four players who achieve the most social media votes from golf fans.
The tournament worked with MVP Index, a media tracking company founded by Jordan Spieth’s father, to determine the four candidates based on their popularity: Blair O’Neal, Sharmila Nicollet, Carly Booth and Susana Benavides.
O’Neal is a Golf Channel host and former winner of the TV show Big Break; Nicollet, an Indian golfer who has more than 350,000 followers on Twitter and played an exhibition match with Tiger Woods in India in 2014; Scotland’s Booth has won twice on the Ladies European Tour; and Benavides, the only Bolivian golfer to have played an LPGA Tour tournament so far.
Leave a Reply