Goodbye, Golf For Women

It looks like that oddment among the golf magazines, with its glossy overweight paper and well photographed covers of well dressed women strking attractive poses while holding (but never swinging) golf clubs, is leaving us:

Conde Nast Kills Golf for Women...

I'm conceptually saddened, but for the sake of women's golf in general than for one periodical in particular. Once in a while I bought a few copies for Erica and she always ended up taking my copy of Golf Digest or Golf Magazine instead (curses, foiled again!). GFW always treated women golfers, she said, as if all they cared about was the celebrities who played golf and the fashion and image of golf. Not as if they actually wanted to improve their game, learn about new gear, or take the whole thing seriously. The covers, I noticed, always featured a woman who happened to play golf but but wasn't a professional. In fact, I'd wager that Paula, Anika, and Lorena were interviewed more often in "men's" golf magazines than in GFW. The one exception appears to be Natelie Gulbis, who I'd have thought more likely to show up on Maxim but who apparently fares quite well with the ladies of GFW!

Its a common problem to women's sports magazines in general, I've found. Perhaps someone should notice this? Women athletes might actually care about their athleticism and not just the label on the workout gear, what people in Hollywood are doing at the gym this month, or what great spa treatments they can do after a session lifting a few pounds of dumbbells?

We're all going to be drowning (haha) in coverage of the remarkable Dara Torres for the next few weeks, and that's sure as hell deserved and is a good start on things. How about Jenn Stuczynski, who is not only hot as all get out but now holds the American record for the pole vault -- 16 feet, 1 3/4 inches? Let's hear about her story from basketball to pole valut. If you can push youself over sixteen feet in the air, there is something amazing going on, no matter what your gender. And let's look at these women as athletes so we can learn from their techniques, their workouts, their discipline, and their gifts and not just treat them as human interest stories and fashion statements.