The largest advertiser in SI's Golf Plus supplement has
"suspended" more than $1M in advertising after the magazine
published an article on April 7 that "detailed the lesbian
party scene" at the LPGA's Nabisco Dinah Shore tournament,
according to Constance Hays of the N.Y. TIMES. Titleist and
Foot-Joy Worldwide Chair & CEO Wally Uihlein said that he
"halted" most of the $1.5M his company planned to spend this
year in the magazine because "he had been disturbed for some
time about the tone of articles on women's golf" in SI.
Uihlein: "The Dinah piece was the straw that broke the
camel's back. It's just symptomatic of a condescending
mindset toward women in golf in general" (N.Y. TIMES, 4/28).
WEEKEND AT DINAH'S: The Dinah Shore article, written by
Washington Post reporter Stephanie Mansfield, profiled the
weekend festivities around the tournament and refers to it
as a time "less about sports than babes -- hordes of them,
gaggles of them, giggling and groping and making out with
abandon." The TIMES' Hays notes that the article also
touched on the "image problem" of the LPGA and said that it
might have to "detach itself from lesbian spring break" as
the weekend has become known. SI's Golf Plus editor Jim
Herre said the article "was in keeping" with other articles
done on site at events. SI Managing Editor Bill Colson told
Uihlein that SI saw it as "a news story," and offered
Uihlein the chance to respond in a column. Uihlein did, but
also "insisted" on altering the company's advertising
schedule. The Golf Plus supplement is bound into 450,000
subscriber copies of SI (N.Y. TIMES, 4/28).
