Attention Women Golfers Who Want to Make History

To all women golfers: If you are tired of Tiger Woods news (whether you will be watching the Masters or not), here is an opportunity to make history and shed some welcome light on the strength of women golfers. Strangely, it’s all about the men’s U.S. Open that will be played at Pebble Beach, California, the third week in June.

Vote for a Woman

Golf Digest magazine is running an on-line voting contest called the Golf Digest U.S. Open Challenge. This is the second year of the contest and it involves voting for the fourth member of a celebrity team that will play on Monday, June 14th. The three celebrities are: hockey legend, Wayne Gretsky, New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees and actor Mark Wahlberg.
http://www.golfdigest.com/magazine/usopencontest/2010/05/gd_usopen_challenge_celebrities

But the fourth member will not be a celebrity. It will be one of five amateur, “average” golfers that made it to the final-five based on essays submitted to Golf Digest about why they want to play a 7000 yard course while being televised for Sunday prime-time viewing. The celebrity foursome will be taped and shown on TV before the final round of the U.S. Open begins on Sunday, June 20th.

For me, the real news is that this year one of the five finalists is a woman, Peggy Ference, from New Jersey and a member of the Women’s Metropolitan Golf Association (NY, CT and NJ) – one of the most prestigious golf associations in the country. A copy of the flyer distributed by the WMGA is at http://img.bluegolf.org/files/wmetga/Peggy_Flyer.doc

Peggy has a great video about herself and why she wants to win this contest on the Gold Digest Challenge website — www.gdopencontest.com. Peggy has a 4.6 handicap and is not afraid to play from those back tees. She actually has a lower handicap than any of the other four male finalists.

So, women, our mission is clear: We must get out the women’s vote and make sure Peggy, the strongest of the golfers is part of that celebrity foursome.

You can vote starting now — once a day — through the month of April and the first of May. In fact, if you use more than one email, you can register on each email and vote once a day from each of them.

Here’s how to do it. Go to www.gdopencontest.com. “Register” to vote. You will recognize quickly that this is a marketing campaign from Golf Digest as well as the USGA. You will have to provide your email and regular mail address. BUT, just don’t check any boxes that would clutter up your email and be prepared to toss any junk mail you get. (Regular mail is expensive, so I wouldn’t worry about getting much of that.)

Once you have registered, voting again is easy. Just go to the gdopencontest.com website and hit “LogIn”. Put in your email (which you already gave them) and vote for Peggy. It will take all of 15 seconds. If you do it every day for the rest of April, it won’t take you more than 10 minutes total.

The goal is to get out the vote for Peggy Ference.

Do you realize that this would only be the second time that a woman has been televised playing from the back professional tees? The first was Annika Sorenstam in the Colonial tournament in 2003.   Peggy Ference is real history in the making. And we have to make it happen.

Send a link of this article to all of your friends or tell them to go to www.gdopencontest.com. Let’s make history.

And, if you want to see the history of women’s golf that dates back to the founder of the game, Mary Queen of Scots in 1552, see my timeline of women’s golf history at http://www.nancyberkley.com/774892.html.

Nancy Berkley

Nancy Berkley, President of Berkley Golf Consulting, is a contributor to cybergolf.com and to www.ladiesgolfjourney.com. She is an expert on women’s golf and junior girls golf. Her book, Women Welcome Here! A Guide to Growing Women’s Golf, published by the National Golf Foundation, is an industry reference on marketing golf to women. She is a resource for golf-industry trends and marketing advice on her website www.nancyberkley.com. She is also the author of the NGF Publication: Insider’s Guide to Careers in the Golf Industry. She was a contributing editor of Golf for Women magazine and a founding advisor of Golfer Girl Magazine. Her interviews with women in the golf industry now appear on her new site: www.golfergirlcareers.com. Nancy also provides a Help Line on her website for those seeking marketing advice in the golf industry. Nancy lives in Palm Beach Gardens, FL and is a graduate of the University of Minnesota, Harvard University and Rutgers Law School. She describes herself as a good bogey golfer with permanent potential.