Carolyn Bivens wants players on the world’s top women’s golf tour to follow birdies with Tweets.
Bivens, the LPGA Tour commissioner, said she “encourages” players to use handheld devices to post content on social-media Web sites such as Twitter or Facebook during tournaments, even if it runs counter to golf etiquette.
It’s part of her plan to have more interaction between players, fans and sponsors as the tour deals with the recession and searches for new tournament backers.
PHOTO: AP
“I’d love it if players Twittered during the middle of a round,” Bivens said on Thursday in New York. “The new media is very important to the growth of golf and we view it as a positive, and a tool to be used.”
Approximately 30 LPGA players use Twitter, including 21-year-old Morgan Pressel, 25-year-old Christina Kim and 26-year-old Natalie Gulbis, who also used her Facebook page and an Internet blog to connect with fans while on The Apprentice reality television show last season.
Many golf courses, such as Augusta National Golf Club, where the Masters Tournament is held each April, don’t allow fans, players or club members to use mobile phones or handheld devices on the grounds. The PGA Tour bans players from using mobile phones or handheld communication devices during play.
The use of social-media sites by athletes during professional sports events led to controversy in March, when Milwaukee Bucks forward Charlie Villanueva used Twitter during halftime of a National Basketball Association win over the Boston Celtics. While Villanueva finished with a team-high 19 points, Bucks coach Scott Skiles said it was “nothing we ever want to happen again.”
Bivens said the LPGA was awaiting word from the US Golf Association on whether the use of handheld devices for Tweeting during competitive play is within the rules.
The USGA’s 2008 Rules of Golf make no mention of the use of handheld devices such as mobile telephones.
Rule 14-3 — “Artificial Devices, Unusual Equipment and Unusual Use of Equipment” — states that a player may not use any equipment “that might assist him in making a stroke or in his play; or for the purpose of gauging or measuring distance or conditions that might affect his play.”
The penalty for violation of Rule 14-3 is disqualification.
Distance-measuring devices such as GPS units are banned during LPGA competition.
The USGA’s etiquette guidelines say that “players should ensure that any electronic device taken onto the course does not distract other players.”
San Francisco-based Twitter Inc provides a real-time service through which users exchange 140-character updates, or Tweets.
The LPGA held a mandatory players summit this month in Williamsburg, Virginia, where Bivens unveiled several fan-friendly initiatives, including conducting on-course TV interviews with tournament leaders during play.
The tour, which has signed new TV contracts with the Golf Channel in the US and J Golf in South Korea, has lost five tournament sponsors this season and will have as many as 14 events up for renewal after this year, Bivens said.
While the new TV contracts have helped put the LPGA on strong financial ground, Bivens said, Twitter will help reach younger fans.
“For Morgan Pressel and Christina Kim’s following — her fans are 12, 13, 14-year-old girls and boys — they’re not waiting for the golf broadcast on Saturday and Sunday,” Bivens said. “They want to know what’s going on in the middle of the round. If we’re going to get out of the collared shirts and khaki pants and make golf chic, hip, happening, Christina Kim is exactly the kind of player to reach out and make golf a lot more relevant.”
■COLONIAL TOURNAMENT
AFP, FORT WORTH, TEXAS
South Africa’s Tim Clark fired a bogey free seven-under 63 to take the co-lead after the opening round on Thursday of the PGA Colonial tournament.
Clark rolled in seven birdies en route to a three-way share of the lead with Americans Woody Austin and Steve Stricker.
Fijian-Indian Vijay Singh and American Kenny Perry are one shot back at the US$6.2 million tournament at the Colonial Country Club.
■EUROPEAN OPEN
AFP, LONDON
An eagle at the last lifted Anders Hansen into a one shot lead after the first round of the European Open at The London Club in Kent on Thursday.
Hansen’s chip-in eagle at the 563-yard eighth, his penultimate hole, gave him a one-stroke lead over England’s Sam Little, Swede Peter Hanson, Indian Jyoti Randhawa and South African Thomas Aiken in the race for the £300,000 (US$480,000) first prize — £100,000 less than Ross Fisher received last July in a sign of the times.
Hanson’s 66 came only three days after he holed-in-one in a play-off to earn a US Open spot.
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Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
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