{"id":7309,"date":"2004-05-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2004-05-14T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.golfinspain.es.local\/b\/2004\/05\/15\/features-3\/"},"modified":"2019-11-07T10:57:01","modified_gmt":"2019-11-07T09:57:01","slug":"features-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.golfinspain.com\/b\/2004\/05\/features-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Features"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Sex Sells”<\/strong><\/p>\n

The resurrection this year of the women\u2019s Spanish Open has much to do with the sex appeal of young players such as Barcelona\u2019s Paula Marti. Spain was one of the victims of European women professional golf\u2019s floundering fortunes in the mid-1990s – with La Manga hosting the last Spanish Open in 1996. In the years following, the women\u2019s tour was on the point of disintegrating, before a new corporate administration began restoring its health from 1999.<\/p>\n

Last year, the Ladies European Tour (LET) comprised 16 tournaments offering a total of more than eight million euros (including the 2.1 million euro Evian Masters). Now Spain, somewhat belatedly, has re-enters the scene with the Tenerife Ladies Open at Golf del Sur from May 2-5 and the Caja Duero Open de Espa\u00f1a in Salamanca from May 30 to June 2.<\/p>\n

Not everyone in the game is happy to admit it but one of the key reasons why the women\u2019s game is once again attracting sponsors, and substantial prize funds, is the young, sexy image of many of its younger players – and their burgeoning talent, of course.<\/p>\n

In an interview last year in Corporate Golf Magazine, 21-year-old Marti, who won twice in 2001 in her rookie season (and was described by the magazine as a \u201cstunner\u201d) was asked if she thought the new image would help women\u2019s golf.
\n\u201cHell yeah, sex sells, it\u2019s no big deal,\u201d she said. \u201cIf we have the looks and the talent, then why not use it. We need more sponsors and, if we can use this to further the tour, then let\u2019s do it. The younger girls from Europe have brought their own style and sense of dress to the game and it just happens to be a little tighter fit and a more athletic, modern look, but that is what we feel comfortable in when we play, and it just happens to look much sexier.\u201d
\nAccording to Dutch player Mette Hageman, Marti \u201cis our new Seve \u2013 she\u2019s talented, ambitious, a born winner and, to top it all off, she is great looking too\u201d, but she stresses that there are others from Scandinavia, France, Holland, Germany and Spain \u2013 \u201call good looking and all very promising players\u201d.
\nFor Hageman, \u201cThe future is looking good, but what we need to do is offer these girls more tournaments in Europe with better prize-money and that would stop them going over to the LPGA (in the US), and if we are getting more attention for being sexy as well as talented, hey, that works for me.\u201d
\nAll top-10 players on last year\u2019s LET order of merit were 30 years or younger, with Zaragoza\u2019s Raquel Carriedo winning three times and becoming the first Spaniard to top the order; Marti finished sixth and the Basque Country\u2019s Marina Arruti, ninth.<\/p>\n

Several other Spanish players competed with varying degrees of success on the tour, including Ana Bel\u00e9n S\u00e1nchez (M\u00e1laga), who, at the US Qualifying School, also earned conditional exempt status for the 2002 LPGA Tour.
\nCoinciding with Salamanca\u2019s year as a \u201cEuropean Cultural Capital\u201d, the Caja Duero Open de Espa\u00f1a is being backed with 360,000 euros (60 million pesetas) from the Real Federaci\u00f3n Espa\u00f1ola de Golf\u2019s own funds – in line with an election pledge last year by re-elected president Emma Villacieros.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Sex Sells” The resurrection this year of the women\u2019s Spanish Open has much to do with the sex appeal of young players such as Barcelona\u2019s Paula Marti. Spain was one of the victims of European women professional golf\u2019s floundering fortunes in the mid-1990s – with La Manga hosting the last Spanish Open in 1996. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mbp_gutenberg_autopost":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.golfinspain.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.golfinspain.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.golfinspain.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.golfinspain.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.golfinspain.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.golfinspain.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7309\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.golfinspain.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.golfinspain.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.golfinspain.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}