Global Golf Post - November 29, 2010

expectations. I was blessed with some gifts, but patience wasn’t one of them. I may say to people there is a three-year turnaround, but what I’m thinking in my head is there is a six-month turnaround plan. I hate even saying this out loud, but it’s a fact: We are in a weird economic time and I have to tell my people to stop using that as an excuse. Everybody is in a weird economic time. You’ve got to find a way. Having a business commit to a long-term plan with the LPGA or any other sports entity is not a phone call or a visit. It is multiple phone calls, multiple visits, couple of trips to board meetings, a couple of presentations, get ‘em out to events. And we’re in a one- to two-year sales cycle. So I would say the toughest part of the job is realizing that it’s a slower process; it’s a longer sales cycle.

first 100 days just trying to listen and learn as much as I could. Knowing that patience isn’t my strength, I almost have to build things that force me to be patient. One of them is don’t walk into a situation and assume you have the answer in the first 100 days. I think I have the answer in 10 days; I just find out 90 days later that half of the answers are wrong, but you are just not sure which half.

Korean LPGA star Hee Kyeong Seo, with commissioner Whan, won the LPGA Kia Classic earlier this year to earn status on the Tour in 2011. The 24-year-old beauty’s nickname in Korea is “Supermodel of the Fairways.”

GGP;So the biggest frustration is...?

MW;The biggest frustration is, right now, the list of companies that are planning to have an event; want to have an event; know where they want to have it; know what size purse they’re going to have; know what they’re going to do with TV; and are just waiting.

And the reason they are waiting is that between 20 and 35 percent of their marketing budget is frozen. If we had eight companies sitting here, six of them have a major chunk of their marketing budget frozen. Doesn’t mean they have turned them back; doesn’t mean they’re not going to spend them. It just means they are holding and there is no way to get through that. It is the anxiety of not knowing the future. And we are an easy hold.

ing budgets? What needs to happen for the ice chunks to start breaking up a little bit?

MW;I would have told you back in June or July that the thaw was in process. In this job, you really feel closer to the pulse of the economy than I ever have before. I’ve never really been a Wall Street Journal reader cover to cover, but in this job I feel like I get it every time I pick up the phone. And in June or July we were in – I wouldn’t necessarily quite say “go mode” – but they were talking about spending money again and talking about what they are going to do with the now re-appropriated budgets, and then about August and September, everybody started hitting the freeze button again.

What we need to have happen, I’m not
sure. It seems like when I started this job
most of my calls to corporate sponsors,
whether they were current or prospective
sponsors, started with, “You guys okay?”
kind of a concern for the LPGA. I’m glad that
they cared but it’s always strange to start a
conversation with, “Are you limping?” From
the LPGA perspective, the best thing that
has happened in 2010 is that we don’t get
those questions anymore. The best part is
we’re not in some sort of spiral. We’re not at
any kind of risk.

GGP;Will you announce your 2011 schedule soon?

MW;I think so. I remember sitting in Houston last year, and I was the new commissioner but wasn’t in the job yet. I knew I had a meeting the next morning to talk about a 2010 tournament, so I thought we were announcing the schedule as if it’s done, and then later, at Christmas, I announced the Sybase Match Play Championship. So I said to my group the same thing: We’ve got at least three tournaments we are still working on for 2011. Whether we will go 0 for 3, 1 for 3 or 3 for 3, I have no idea.

GGP;How important is grasping “global” for the the LPGA?

MW;If you and I went to our website right now, I promise you we are getting as many hits from Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan and Australia as we are getting from the U.S. I have said to all the girls, just like every business I’ve ever been a part of, going global is a little like going into a cave. You want to get to the other end because that’s where you are going, but the cave can be scary and dark until you start seeing light. And over the last couple of years, we’ve gone into the cave.