Liz Young claimed her first professional title at the second Rose Series event of 2021. That she should do so in the Rose Series could not be more fitting. It is, after all, an event that would not have existed without her commitment and ingenuity in providing an opportunity for elite golfers to play…
In every sports fan’s life, there comes the devastating, disconcerting moment when you realise that you’re past it. Players half your age start making their debuts. Competitors ten years your junior win titles. You are forced to confront the reality that in fact, you probably won’t make it onto the tour, into the side, or…
Hideki Matsuyama is a golfer who feels like he has been around much longer than he has. Part of the effect is generated by his beautifully struck irons, which carry him serenely from tee to green and make his game seem mature beyond his years. In part it is his composed, friendly demeanour. Mostly, it…
On Twitter this week, flamboyant batsman Kevin Pietersen asked what the cricket equivalent is of the Masters. He received some excellent answers. Lords for the prestige. The Ashes. Newlands, South Africa’s spectacular stadium overlooking Table Mountain. An India-Pakistan rivalry. Boxing Day at the MCG. The IPL Final. Perhaps the new World Test Championship will become…
Products are only perfect if the right customers see them. In that spirit, SMS’ affordable new golf tourism segmentation methodology can help make the time-consuming, hard to measure process of tailoring marketing to different tribes of golfers easier than ever. Armed with detailed demographic, behavioural and psychographic profiling information that divides golfers into key segments…
Sports Marketing Surveys (SMS) Director Richard Payne is gearing up to address this year’s International Golf Travel Market (IGTM) Links. The event, which precedes a planned physical event in Wales in October, follows a successful trial of the online networking format in Autumn 2020. Richard’s presentation ‘The Golf Tourism Recovery: A Golfer’s Perspective shows…
Sports Marketing Surveys insights have formed a key part of Scottish Golf’s future strategy. A bespoke survey commissioned by the federation identified a clear preference among golf clubs and their members for the organisation to focus its efforts, and its investment, on the grassroots game rather than elite golf. 73% of golf clubs supported this…
After a delayed start to the year, golf fans, and particularly those who follow the Ladies’ European Tour (LET), will have much to look forward to in 2021. The announcement of a €19m record prize fund for the LET, to be distributed across a total of 27 events in 19 countries, has been welcomed across…
This article was originally written in January 2021 by SMS Director Richard Payne for The PGA Professional Magazine. If you want one word to sum up golf in 2020, try ‘resilience’. After course closures in April and May because of Coronavirus, the global golf industry could have been excused for feeling Eeyoreish at the…
They say that history repeats itself. It has to, because no one listens. Sometimes that feels true of research. After PureGym CEO Humphrey Cobbold weighed into the lockdown reopening debate to complain that ‘it’s all very well to hear that tennis and golf are reopening, but let’s be honest, those are rich people’s sports’, SMS…
