Golf Digest might have heard Sports Illustrated’s annual swimsuit issue does gangbusters in sales. It seems the monthly golf tome is following its lead.
That’s 20-year-old LGPA star Lexi Thompson on Golf Digest’s May cover, and yes, it’s causing a stir on social media.
@Mobute "Golf Digest is delivered monthly in a discreet, plain brown paper envelope--for your privacy."
— Todd Breasts (@michaeIcomputer) April 2, 2015Regarding that last tweet about how Golf Digest usually portrays men on its cover fully clothed. Well, last month the Conde Nast publication was an equal opportunity exploiter.
While it’s funny to think that maybe Golf Digest has instituted a new “everyone’s topless!” policy for its covers, that’s probably not the case.
Save for McIlroy’s bare nipples on display, Golf Digest has a much more questionable history with how it’s dealt with women on its covers than men.
The first Golf Digest cover to feature women was in December 1969 and it didn’t even feature real women. Instead, it was a photograph of a tableau showing Barbie dolls in short skirts. One was bent over to show her plastic bum, while a creepy old Ken doll looked on. Appropriately, the cover story was titled “Dirty Old Men — Hidden Hazard on Ladies’ Tour.”
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Offensively, however, the cover notes explain: “Those girls are dolls. They really are. And so are many of the real girls on the women’s professional golf tour. That is, they’re real dolls. They bear looking at, and as a general rule welcome stares. But when a Dirty Old Man shows up (see him there in the appropriately misty, black outfit?), they know how to handle him…”
Oh, the “Mad Men” era…
Sadly, though, one needn’t look to Don Draper’s time to find a pattern of inequality when it comes to Golf Digest’s treatment of women on its covers — mainly there’s not a lot of them. In fact, since October 2008, when LGPA player Lorena Ochoa landed a cover, there’s been just five women on the front, the majority of which weren’t pro golfers.
Golf Channel host Holly Sonders wore a minidress on her cover, supermodel Kate Upton appeared alongside Arnold Palmer and hockey legend Wayne Gretzky’s daughter Paulina appeared in a sports bra on her solo cover.
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At least when Golf Digest slaps a male celebrity with no pro golf experience on its cover, his body parts aren’t the main reason.
In October of last year, LGPA star Michelle Wie finally broke the pattern, becoming the first female golfer to land the cover since Ochoa.
Thompson now is the second LGPA golfer to land the cover in less than a year, although the first to appear without a shirt (or bra top). While the cover might be controversial to some, Thompson herself describes it as and ode to “fitness & power,” the theme of the issue.
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