Strange Bedfellows

Helen Alfredsson nearly fell off her sofa. Back in February, during an idle afternoon of channel-surfing, she happened upon the made-for-TV festivities of the NBA's All-Star weekend. Dancing across Alfredsson's screen were the coed participants of the 2ball competition, that ingenious NBA marketing ploy that paired the association's luminaries with those from its sister league, the WNBA, in a made-for-TV version of H-O-R-S-E. "Watching those guys promote the women's game so enthusiastically, I finally figured out what our girls have been talking about all this time," says Alfredsson. "I thought, My god, we need a relationship like that, too."

Merging the LPGA tour with the PGA Tour has long been discussed sotto voce in women's golf circles, and Dottie Pepper has taken the debate public. Merging with the men is a seductive proposition, given currency by the WNBA's stunning success and the blockbuster business driving the PGA Tour. There is only one problem: Like Sansabelt slacks, this is an idea whose time has passed.

The LPGA is doing just fine on its own, thanks. The usual barometers-prize money and TV presence—both show steady growth, but beyond that the tour is on the verge of something big. To slip into the callow lexicon of the marketplace, the product has never been better. The LPGA is the only tour on which the world's best tee it up week in and week out, and it is home to the most compelling rivalry in golf, Annika Sorenstam versus Karrie Webb. While the PGA Tour has degenerated into driver-wedge birdiefests, the LPGA is like a real-time Classic Sports Network, providing a window into how this artful game used to be played.

Still, the LPGA will be able to cash in on its virtues only if it maintains autonomy. Being swallowed up by the PGA Tour would guarantee that the LPGA would be golf's third banana forever, as the men would be sure to protect their interests in the Senior tour at the expense of the women. As an outsider the LPGA has a golden opportunity to muscle the Senior tour out of the picture. "They're looking vulnerable," says Pepper, noting that the Senior tour is losing its star power and, by extension, its reason for existence. "Now is the time for us to make our move." Since 1993 the LPGA's total purse has grown at a faster rate than the Senior tour's, even though the over-50 set piggybacks on the regular Tour. While the Seniors' TV ratings plummeted 15% last year and are still down in '98, the LPGA's numbers have held constant while its exposure has more than doubled this decade, from 15 telecasts in '90 to 33 this season. The LPGA brass points to these stats with barely disguised glee.

The LPGA can even gain from the spectacular growth of the men's Tour, provided the women remain free to cut their own deals as opposed to becoming a subsidiary forced to accept leftovers. With its ballooning purses, the PGA Tour is on the verge of pricing itself out of numerous markets, making the LPGA an increasingly viable option. It's no secret that the folks at Lincoln-Mercury, for example, were miffed when the Tour jilted their Kapalua International in favor of one of the big-money international events starting up next year. In what looks to be a precedent, Mercury ditched the men and is now the title sponsor of one of the LPGA's most prestigious tournaments, last week's Titleholders, and the backer of the Mercury Series of seven tournaments cablecast on ESPN and ESPN2.

To be sure, the LPGA is eager to become more of a presence on network TV, which explains the fascination with the WNBA. But the WNBA's visibility is a product of excellent timing, because the league was created to coincide with the NBA's negotiations for a new TV deal. Even if the PGA Tour gobbled up the LPGA tomorrow, the men's TV contract is locked in through 2003. By then the LPGA figures to be in a much stronger position.

Pressed on these points, Alfredsson concedes that perhaps the LPGA ought to stay the course. Perking up a bit, she says, "I do like the idea that sometime in the future those basketball players might be sitting around watching us play on NBC or CBS—maybe both!—and they'll say, 'How did those girls figure it out on their own?' "