We'll find out next month, when three LPGA players — Christina Kim, Sandra Gal and Anna Grzebien — appear in a special “Bodies” edition of ESPN the Magazine. Word is the three golfers posed “semi-nude” for the issue. What semi-nude is is anybody's guess right now.
Kim, Gal and Grzebien will no doubt revive the long-time debate on the women's golf tour about marketing and sex appeal. Just how much should sex be used in marketing a female star or sport?
It's a debate that dates back even before the most famous of LPGA sex appeal issues back in the 1980s. Jan Stephenson was a talented and attractive player who decided to do what were once called cheesecake or pin-up shots. She even posed in a bathtub full of golf balls. And she faced a firestorm of criticism for selling her body rather than her talent.
For the record, Stephenson also won 16 LPGA tournaments including three of the tour's four major titles.
Two things have been obvious in this debate for years.
First, women also will be judged on their looks to some degree. No, it's not fair, but it is reality, and it's a reality more and more female athletes have embraced since Stephenson's day.
Second, there is and always has been a double standard when it comes to sex appeal and sports. Seriously, has anyone ever really complained that someone like David Beckham or Alex Rodriguez or Terrell Owens has his picture taken with his shirt off?
Double standard
But let a female athlete flash a little bit too much thigh or a belly button or even wear a tad too much eye shadow while competing and people immediately scream about sex appeal being more important than on-field performance.
What makes this whole controversy odd is that sports is, at its core, a celebration of the human body. It's a contest of who can run faster, jump higher, throw harder or farther or manipulate a bat or club or stick better than anyone else. An athlete's basic tool is his or her body. A great mind and a great will won't overcome a non-athletic body.
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