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Players
Two-time major winner Tony Jacklin and two-time Masters champion Ben Crenshaw have been elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame. Also to be inducted on Nov. 15 will be former Masters champion Bernhard Langer and former LPGA Tour great Marlene Hagge.
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Equipment
PING introduces a line of new TiSI Tec titanium fairway woods in four lofts. The woods complement the popular PING TiSI Tec Driver introduced last fall and used on major tours worldwide.
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Courses
The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island Resorts will close June 1 for significant renovations and improvements by course architect Pete Dye. It will re-open on Sept. 16.
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The Gaylord Golf Mecca's Treetops Resort was listed among "The Top 75 Resorts in America" in Golf Digest's March issue, while the new Tribute course at Otsego Club was recently selected by Sports Illustrated as among the "Top 10 New Courses."
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The Gaylord Golf Mecca, located in the upper half of Michigan's lower peninsula, has added two new members courses -- the Rees Jones-designed Black Lake Golf Club in Onaway, and Thunder Bay Resort in Hillman.
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Media
USA Network returns to Augusta National Golf Club for the 21st consecutive year to air live coverage of the Masters. USA Sports' coverage airs Thursday and Friday, April 11-12 from 4-6:30 p.m. ET/1-3:30 p.m. PT. Repeat coverage of the day's action airs April 11-12 from 8-10:30 p.m. ET/PT.
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People
Joe Jemsek, a pioneer in public golf and a former member of the United States Executive Committee, died in his home in Illinois Tuesday after a long illness. He was 89.
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Argentinean Silvina Fino joins Rush Creek Golf Academy as its newest teaching professional. In addition to her regular teaching as a seasonal instructor, Rush Creek, located in Maple Grove, Minn., will offer Fino's native language as an added service to attract Spanish-speaking golfers.
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TaylorMade Golf announces that Mike Peck will now become its new director of U.S. sales, while Chris Coffman will become national accounts sales director.
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Never Compromise, Inc., promotes David Walker to Tour Product Manager. Walker will be responsible for managing the custom tour-club process, including the facility, its staff, and its operational functions.
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Apparel
Tehama, which produces a high-end line of sportswear, announces that sales bookings for the first three months of 2002 are up by 200 percent over the same period last year.
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Business
Cleveland Golf reports shipments for the first quarter of 2002 are 25 percent higher than last year during the same period.
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All-American SportPark, Inc., reports revenues from continuing operations for 2001 of $2,425,781 compared to $2,402,259 in 2000. Net loss from continuing operations was $603,775 or $0.19 per share in 2001 compared to $152,668 or $0.05 per share in 2000.
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Sports Entertainment Enterprises, Inc., reports revenues from continuing operations for 2001 of $5,566,435 compared to $5,360,256 in 2000. Net loss from continuing operations was $782,304 or $0.10 per share in 2001 compared to $225,127 or $0.03 per share in 2000.
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Reader's Forum Considerable alterations have been made at Augusta National, especially in terms of length. Will these changes positively or negatively affect the Masters, and how so? Also, were these changes necessary to keep up with the technological advances in equipment and today's better-conditioned players? Let us know your opinions by sending your responses to stuart@gpagolf.com with the subject line RE: Masters alterations. Also include your first name and last initial.

Five Questions
Ty Votaw, LPGA Commissioner

Ty Votaw has been Commissioner of the LPGA Tour since March 24, 1999. Prior to the season, Votaw oversaw the first LPGA Tour Players Summit in Arizona. He recently sat down for an exclusive question and answer session with The Wire, and looked at the Tour's past, present and future.

Q.: Let's start by talking about the first LPGA Tour Players Summit, held in Arizona as a prelude to the season.

A.: A good weekend. I would say one of the best weekends, if not the best weekend, in my 10-plus years with the LPGA. I am very proud of the players for their attendance, their attention and the energy and willingness to listen and learn about our five-year business plan and the four various business areas of the LPGA. It was something we felt we had to do in order to get the players to buy into the strategic plan, and couldn't have done any better than I could have hoped.

Q.: It was a mandatory meeting. Without any names, did everybody attend?

A.: Everybody attended who did not have a legitimate excuse that they had personally come to me about and explained their situation. I think there may have been four people who had that kind of situation. It ranked from personal issues to medical issues to a couple of extraordinary travel issues.

Q.: Get-out-of-jail-free cards?

A.: Well, yeah, they still have to sit and watch -- three days of the summit on video, which we videotaped. So they will have to do that. But 178 players were there and all the people that you would have expected to be there were there. And it was very gratifying to see leadership of all levels, players interacting with one another and learning from one another.

Q.: Is your plan going to go into play immediately?

A.: We have been -- the plan has been in operation. When I became Commissioner in March of 1999, we used much of that year to plan for our 50th anniversary celebration and felt that it was very important for us to celebrate that landmark, and celebrate and honor not only the founders, but all the great players who have passed over the decades. We spent a lot of time planning that and working on what type of theme we would have over the 2000 full-year celebration. Then about halfway through 2000, we said to ourselves, "Look, this is the celebration."

We had a great gala dinner in January at the Breakers. We had a nice dinner at Dolores Hopes. We're going to have to continue the kind of celebrations, but all of these celebrations are about our past and we really need to start thinking about our future.

And so we did a qualitative brand value assessment study, not quantitative. Meaning, we went and talked to a 1,000 people. We talked to 150 of what I would call movers and shakers, opinion leaders in our constituent group. Whether it was our players, our staff, whether it was our sponsors, the media, whether it was our fans. We talked to about 150 of them to get their perceptions of the LPGA and whether the LPGA has reached its full potential in their view. And out of that, we came up with a number of different conclusions, one of which was in order for us to reach our full potential we need to celebrate who we are, not who we are not. We need to stop talking to ourselves and start talking to people outside the universe that we call the LPGA.

Finally, we felt that from that qualitative brand value assessment, the feedback we got, that in order for us to dedicate ourselves in the marketplace, we had to be more than just the gender equal of the PGA Tour. We had to do more than just be professional golf played by women, we had to be entertainers. We had to be people who weren't just appreciated for their golf game -- which is excellent -- but to really connect with the fan. There has to be this relevance that's off the golf course established between the fan and the players. So those kind of findings guided us through 2000 and through the balance of 2001.

We spent the balance of 2000 working on that brand value assessment. And then really began to work through a strategic plan that would be responsive to the findings that we came out with. While we were doing that, we did a number of different things in the course of 2000 and 2001 that was a parallel track, that's consistent with what our ultimate five-year business plan is. So we while we were waiting to go roll it out and have the players buy into what we were doing, we were doing a number of different things consistent with the plan.

Click here to read the complete interview with Ty Votaw.