The twilight years of the afternoon newspaper market in Sydney during the late 1980s were exciting. I was lucky enough to be a part of the Daily Mirror team that was locked in a daily battle for circulation supremacy with the opposition, The Sun.
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Even former US President Bill Clinton would not be a welcome reader of TOM.
An exclusive from one was a kick in the guts for the other. Behind the scenes there were dirty tricks played and bribes meted out by reporters to ensure their story was first on the presses. The intense rivalry between the Mirror and Sun never ebbed, not even for a day.
Roy ‘Rocky’ Miller, the Daily Mirror editor at the time, rallied the troops one afternoon (before we stormed the pub across the road) for a pat-on-the-back speech. All that week, The Sun had roundly criticised the Mirror at length for a series of exclusive articles it had run and were later confirmed to be true.
“Any time your opposition starts putting the name of your publication in one of their papers, you must be doing something right,” Miller said. “We can simply thank them for the promotional free kick.”
It was only recently that I was reminded of Rocky’s brief speech. This memory jab came when another golf magazine listed its rivalry with Golf Australia magazine in its story about the 40 best rivalries in golf. Unbelievably, The Other Magazine (TOM) put our contest at No.23 – one spot behind the rivalry between Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods to be the greatest golfer of all time and a full five places higher than the feud between Sergio Garcia and Padraig Harrington. Esteemed company indeed!
Having only heard about the article in TOM (I don’t want to give the opposition a free plug here) I was quite flattered they had not only given us a “promotional free kick” but they had finally, after nearly 24 years, publically recognised Golf Australia was, indeed, a rival.
When Golf Australia began in 1987 it was a bi-monthly magazine that was a distant second to TOM in a two-magazine market. TOM had every right to look down upon us from their pedestal and sneer. Not anymore, though, and the very fact TOM says we are their rival is a win for us.
However, my joy was short-lived when I actually got to read the article and the snippet pertaining to the rivalry between us and TOM. It would seem life on the DIY pedestal has also blinded our colleagues at TOM. According to them, TOM is “a better class of magazine favoured by a better class of golfer” and Golf Australia is “nearly 20 years the younger, has remained thinner and less sophisticated”. This little backhander was rounded off with, “Picture two golfers: one walking, one texting from a cart.”
Excuse me while I burp and pull some wax from my ear.
I’m sure those TOM readers, who do happen to ride in a cart and send the odd text message (yes, that means you doctor) were not offended at all by being branded something less than “a better class of golfer”. We’ll be more than happy to except those former readers of TOM – and any other class of golfer, if there is such a thing – as a Golf Australia reader at some stage in the near future.
This kind of elitist rubbish permeates TOM regularly. Elsewhere in the same issue taking jabs at Golf Australia, TOM’s senior writer argues shorts have no place on a golf course and golf is the ”last bastion of good taste and manners. We don’t want the ‘bogan’ element to infiltrate golf.”
Herein lies the secret to the success of Golf Australia magazine.
We don’t care who you are. You can ride in a cart, on a motor scooter or walk. You can wear shorts on the course in the middle of an Aussie summer. You can be a bogan, a westie, a waxhead or a Supreme Court judge, we don’t care who you are because we are all the same in that we have a passion for the great game of golf. Loving this game should have no boundaries … no prejudices.
I say all this because TOM can take all the public and private potshots at Golf Australia it wants, but I certainly won’t cop them suggesting Golf Australia readers lack the class of their readership. Denigrating our loyal and valued readers in this manner has only strengthened our resolve to maintain our position as Australia’s favourite golf magazine.
Lastly, it is ironic TOM would also accuse Golf Australia of being “thinner” when the corresponding issue of our magazine had ten more pages than TOM.
And “less sophisticated?” Tell that to the judges of the 2010 Australian Golf Media Awards, in which Golf Australia won three of the four awards available. Writers Rod Morri (Best Amateur Golf Feature), Lloyd Cole (Best Feature) and photographer Kerry Edwards (Best Photojournalism) all received awards.
Golf Australia has now won nearly a dozen writing and photography awards since 2005.
In 2011, US and Australian Open champion Geoff Ogilvy will offer his opinion in a monthly column, while our team of award-winning writers and photographers will deliver the best golf coverage money can buy.
Less sophisticated … I think not.