PGA Tour Unveils New Advertising Campaign

After a long and successful run, the PGA is abandoning its “These Guys Are Good” Advertising campaign.

In its place, they will run a series called “The Professor.” In it,

a mock professor describing fictitious clinical scenarios of various life obstacles that are also realities that both TOUR players and recreational golfers can relate to, such as man’s inner demons and the forces of nature.

In one of the ads, “Pressure Seeker,” the professor describes a person who derives satisfaction from extreme pressure situations. While most people succumb to pressure, TOUR players are the best in the world at coping with it. The professor suggests these type of individuals, even when dealing with extreme situations, can often appear “cool as a cucumber.”

In “Fan-a-mania,” the professor talks about golf’s unique form of fan obsession, where otherwise normal people turn into obsessive fans, “...following their favorite sports heroes around for days at a time.” Their behavior is characterized by “spontaneous outbursts, awestruck looks and uncontrollable clapping.”

I’m not convinced.  I actually liked the “These Guys Are Good” campaign. The best of them were pretty funny—such as the one where the player (I can’t remember which one), played the shot off his roof, down the drain and onto the hole on his practice green.

But these professor ads don’t sound at all appealing.

I hope, for the PGA’s sake, that the ads are better than they sound.