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Natalie Gulbis is already the biggest name in women’s golf. If she can become one of its biggest winners, there will be no stopping her…or the LPGA Tour.
 Natalie Gulbis isn’t a cupcake. She isn’t just a pretty face either. But she is arguably the most visible face of the LPGA. So when Gulbis’s chocolate cupcakes didn’t rise during the season debut of this year’s “The Celebrity Apprentice” on NBC and it appeared for a moment that she could be the first to hear Donald Trump say, “You’re fired,” LPGA fans can be excused for thinking their tour was about to miss out on some much-needed, prime-time exposure.
Not surprisingly, though, the now-seasoned reality show star never lost her cool in front of the cameras and, consequently, she escaped the first week without being the subject of too much blame for those ill-formed cakes. For the LPGA, it was a win—the blond bombshell with the pearly smile and big blue eyes would make it through the first cut—but for Gulbis, whose sunken chocolate cupcake unexpectedly went on to win the show’s taste test and assure her team’s victory, it meant she would never get the full credit for what she had ultimately accomplished. It might seem like a familiar scenario for the 26-year-old California native who now makes her home in Las Vegas. When she misses a cut, or disappears from a leaderboard, she never seems to field that much criticism. No one has ever tagged her with the “best to never win a major” title, and what few comparisons she had to the winless tennis star/model Anna Kournikova stopped getting lobed her way thanks to Gulbis’s 2007 Evian Masters victory. But she somehow never gets full credit for all the leg work she does promoting the LPGA Tour and how she almost single-handedly is carrying her competitors out of the niche market darkness and into the mainstream light, despite not cracking the top 25 in the Rolex player rankings.
It would be too easy to say that her status as LPGA cover girl is based solely on a few years’ worth of bikini calendars and magazine pin-up pictures. In fact, the last bikini calendar Gulbis made was for 2007. And it’s been nearly three years since her much-blogged about photo spread inside FHM magazine showed her hugging the turf near her Lake Las Vegas home wearing a brown two-piece. “The way my team has marketed me has definitely changed,” Gulbis admits. But it’s not that she and her team just decided one day to stop shooting her in bikinis. Instead, her success off the course appears as crafted as a well hit two-iron. Early on, the marketing maven doubled down on her feminine appeal. Now, she is using her ensuing success to promote not just herself, but her tour.
She took that FHM photoshoot and turned it into a regular golf tips column inside the men’s/boy’s lifestyle and video game magazine. Those articles have now led to a weekly column in USA Today. As a result of all her work, she is now immediately recognizable by the boys who ogle her, the girls who idolize her and the adults who have made her the most requested player each week during LPGA pro-ams.
Yet with all of her personal success, Gulbis doesn’t hide that she is “absolutely” trying to enhance the LPGA’s status and image. Often it looks like she is even acting as the tour’s marketing coordinator by using her own opportunities to promote the women’s game.
“I have seen that sponsors and fans that come to an event or follow the tour get hooked,” she adds. “We just have to get the tour out there more.” And if that means writing a column, taping a television show during her off-season, appearing in a Tiger Woods video game or constantly taking time to respond to fans online, then sign her up.
It’s good Gulbis is just 26, because her commitments can fill her daily schedule with gym workouts, yoga sessions, autograph signings, sponsor commitments, charity fundraisers, filming commercials, photo shoots and media interviews—along with the frequent updates she makes to her Twitter, Web site, blog and Facebook accounts—which, has led some to wonder whether she still has enough time in her day for golf.
But Gulbis doesn’t bother complaining about the detractors who think she spends too much time and energy away from the course. Instead, she seems content with the schedule she has chosen. “I have an incredible team,” she says. “They do all the hard work so I can practice and compete.”
Bottom line: Don’t expect Gulbis to change. She’s already working with “Apprentice” producer Mark Burnett on another reality TV show—which would be her third after her self-titled Golf Channel show and this year’s “Celebrity Apprentice.” And, it helps that she’s bolstered by the one group who doesn’t seem to think that she stretches herself too thin, her LPGA peers. After the 2007 season, her fellow competitors gave Gulbis the Mousie Powell Award, which recognizes the player who, “by her behavior and deeds best exemplifies the spirit, ideals and values of the LPGA.”
Still Gulbis says she isn’t content (and she shouldn’t be) with that lone victory at the Evian Masters, no matter how many successes she has off the course. “I strive to win tournaments, and be in the hunt every week,” she says. “That hasn’t changed.” And, according to her, the off-season training she did in Vegas with instructor Butch Harmon has Gulbis very excited for 2009.
That should leave fans of the LPGA very excited as well. Because with a troubling economy and tournament sponsorships in danger of falling through, the LPGA could use a string of big wins by its biggest star. Best case scenario: If Gulbis can translate all of her successes in boardrooms and TV studios onto the fairways and greens each week, the hardest working woman in golf will truly begin to get the recognition she deserves—no matter how her cupcakes come out. |
