By Art McCafferty
Publisher

Last year, I visited the World Golf Village and the Golf Hall of Fame in St. Augustine, Florida. It is a marvelous place and the Hall of Fame there is very special. In looking at the displays I was startled to see a cover for The Michigan Golfer. The date on the magazine was June, 1950. So much for thinking Michigan Golfer magazine was an original idea.

However, the latest manifestation of the Michigan Golfer has had a number of original ideas. Our first major step was to go to a glossy magazine format in 1987. We had Treetops on our first cover and it really propelled us out of the pack of Michigan golf publications.

Our second idea was to become the first golf publication in the world on the Internet. We beat Golf Digest by three months when we debuted our site at the Novi Golf Show in 1995. Interestingly, our online readership is now challenging the readership of our printed issue. Last year, we had over 208,000 people visit our site for an average time of 9 minutes, 21 seconds. Our busiest month was July, when almost 1,000 people per day logged on to read the Michigan Golfer online at michigangolfer.com.

In 1998 we started the Michigan Woman Golfer. Each year we have increased the amount of content and ad pages. Our companion website, womensgolfnetwork.com, has a nice following as well. In July we debuted an Internet television show with Wensdy White. We will do about five shows this year.

One of shows will be about Boyne Country Sports and will feature fashion. Another show will be the Hidden River Golf and Casting Club and will feature its Breast Cancer Tournament.

On March 9, 2001, six years to the day that we launched our online issue, the Michigan Golfer TV Show: michigangolfer.tv, appeared on computer screens everywhere. Again, it was the worldís first regularly scheduled Internet golf television program. Since our initial program in March, we have put up 52 different programs that have been viewed by (as of July 14) over 64 ,000 people. This year, we also got involved with covering the Bay Mills Open on the Canadian Tour. Our baymillsopen.com website has attracted almost 9,000 people. That site features still and video imagery.

Last year, also saw the start of Michigan Golf News, a weekly newsletter we created in partnership with the State of Michigan. The newsletter goes out to over 3,200 people each week and is also carried by the Golf Association of Michigan on its website: www.gam.org. Starting from a press run of 8,000 Michigan Golfer magazines 20 years ago, this year, we will witness over 650,000 golfers reading or viewing one of our products.

However, all those folks would not be reading and viewing our products if it were not for the quality of our golf content. Our 20th anniversary goal is to continue to deliver our readers and viewers terrific stories, good photography and videography. To that end, we want to thank our great writers in the past and those that will entertain and inform you in the future. MG