(31 May 2011 – Gold Coast, Australia)
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Australian Ladies Professional Golf (ALPG) last week announced the appointment of highly regarded and iconic Australian golf industry figure, Frank Williams, to spearhead the promotion and commercialisation of Women&aposs professional golf in Australia.
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rnWilliams, who became a household name in Australian golfing circles during the 1970&aposs, 80&aposs and 90&aposs through his role as tournament promoter, entrepreneur and business manager to Greg Norman, took up his role last week.
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Williams&apos title as Director, Corporate Development and Sales is aimed at generating greater opportunity for women&aposs professional golf while at the same time further promoting and enhancing the existing awareness and profile the female game enjoys in this country.
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In 1978, Williams and his then business partner David Inglis, founded the mens Australian Masters tournament, an event which has since established itself as one of the most successful in Australian professional golf of either gender. Later, Williams joined IMG, to whom he had previously sold the Masters, before being appointed by Norman as his manager after IMG and Norman parted ways. Williams represented Great White Shark Enterprises for a period of eight years during a period when Norman became world number one and reached the pinnacle of his stunning golfing career.
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Following an almost two decade absence from the golfing industry, Williams announced last week that he has accepted the position after recent and first time exposure to women&aposs professional golf. "On many occasions I have been asked to come out of retirement to help various organisations and golf bodies but to date I have never found a compelling reason to do so. That was, however, until I was fortunate enough to meet a young lady by the name of Helen Oh who I played with during an ALPG Pro-Am at Moss Vale."
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"Helen was such a delight and was so helpful to her amateur partners – it was unlike anything I had experienced in the many pro-ams I had played previously. As a result of that most enjoyable day I agreed to stage an ALPG Tour event at Mount Broughton where again I played with female professionals and became even further convinced that they really did have something special to market. I am taking this on as I genuinely believe in the product and that I can be of assistance to the ALPG.
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ALPG Chief Executive Officer, Warren Sevil, said he was thrilled with Williams&apos decision to join the ALPG and looks forward to his organisation pursuing new opportunities as a result of Williams&apos expertise. "There is no doubting that the profile of womens golf has lifted over the past ten or fifteen years due to the increased media exposure surrounding the success of players such as Karrie Webb, Rachel Hetherington and Katherine Hull, and coverage of major events including the Women&aposs Australian Open and ANZ RACV Ladies Masters.
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"We felt the timing was right to make a positive and progressive step to boost that momentum and began to investigate how best we could achieve that goal. We owe it to our members and to our existing stakeholders to really drive our product and generate increased support for it, and I approached Frank with this in mind. He is a creative, positive and convincing man who we know has the skill and most importantly a strong belief in our product, enabling him to take it to the boardrooms of Corporate Australia.
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"Until recently Frank knew little about ALPG and we believe there are perhaps many companies who are also unaware of what womens golf can offer them. With Franks involvement I feel sure we can go a long way to changing that."
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