Remember that time when Golf Digest featured bra-and-yoga-pants-wearing Paulina Gretzky on the cover of the magazine, on the rough grounds that she was physically fit and engaged to a PGA Tour golfer?
Totally out of bounds, the glossy’s editor now admits. That’s why this year’s fitness issue cover model is 20-year-old Lexi Thompson wearing nothing up top but a towel, because she’s a professional golfer! With tee-to-green talent and side boob!
Paulina Gretzky on the May 2014 coverWalter Iooss Jr. for Golf Digest“We’ve come a long way from a year ago when the LPGA condemned our choice of Paulina Gretzky (and Holly Sonders in 2013) as the cover images for Golf Digest’s annual fitness issue. Mea culpa, ladies,” magazine chairman Jerry Tarde said, according to USA Today. “You can have stunning beauty and the highest level of golf performance at the same time, as demonstrated this year by Lexi, Stacy Lewis, Cheyenne Woods and Michelle Wie: Have you ever seen anyone more fit in evening wear?”
The 6-foot Thompson, a Florida native who as a 12-year-old in 2007 became the youngest player to qualify for the US Women’s Open, was excited about the cover shot, posting the photo on Instragram with a caption that read in part: “So pumped to represent fitness and power #LPGA #GirlPower.”
Much of the punditry was more dubious about Golf Digest’s titillating attempt to land in the newsstand fairway. Here’s a sample of the Twitter backlash:
noooooo, see…this is about FITNESS pic.twitter.com/qHINSTtTaz
— bomani (@bomani_jones) April 2, 2015
