Since its launch in 1996, Golf Today has forged a reputation as one of the game’s most trusted and respected online websites, offering a broad and eclectic mix of information content for golfers around the world. Originally conceived by Clive Carpenter – son of the legendary BBC sports presenter Harry – Golf Today carved out a niche not only for its detailed coverage of the leading professional tours but for the encyclopaedic-like detail of its golf course listings, offering a mine of ‘local’ knowledge.
Through his association with the then leading quality print magazine Golf International, Clive Carpenter had the foresight to add quality editorial content into the mix, and Golf Today channelled regular instruction pieces from many of the world’s leading players and teachers, along with features and profiles geared around the major championships. The ‘magazine’ element, so valuable to the visitor experience, was further reinforced with travel writing and lifestyle content – “essential reading from the best in the game”. And now, following the re-launch of Golf Today by specialists in golf website commercialisation Mediadrive, the passion and the heritage behind the longest independently operate website in golf is being reignited with a contemporary new design and a commitment to editorial excellence.
“Launching the redesign in the week of the Open Championship is the realisation of a dream for myself and the team,” said Simon Bale, Mediadrive’s Managing Director. “We are hugely indebted to Clive Carpenter for what he achieved with Golf Today and it is our intention to build on that platform and enrich the site with quality content and imagery that draws in golfers looking to immerse themselves in a five-star environment. We aim to strengthen the core values of Golf Today while at the same time extending the portfolio of editorial to include luxury fashion, property, motoring and lifestyle – a coffee-table-type read through fresh online delivery.”
With extensive experience and expertise in digital golf content, Mediadrive is well placed to take advantage of Golf Today’s loyal (and substantial) audience and to build on it with innovative creative and targeted campaigns, offering new and existing advertisers a multi-faceted opportunity to promote branded content within a genuinely editorial-led platform. And, in a neat squaring of the circle, the co-founder and former editor of Golf International, Richard Simmons, has joined Golf Today as Editorial Consultant.
“Anyone in the business of creating quality content wants to put that material in front of the biggest audience possible and the ambition Simon Bale and his team have to create something very special with Golf Today inspired me to join them,” said Simmons, who along with his brother Peter launched Atlantic Golf & LifeStyle magazine in the south west last summer. “I have always valued the relationship that I have built up with many of the game’s finest players, writers and broadcasters in the 30 years that I have been lucky enough to be involved in this wonderful business and I look forward to developing the editorial themes to create a clubhouse-type feel that golfers will enjoy and want to come back to.”
With recollections of Carnoustie from the ‘Voice of Golf’ himself, Peter Alliss, a personal Top 10 Creates Open Moments from Sir Nick Faldo and a tour of the fearsome links course by Sky Sport’s presenter and analyst Nick Dougherty – and much, much more – the site is certainly packed with terrific reading. Golf Today, here, now!
Golf Today http://golftoday.co.uk/
Mediadrive https://www.mediadrive.co.uk/