Golf and nudity or risquà© material are not obvious bedfellows but a new website, www.rarebirdie.com, brings them together to create what the editor, Martin Vousden, thinks is a unique mix of serious reporting and fun, dedicated to the Royal & Ancient game.
It came about because Vousden, who has previously edited Today’s Golfer magazine and another golf website in Scotland, felt that most of the other media outlets related to the game he loves did not accurately reflect the sport he played.
‘I know golf has this reputation of being played by stuffy old fuddy-duddies but in my experience it’s not like that at all. The people with whom I play, both men and women, tell risquà© jokes, take the mickey out of each other all the time – often in very un-PC language – and generally regard the banter, or craic, to be as important as the golf, so I wanted to replicate that experience on a website.’
As a result, RareBirdie has two adult-access portals, called Grunge Golf and Mr Pink, alongside its more traditional news, features, equipment reviews and other generic material.
Vousden explains, ‘There’s a lot of material I have stumbled across on the Internet that’s golf related – pictures of streakers at a golf event, for example, or pictures from a world nudist golf competition. I just wanted to have it all under one portal.
‘All humour is a matter of taste and judgement but I believe we successfully tread that inevitably blurred line between funny and offensive. But I don’t want people to get the idea that the site is only about risquà© material – the great majority is straightforward reporting and analysis and I would hope that anyone interested in the game would be able to make it their first port of call, irrespective of whether or not they like, or visit, the restricted areas.’
Martin Vousden can be reached at: martin@rarebirdie.com
RareBirdie www.rarebirdie.com
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