Golf Babes

(Photo: instagram/Lexi) Congrats are in order for Lexi Thompson, who picked up another sponsor today: the Zurich Insurance Group, longtime title sponsor of the PGA Tour's Zurich Classic in New Orleans. Not surprisingly, since it sponsors a PGA event, Zurich's "golf ambassadors" have previously all be men. Lexi is the first female Zurich Golf Ambassador. From the news release:The golf ambassador program has helped Zurich expand its reach in golf far beyond the Zurich Classic to engage with customers, brokers, employees, executives and charities on a global level throughout the year. Thompson will display the Zurich logo on her left sleeve and represent the company in the growth of its women’s golf initiatives throughout the relationship. She will join Zurich and their guests in attendance at the 2015 Zurich Classic. Other Zurich Golf Ambassadors include Ben Crane, Billy Horschel, Justin Rose, Keegan Bradley, and Rickie Fowler.

The 2015 LPGA Tour season is teeing off this week at the Coates Golf Championship in Florida, and one of the rookies in the field is Cheyenne Woods. What has Cheyenne been up to recently? Let's go Instagramming and find out. First up is a photo of Cheyenne with her friend and fellow LPGA rookie Sadena Parks. Incredibly (then again, maybe not given golf's history), this is the first year since 1971 that at least two African-Americans will be LPGA Tour members. This is the look anyone who tries to stand between Cheyenne Woods and one of her goals is going to get: Cheyenne lives in Arizona, and that means she sometimes heads to a gun range (it's state law ... kidding! ... or am I?): BangBang.A video posted by Cheyenne Woods (@cheyenne_woods) on Jan 23, 2015 at 10:06pm PST For some unknowable reason, Woods wasn't included in Golf.com's Most Beautiful Women in Golf 2015 feature. Seems like a ridiculous oversight to me. But they got it right in 2014! #tbt A day of gl…

A couple weeks ago Golf.com released its 2015 version of The Most Beautiful Women in Golf. And a couple of those women featured were club professionals. Which got us to thinking: How about Most Beautiful Women in Golf Instruction? It wasn't too long ago that a woman getting certified as and working as a golf instructor was a rarity. No longer. While men still far outnumber women among golf teachers, the industry now includes many women. These days, some of the best instructors in golf are women, and some of the best young instructors, too. So below we present some (10, to be exact) of the most beautiful women currently working as teaching professionals. Our apologies to all the women we missed, and our thanks to all the women working as golf instructors today, helping grow the game and helping grow women's golf. (Note that the teaching professionals listed here appear in alphabetical order.) Tasha Browner
PGA Director of Instruction at El Caballero Country Club in Tarzana,…

We told you a few weeks ago about Bailey Mosier and how she became a new Morning Drive host on Golf Channel. But Golf Channel isn't finished introducing new Morning Drive hosts. And, beginning in late February, Cara Robinson joins the cast. Robinson is English, and the Golf Channel announcement of her impending arrival on these shores states:Robinson brings extensive experience in television and golf. She most recently served as host of Golfing World, a weekly program on Sky Sports – available to 20 million viewers in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Germany and Austria – traveling to golf’s biggest events to conduct player interviews and features about all aspects of the game. She also participated in @TheOpenLIVE, a live digital telecast of the Open Championship, and has contributed as a studio host and reporter for productions surrounding Wimbledon, World’s Strongest Man, rugby and the London 2012 Olympics, where she hosted Sky Sports’ tennis coverage.I'm delighted …

A few years back we were driving around the Deep South and, somehow, I managed to convince or cajole my wife into eating three consecutive meals at Waffle Houses. It's one of my proudest achievements. (Do I need loftier goals?) You know who else loves Waffle House? Brooke Pancake. Sounds like a joke, but it isn't. And today both Waffle House and Brooke Pancake announced that the restaurant chain has become a sponsor of the golfer. It's a match made in breakfast-served-all-day heaven. When she posted the photo above to Instagram, Brooke wrote this along with it: "What an exciting, fun day! And to think this all began when I announced on national television that I actually like waffles more than pancakes ... on National Pancake day #breakfast #AllStarspecial" Brooke also shared a video on Instagram from her Waffle House photo shoot today: A video posted by Brooke Pancake (@brookepancake) on Jan 20, 2015 at 9:55am PST And, of course, Waffle House got in on the…

(Photo by Anil Hanasoge/Courtesy of Rebecca Lee-Bentham) Rebecca Lee-Bentham is only 22 years old, but she's already been a member of the LPGA Tour for three years. And 2015 will make it four - although she'll have to start the season with conditional status. But Rebecca knows what to do about that. She told Golf Babes that her plans for the 2015 LPGA season start with "get(ing) into as many LPGA events as I can with my conditional status," and playing well enough that she can "hopefully reshuffle my way to full status by summer time." If you're not familiar with the "reshuffle" process on the LPGA (other tours do the same thing), the thumbnail version is this: At the beginning of the year all tour members are ranked on a priority list that determines who gets into each tournament. But several times during a season, that priority list is "reshuffled" to take into account results to date. A golfer who is lower down the list can jum…

Golf.com's Most Beautiful Women in Golf 2015 feature recently debuted, and one of the tour professionals included is Michelle Piyapattra. Don't know her? Don't worry, you soon will. Michelle found out she was under consideration for the feature in that most modern and social way: she was contacted by a Golf.com representative on Facebook. One of Piyapattra's friends was included in the 2014 feature, so Michelle "was ecstatic to get the opportunity," she told us. "I thought it would be good exposure and also a good experience since I have never done a photo shoot before," she said. Her very first photo shoot? You can bet it won't be her last. You can see Michelle's photo shoot on Golf.com, and some of the photos are included in the following behind-the-scenes video about the shoot (the photos at the top and bottom of this post are screenshots from the video):

What are the highlights of Piyapattra's golf career to date? Although she&…

View image | gettyimages.com The Australian Ladies Professional Golf (ALPG) Tour just completed its first tournament of 2015, and the winner is Nikki Garrett. Garrett closed with a 5-under 68 to win the BWAC Regional and Community Services ALPG Pro-am. Garrett won by three shots over runner-up Rebecca Codd. It caps off quite a trifecta for Garrett: She recently got engaged, had a birthday one day before the tournament's final round, and then won the tournament! This is a significant step for Garrett, who hadn't won anywhere since 2007. That year, she claimed wins in back-to-back weeks on the Ladies European Tour, and appeared poised to become a star in the golf world. Alas, problems with her driver were soon holding her back. But Garrett told reporters at the tournament today that her driving is much improved. The ALPG website story includes this: Nikki’s struggles off the tee with her driver have been well documented in recent years and she credited her move to Brisbane ear…

We first met Bailey Mosier back in January of 2011, just after she was hired by the Golf Channel as a content producer for golfchannel.com. And Bailey's still at GC - but in a much more visible role now. On Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2015, Mosier begins her new role as a host on one of the network's flagship shows, Morning Drive. How did she go from editing website copy and writing headlines when she started four years ago to being one of the prominent faces of the network? By working - hard - and taking advantage of opportunities. Talent wins out. Bailey (Twitter: BirdieBaileyGC) spent a couple years in her content role for golfchannel.com. Her first on-camera assignments were web videos reported from the 2012 PGA Show, but her first studio hosting for web segments didn't happen until May 2013. At that point Mosier would fill in on web segments for Win McMurry when Win was unavailable. Beginning in 2014, Bailey took over the web-hosting duties that had been performed by McMur…

(Photo by Jerome Go) Ashlan Ramsey has a very bright future in professional golf, but the past couple months have been a bit trying. The 19-year-old turned pro in June, coming off a more than 1-year-long stretch during which she was the top-ranked amateur female golfer in the world according to Golfweek's ratings. Unfortunately, during a November tune-up tournament, prepping for LPGA Q-School, Ramsey "noticed back pain and pain going down my leg that wouldn't go away," she told us. That prevented her from playing her best at Q-School, but not from looking forward to the year that's coming. Ashlan is currently doing physical therapy to deal with the pain, for which doctors have so far been unable to pinpoint a cause. "It's been very frustrating trying to get rid of the pain and be able to do my normal activities again," she said. Still, Ashlan is optimistic about 2015, which will be her first full season as a pro. In the early part of the year…

We're quite certain that Melanie Collins won herself a legion of fans when she cohosted Big Break Florida early in 2014. So we're quite certain that there'll be many happy Golf Channel viewers hearing the news that Collins is returning as cohost of the next Big Break, which begins airing in February 2015. Collins cohosts Big Break The Palm Beaches FL with Tom Abbott. The series is the 23rd season of The Big Break. (Alas, Melanie will be the only woman on the new Big Break - it's an all-male cast of golfers.) Melanie's career in sports broadcasting continues to trend up, up, up. As part of the Yahoo Sports team in 2014, she even worked the world's biggest sporting event, the World Cup. She can be seen regularly on Yahoo Sports, and, during the college football season just past, as a sideline reporter on the CBS Sports Network. Collins has been spotted in other high-profile gigs, too, such as filling in for Michelle Beadle on ESPN's SportsNation. On her …