Golf Videos Scoring Well on the Cassette Charts

These days, the true measure of a professional golfer isn’t how much he earns on the tour or how many tournaments he wins. It’s whether he has an instructional video.

These tapes are so popular that four of the top five tapes on the Billboard magazine recreational-sports videocassette chart are golfing how-tos. One reason: The size of the market. There are something like 18 million to 20 million golfers in this country.

“Golfers are a frustrated lot,” said the manager of a West Los Angeles golf shop. “They’re always looking for some way to improve their game. These tapes can be a big help.”

Among the most popular are Jack Nicklaus’ best-selling “Golf My Way” (Worldvision, $85), distinguished by high-tech graphics, and Arnold Palmer’s “Play Great Golf, Vol. 1” (Vestron, $39.98). But one Westwood store manager insisted that Ken Venturi’s “Better Golf Now!” (HPG, $39.95) is the best of the bunch.

However, the No. 1 cassette on the Billboard chart is Bob Mann’s “Automatic Golf” (Video Reel, $14.95). One shop manager confided: “The reason it sells so well is because it’s so cheap. Most of the others cost $40-$80.”

How-to golf tapes are so popular that even spoofing them pays off. Tim Conway’s comical “Dorf on Golf” (J2, $29.95) is No. 2 on the chart, a surprise hit with total sales so far of 120,000. By standing on his knees and surrounding them with shoes, Conway plays dwarf Dorf, who gives tips on things like how to dress for the sport--and how to cheat.

“Dorf” has been followed recently by “Golfoolery” (New Star, $19.95), featuring trick-shot golfer Mike Smith with foils Bob Hope, Sam Snead and others. And there’s also a new Conway tape, “Dorf and the Games of Mt. Olympus,” though its humor revolves around the Olympics rather the links.

Of recent serious-golf releases, the most popular is “Lee Trevino’s Priceless Tips, Vol. 1” (Paramount, $19.95). No. 5 on the chart, it’s been out for a few months. Volumes 2 and 3 of the series have just been released.

Unlike most of the other tapes, which tend to be businesslike, Trevino’s are entertaining as well as instructional.

“You gotta have fun with this stuff too,” Trevino told The Times. Famous for being a cutup as well as a big winner on the course, he added: “Golf is fun. It’s not boring. I don’t want anybody to fall asleep during my tapes.”

Originally, Trevino’s tips aired on TV. Then he marketed them himself under the title “The Best of Lee Trevino’s Golf Tips” (Lee Trevino Enterprises Inc., $79.95). “We sold a lot of them but we knew we could do better,” he explained. “That’s why we went to Paramount.”

Trevino’s tapes will undoubtedly benefit from Paramount’s marketing muscle and distribution resources. It was Paramount that advised Trevino to split the tape into three half-hour segments, emphasizing different phases of the game.

“Why should somebody pay $85 to get instruction in everything when all he wants is some tips on putting and chipping?” Trevino said. “The main thing, though, is that people are more inclined to buy a cheaper tape.”

So far, the big video companies haven’t bothered with the golfing how-to market. But now that Paramount, an industry trend-setter, has plunged into it, other majors may be tagging close behind. Fore!