LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA | With players from 33 nations among its members, the essence of the LPGA is diversity. And this year the oldest professional sports organization for women has leveraged its 70-year platform to inspire girls with a message of inclusion, acceptance, perseverance and performance.
The “Drive On” ad campaign was launched last month with a 45-second video entitled, “This is for Every Girl,” featuring LPGA standouts Anna Nordqvist of Sweden, Brooke Henderson of Canada, So Yeon Ryu of Korea and Mo Martin and Lizette Salas from the United States. In the video, the five vow to “crush it” for all those girls who’ve been told they can’t succeed for whatever reason.
The next step in that powerful message was launched Wednesday at Wilshire Country Club, site of the Hugel-Air Primia Championship, and features Salas, whose back story is an inspiring tale of parents who fought for a better life for their children and of the daughter who made the most of her opportunities.
“My story began before I was even born,” Salas said, her voice cracking after watching the video about her. “My parents didn’t come to this country with very much and they worked so hard to give me every opportunity they could. This was not a world where a Mexican, especially a Latina, was supposed to be.”
Ramon and Martha Salas are Mexican immigrants who raised Lizette in Azusa, Calif., near Los Angeles. Ramon was a mechanic at a public golf course and when Lizette was 7 he bartered his skills in exchange for lessons and playing privileges for her. She quickly made the most of the chance she was given.
“You don’t know how much it means for two Mexican immigrants to watch their daughter play for the United States in the Solheim Cup and now to have her be part of something like this.” – Martha Salas
After playing on the local boys high school golf team because the girls didn’t have one, Lizette received a scholarship to the University of Southern California, where she became the only four-time All-American in the school’s history in any sport and was twice the Pac-10 Player of the Year.
Graduating in 2001 with a degree in sociology, Salas joined the Symetra Tour, traveling to tournaments with her father-caddie in Ramon’s truck, where they sometimes slept.
“We spent a lot of time together in that truck,” Ramon said, as he held two of Lizette’s nephews, Mason and Malcolm. “That was the path I always wanted to be on,” Lizette says. “I have lots of good memories.”
Lizette made it to the LPGA in 2012, won the 2014 Kingsmill Championship and has represented the United States in the Solheim Cup in 2013, ’15 and ’17 with two wins and a halve in her three singles matches. When she is not at LPGA events, Salas teaches a junior clinic at Azusa Greens, the public course where she learned the game.
“This is so special for us,” Martha Salas said. “You don’t know how much it means for two Mexican immigrants to watch their daughter play for the United States in the Solheim Cup and now to have her be part of something like this. We are so proud.”
The “This is for Every Girl” ad campaign has been a huge success, totaling more than 115 million impressions on Twitter. “We didn’t know quite what to expect,”said Roberta Bowman, chief marketing and communications officer for the LPGA.
“Our expectations were very high, and frankly the results exceeded our expectations,” Bowman said. “We had interest well beyond the golf community, well beyond sports, and obviously well beyond women and girls as well, which is exactly what our goal was.”
The new spot has stills and video from Lizette’s life, including her college graduation where she was asked by USC athletic director Pat Haden to tell her story. That story now exists, in part, in this new ad campaign.
“Where I came from, people don’t expect much from a person, especially a young Latina,” Lizette says in the video. “There were countless times that I was told I wasn’t going to make it or that I would get my hopes up because, according to them, Mexicans didn’t play golf. But I have just one thing to say to them: They do now.”
When the LPGA was launched in 1950, women had few opportunities in any profession, sports included. Those 13 founders literally made something out of nothing. Even decades later those founders and the pioneers who followed were told the tour wouldn’t survive. But it did. Now it thrives.
The women who followed the founders are passing their opportunity on to the next generation. They “Drive On,” for every girl, and Lizette Salas is one of the LPGA’s true inspirations. She is a woman of color, a Latina, who made it in a world where no one looked like her. Now, she wants to give others like her that same opportunity.