• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, January 24, 2006

Time, Inc. has acquired Golf.com, a platform for golf apparel and vacation advertisers and arguably the most intuitive URL in the content area, the company announced today. The acquisition, which closed Friday, rounds out Time's stable of golf publications and Web sites, including the Golf Magazine, GolfOnline, Sports Illustrated's Golf Plus, and SI.com.

Golf Magazine publisher Chris Wightman will run Golf.com, while Michael Lazerow--founder of Golf.com's parent company, SirenServ--will become general manager of Golf.com and GolfOnline.

Time hopes to reach golf aficionados in several different ways, Wightman said. "At the hub is Golf Magazine, which provides the base of the content, and the various portals are like spokes of a wheel." he said. "You might look in the magazine and see an article on putting, and it will point you to Golf Online where you can see video of an instructor demonstrating that skill."

Time's aggregation of Web sites and print publications allow it to offer advertisers the advantages of coordinated campaigns as well as single point-of-contact ad buying.

Of course, the URL also has value by itself, as an intuitive starting point for Web surfers: "Golf.com, the URL, is tremendous in driving traffic. Then you have Golf Online, which has an established name in the business, and now we can use these sites to [drive visits] to each other."