• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, July 8, 2008

After a slow start, the corporate ax is racking up more magazine casualties in 2008. The most recent title to get chopped is Conde Nast's Golf for Women. The decision to close Golf for Women came just a few hours after editor Susan Reed jumped to Hearst's O, the Oprah Magazine. It also comes amid a general shakeup of the magazine industry, which recently saw the departure of execs from Hearst, Hachette Filipacchi, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Conde Nast, and Rodale.

Conde Nast acquired Golf for Women along with Golf Digest from Meredith Corp. in 2001, but the women's title has struggled to build audience and ad pages. In the second half of 2007, newsstand sales fell 12% compared to the same period in 2006, to 11,183 per bi-monthly sales period, according to the most recent FAS-FAX report from the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Then ad pages plummeted an alarming 34.9% during the first quarter of the year, according to the Publisher's Information Bureau; although pages rebounded somewhat during the second quarter, they were still down in the high single digits. These declines in the first half of 2008 came on the heels of a 5.9% drop in 2007, versus 2006.

On the other hand, Golf Digest and other golf titles with mostly male readership appear to be weathering the recent economic downturn and Internet competition, although the numbers are far from rosy. For the year to date, Golf Digest's ad pages have slipped 2.3%, to 892, and Golf Magazine is flat at 725 pages. Meanwhile, Golfweek and Golf World are holding their own, with the former down 3.2% to 596 through July, and the latter up 4.4% to 769.