Golf ball ads

So it's Springtime, and all the golf ball manufacturers are tempting us to get back out on the course and try their new wares out, and to do so, they come up with THESE ingenious marketing campaigns:

1) Slazenger's new ad for the RAW golf ball featuring Steve Whatshisname from "The Sopranos" and a black panther named "Scratch" in a meat locker. (Apparently these ads have been out since January 4, but I only saw it for the first time last week...)
2) Top-Flite's new D2 line of golf balls, where they constantly tell you to "man up" and use the new dimple-in-dimple technology so you don't have to lay up any longer...

My response? What are these marketing people THINKING???

1) First of all - with the Slazenger ad - if this guy is so good, why is he back buying more golf balls "already"? Did he knock them out of round, or are they lost in the woods?
Neither is a very attractive option, and neither is having bloody balls at the end of the round, er commercial... I WILL give them credit for naming the Slazenger panther "Scratch"(which is clever), but the blood spattered ball at the end of the commercial just doesn't do it for me...sorry....is that supposed to APPEAL to men? I can't imagine it appealing to women....

2) In a similar testosterone-soaked light, does Top-Flite think that ordering me to "man up" will threaten my supposedly fragile male ego? Will using their golf balls give me newfound confidence that I have been missing up to this point? (Are we selling golf equipment, or E.D. treatments? But I digress...)

It's kinda funny - if you enlarge the image - they are OBVIOUSLY taking the macho-man marketing approach with phrases like "ATTACK THE FAIRWAYS", "SEIZE THE GREENS", "NO EXCUSES", "DISTANCE - FIRE AWAY" all over the box...(curious, no mention of "PILLAGE THE VILLAGE" or "MEN WILL FEAR YOU AND WOMEN WILL WANT YOU") and each box CONVENIENTLY comes with 15 balls in it, so you have a whole EXTRA sleeve of balls to shank out of bounds in your pursuit of that elusive 300 yard bomb off the tee!!! Check out the knuckle-dragging details at www.theballstogoforit.com - no girls allowed, though...{eyes rolling}, (oh, and if you're at work, turn DOWN your sound so your colleagues won't overhear the junior-high locker-room commentary, courtesy of Kenny Mayne....Kenny, Kenny, Kenny....there's even a "Wussipedia" section...)

Are they KIDDING?

While I've been writing this, I switched over to the Infomercial, er GOLF CHANNEL, and have been giggling at the two-bar putter commercial...I only have ONE question after seeing THIS marketing gem - Was the "Iron Archie" putting machine set up exactly the same way for the competition and the two-bar putter? Or, was the competition set up so that the point of impact was slightly back in the impact zone, thereby causing the ball to bounce and skid??? Nah, they wouldn't do that to us, would they??? More infomercials, er, programming like THIS and they're gonna have to change the channel's name to THE COMEDY CHANNEL...oh, yeah, that one's already taken...