A consumer’s guide to the best and worst of sports media and merchandise. Ground rules: If it can be read, played, heard, observed, worn, viewed, dialed or downloaded, it’s in play here.

What: Travel & Leisure Golf magazine.

Price: $3.95

Editor James R. Gaines says in his opening letter that Travel & Leisure Golf has “one essential mission: to bring useful information and delight to people who love the game.”

It was either an honest omission or a poor bit of editing, but Gaines meant to define his audience as “people with at least six-figure salaries who love the game.”

This is a sleek, glossy magazine full of advertisements for expensive resorts, expensive clothes, expensive courses and expensive cruises.

This is no muni golf publication. Don’t look for any tips from Ray Floyd on improving your short game, or from Ben Crenshaw on how to avoid those painful three-putts.

However, there is an article on single-malt Scotch and another on the Corvette (“America’s most erotic car.”)

It’s the Vanity Fair of golf.

Actually, there is some stuff worth reading in the inaugural issue: a story on old-fashioned Oakhurst Links in West Virginia, a day at Ojai Valley with Dennis Hopper, and Roy Blount Jr.’s other-than-the-Masters look at Augusta, Ga.

Overall, however, it might prove a little too rich for the average golfer’s taste.