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Fore Please. 119th US Open Walking Championship Thread.

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Chef2, May 30, 2019.

  1. Chef2

    Chef2 Well-Known Member

  2. qtlaw

    qtlaw Well-Known Member

    FileNotFound and maumann like this.
  3. maumann

    maumann Well-Known Member

    Professional golf has so many good potential stars right now, including guys like Viktor Hovland. Unfortunately, Tiger Woods appears to be the only name the casual fan -- and mainstream media -- recognizes.

    I'm not so sure baseball has any one "face of the game" right now, no matter how great Mike Trout might be from a statistical viewpoint. Auto racing in this country has the same problem. Mario, Dale Junior and Danica were the three most well-known drivers at the Indianapolis 500, and none of them were in the race.
     
  4. Sam Mills 51

    Sam Mills 51 Well-Known Member

    I wish we would do a better job letting people know that there's a lot more out in the golf world that - and who - is good other than Eldrick.

    But at what point do we say "enough" and at what point is it up to the casual fan to realize that there's a big golf world out there?
     
    maumann likes this.
  5. Sam Mills 51

    Sam Mills 51 Well-Known Member

    Lots of good open-wheel racers. But how many of them do we know? How of many of them drive for Penske or Andretti?

    NASCAR has a name crisis issue with the rash of recent high-profile "retirements." Quotes because I'm not convinced they were tired of driving as much as it is that they weren't doing it for a fraction of what they were getting paid ... plus sponsorship appearances and all the other hassles that seem to multiply over the years.
     
    maumann likes this.
  6. Chef2

    Chef2 Well-Known Member

    The Tour and more specifically, Woodland, have been A+ with this.
    But when you compare the PGA Tour social media services against the social media services of the European Tour, it's not even a fair fight.
     
    maumann likes this.
  7. hondo

    hondo Well-Known Member

    Why fight it?
     
  8. Sam Mills 51

    Sam Mills 51 Well-Known Member

    It's not so much a matter of fighting. Just informing, and informing better when the opportunity arises.

    Offer other choices. Don't manipulate. But make clear that Doug Ferguson can write a story without placing Woods ridiculously high when he's either not there or not in contention for those of us dependent on AP.

    Asking seriously ... was placing Jack up in the stories a serious requirement for years a generation or two ago? Arnie? Hogan? Hagen? Jones?
     
    maumann likes this.
  9. playthrough

    playthrough Moderator Staff Member

    The problem is there's no "we" left. The downturn in the newspaper was particularly awful for golf and racing writers, and the ESPNs and such only care about golf as far as the majors and Eldrick, who is a guaranteed click. The golf media is now largely just, well, the golf media -- golf.com, Golf Digest, Golf Channel, etc., and their audience is the same as it was five years ago, 15 years ago, 25 years ago. The PGA Tour is doing as much of its own storytelling as it can (scooping up some of the cast-aside golf writers in the process), but at the end of the day the Tour is still all about its image and sponsors and keeping the money flowing. Hence the completely underwhelming social media product.

    There is a new wave of golf media of sorts with the No Laying Up guys and some others, but they're still a niche inside a niche sport. They're great at pointing out the absurdity of "Live Under Par!" and CBS' terrible broadcasts, but that doesn't mean anything's going to change anytime soon.
     
  10. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    Arnie was, yeah. I was old enough to read the stories, and his score was always in the like the first three paragraphs.

    My favorite golf journalism story comes from Charlie Pierce. Marquette journalism students would intern at the J-S back in the '70s and those interested in sportswriting were night agate clerks. The standing instruction from the editor was to list the golf scores until they reached Milwaukee's own Andy North, then end it to save space. So one fine June Sunday North won the US Open. The students followed their standing orders. Saved a lot of space that night.
     
  11. Sam Mills 51

    Sam Mills 51 Well-Known Member

    "How, in North, golf stax went South one night" ...
     
    Michael_ Gee likes this.
  12. Chef2

    Chef2 Well-Known Member

    Shut it down right now.
    The days of Jan Stephenson in a tub full of Titleists is over.
    It's Judge Smails, Ty Webb, and Bishop Pickering reading the same Golf Digest from 1983 as they are in 2019.
    I don't think it's the players fault.
    I don't think it's the media's fault.
    Times.....

    They are a changing.
     
    maumann likes this.
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