The death of the newspaper golf writer

Thursday, December 4, 2008 5:45 pm (Eastern)

By Sal Johnson

What are the ramifications of all of these golf writers across America taking buy-outs or even worst getting laidoff?

Found out some sad news, Jim McCabe the golf beat writer for the Boston Globe has taken a buyout and will be working for Golf Week magazine in 2009. Now the part of McCabe working for Golfweek isn't sad, that publication will be greatly enriched with copy from McCabe but sad part is that the folks in Boston won't get golf news tailored for their market.

Photo: © Caryn Levy/PGA Tour Is this empty room the future of media centers at PGA Tour events in 2009?

Let's face reality, this isn't an isolated problem to fall on just the Boston market but a total purge on golf writing in not only this country but around the world. Just in the last couple of months we have seen the golf writers of the Los Angeles Times, Thomas Bonk, take a buy out. In Chicago, Ed Sherman of the Chicago Tribune left after the PGA Championship. Vartan Kupelian is no longer with the Detroit News, the writer of a paper in Washington is waiting to see if his contract will be renewed in '09. Just this week Bill Huffman is writing his last column for the East Valley Tribune and in neighboring Phoenix, the Arizona Republic told it's golf writer John Davis that he would be cut in half on golf, had to focus on just local golf no longer writing about the PGA and LPGA Tours and would be on the copy desk for half of his 40 hour week. Cities like Atlanta, St. Petersburg, Florida, Palm Beach, Florida, Kansas City, Houston, Texas and Hartford, Connecticut no longer have golf writers. Of course many of you may wonder why this is so important, but in the scope of things it's very important and one of the growing problems for the PGA Tour in the months ahead.

First off, a bit of a history lesson, the United States saw it's first beat golf writer in 1913 when Bernard Darwin came over with Ted Ray and Harry Vardon to cover their barnstorm across America. A year later, O.B. Keeler talked his bosses at the Atlanta Journal into the concept of him following around 14 year-old Bobby Jones at tournaments and giving the folks in Atlanta a taste of his adventures playing in the U.S. Amateur. It was such a success the paper allowed him to continue following Jones and for the next 14 years covered every event that Jones played in.

Local papers realized the importance of having a "GolfBeat" writer and for years many held that job, men like Charles Bartlett for the Chicago Tribune. They covered golf mostly in their community and the game was enriched and grew with their stories. In the 50s golf had a lot of local writers that covered players, an example of this was Dan Jenkins who wrote about Ben Hogan for the Fort Worth Press and Dallas Times Herald and travelled to the Masters and U.S. Open to follow Hogan.

Photo: © Stan Badz/PGA Tour The PGA Tour has enjoyed a full slate of press coverage at most of their events, which helps bring out more interest on PGA Tour tournaments not only locally but around the country. The big question is if this will continue in 2009.

Now the first true traveling golf writer that followed around the PGA Tour full time was Lincoln Werden and it was interesting how he became a "GolfBeat" writer. He wrote for the New York Times and in the 60s the publisher of the paper, Arthur Ochs "Punch" Sulzberger was intrigued over the TV coverage that golf was getting. Back then golf was only on a hour or two over Saturday and Sunday, Sulzberger thought that it would be great for his readers to get the full story on tournaments and thus Werde covered the tour for many years.

The advent of the modern day "GolfBeat" writer was born in 1997 when Tiger Woods won the Masters. With the win he became front page news and more editors were willing to pay the expenses of writers to go off and cover Woods and the PGA Tour. When Woods won three of the four majors in 2000 press rooms across America had writers from every corner of the country and the advantage was that not only did the writer give us his take on a tournament, but his notes usually told us about how a local golf did. Since papers like the St. Petersburg Times would send a writer, that golf story would find it's way to the front pages of the paper, getting more exposure and interest. This help stoke the interest of golf and increase the television ratings, more front page coverage meant more people interested in golf a win-win for everyone.

But the fall of the economy in the last year help put a stop to writers going to events. Of course they still come to the Masters and U.S. Open but writers like Seth Soffian of the Fort Myers News-press stop coming to events like the Players or even the Masters. When editors of papers stop letting writers cover tournaments and forced them into covering the local golf scene and not go off to tournaments like the Players Championship, it meant the loss of space for golf. A perfect example of this was last weekend at the Skins Game.

In the past the Skins had coverage from not only the local Desert Sun paper, but papers from Riverside, San Diego and the Los Angeles Times. When Thomas Bonk would cover Skins for the Times, it would get a prominent spot on the front page each day of the event and spark the interest of those in the L.A. area. In return, with the Skins on the front page of the sports section, more people would remember that they had to watch the Skins and would either tape it or watch it live. But with Bonk taking a buy-out from the Times last month and the paper not replacing it's golf writer, not only was the Skins not on the front page but the Sunday wrap was on page 12 in a 100 word synopsis. In total the Skins had just one writer reporting the news as the Desert Sun reporter Larry Bohannan not only wrote for his paper but also wrote the Associated Press story since their writer had a family emergency. You can see one of the reasons the Skins Game got a 1.0 rating, which is very poor.

Photo: © Getty Images Larry Dorman and Doug Ferguson, interviewing Jack Nicklaus will be along with USA Today's writer Steve DiMeglio (not shown) the only newspaper "Golfbeat" writers covering the PGA Tour in 2009

So is this a problem that the PGA Tour has to worry about, your damn right they do. Let's use the example of Jim McCabe. Last year he covered the four majors and the Ryder Cup. But on top of that he was also at the AT&T Pebble Beach, WGC-CA Championship, Arnold Palmer Invitaitonal, Wachovia Championship and the Players Championship. Each of the days he was there, his stories were on the front page of the Boston Globe next to the stories of the Boston Red Sox, Boston Celtics and other Boston sports stories. Having front page stories is great exposure for the PGA Tour, not only did his stories get people interested in the event and players, but folks were reminded that the PGA Tour was playing an event and a lot of people either tuned in live or watch the telecast on tape. In 2009 the Boston Globe will probably not cover those events, only covering the Masters and U.S. Open. So instead of getting front page stories for PGA Tour events, they will get about a quarter of the length in a Associated Press story and stuck in the middle of the paper, were a lot less people will see it. This will happen across America in papers in all of those cities that don't have beat writers so you can see that the waning of professional golf will increase.

What do we have left? Of course the Boston Globe will always cover a local event like the Deutsche Bank Championship. But of the others it will be in the realm of Doug Ferguson, who is the beat writer of the Associated Press. He does a wonderful job covering golf but frankly he won't give Boston news of what local heros Brad Faxon and Billy Andrade. Another possibility is that Larry Dorman, who covers golf for the New York Times and will be one of the only "local beat" writer that travels could provide some coverage since the New York Times owns the Boston Globe, but look for less coverage in all of these areas.

Of course we can blame the local editors for the cutbacks, but they aren't the ones to point the fingers at. When upper management tells them to cut the budget 10, 20 or even 30% they aren't going to cut the coverage of the Boston Red Sox, of course sports like Golf, Tennis and Auto Racing are the first to suffer.

In the long run golf really needs a saviour to help things, spark some interest. We are all hoping that Tiger Woods will be back and hopefully will give us more memorable moments, but golf needs more than that and they need that to happen very soon.

So what do you think of this? Go to our Forum at GolfObserver and tell us what you think. Does the limited coverage hamper the way you get your news? Are you all getting sick of reading the same stories from writers of the Associated Press, PA and Reuters? Do we have no option of finding news other than the tour's own web site, PGA Tour. Com? Is this creating less interest in the game of golf or is it just the majors or wherever Tiger plays the only thing that interest you. What the future brings is anybodies guess but right now this small problem is growing bigger with each buy-out and laying off of golf writers.

Postscript on this story at 2pm on Dec. 5th.

Been getting emails all day on this, sorry but didn't know that Joe Logan left the Philadelphia Inquirer after 26 years at the paper, the last 12 as their golf guy, this summer his editors downsized his golf duties and Joe took a buyout.

Other bad news from across the pond, the Telegraph in London on Tuesday told Lewine Mair that her job would be redundant and let her go after writing for the paper for over 20 years. Mair is one of golf's elegant writers and her stories will be sorely missed, unless someone smart enough picks her up. More bad news as another British journalist told me the London Times was getting rid of 10% of it's staff next week, right now the Times has two golf writers so I fear what could happen there.

Click here to post your thoughts on this problem