Louis Oosthuizen reacts to barely missing an eagle putt at the 16th hole on Sunday at the PGA Championship. Gregory Shamus
By Stephen Hennessey
The spotlight on the folks who run PGA Tour players’ social-media accounts is brighter than ever. With the tour’s recently announced $40 million bonus pool—dubbed the Players Impact Program—rewarding players for drawing attention to the PGA Tour, social-media clout has never been more important.
Of course, as golf fans might imagine, players often have managers share their posts on Instagram or Twitter for them. And the same agency will handle a handful of other players’ accounts. That can lead to some confusion, like we saw on Sunday after the 2021 PGA Championship.
Following yet another runner-up major finish for Louis Oosthuizen, the South African shared his thoughts on Twitter. Only problem? It featured a photo of fellow Presidents Cup player Joaquin Niemann, not him.
This follows a few weeks ago when Sam Burns won the Valspar Championship, yet Bryson DeChambeau’s account was the one that shared Burns’ celebratory tweet. Of course, the social-media manager realized within seconds they had posted it to the wrong player’s account, but the internet remains undefeated in sleuthing.
We all make mistakes—heck, we make typos too!—so it’s all in good fun to have a laugh at these mistakes. Hopefully, the social-media managers can, too.
(Kudos to Ryan Baroff (@RBaroff427) on Twitter for noticing Oosthuizen’s tweet; and our Rick Gehman (@RickRunGood) for the Burns tweet.)
