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The question of whether a professional golfer “owes” something to the media puts a writer like me in a tough spot. If I say yes, they do owe us something, I sound entitled. But if I agree that they don’t, I’m arguing for my own obsolescence, because if there’s no need for any relationship, what’s the point of me?
Collin Morikawa brought the question to the forefront at the Players Championship when he declared in his pre-tournament press conference that he didn’t owe the media anything, and felt no regret for leaving Bay Hill the Sunday before without speaking to the press (like many media-avoiders of late, he finished second). Brandel Chamblee and Paul McGinley took issue with those remarks on Golf Channel, which led Morikawa to double down, making a short statement Friday that included this doozy of a sentence: “It might have been a little bit harsh [to say] that I don’t owe anyone, but I don’t owe anyone.”
From a player’s side, it’s a terrific way to frame the question if your goal is to tie the media in knots. Not only does it sound righteous to reject the idea that you’re obliged to give away part of your soul to the media, but it paints them as a pack of leaches looking for blood. Add in the fact that hating journalists has become a national sport, and it’s a hell of a sympathy play—in 2025, you can’t lose by standing against the press.
At its heart, though, this question is meaningless and should be ignored as a distraction. It’s paradoxically both harmful and silly, and it doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously.
Why? Because it paints the two sides as enemies, and none of us should accept that definition, much less promote it. What we need is the creation of a mutually beneficial relationship between players and those writers/producers/podcasters they trust to act in good faith, because that produces the best stories that reveal the humanity of these great athletes … which, by the way, they could really use at a time when many fans consider them boring or greedy.
I work for Golf Digest, a prominent golf media outlet, but if I wanted to get 30 minutes alone with Morikawa or Scottie Scheffler or Rory McIlroy at some point in the next three months, I’d have a hard time. I could either approach them personally at the course or email their agents, and I can tell you with near certainty how that would go—in person, they’d tell me to talk to their agents. Then their agents would likely say no, but in the off chance they said yes, it would be after a long series of emails sussing out my intentions, possibly asking for the questions in advance and wondering whether it could just be a phone call. I’ve been there, and the process is unpleasant enough that it has a chilling effect … at a certain point, it’s easier just to stop asking and find other ways to cover them. Needless to say, those other ways don’t involve an actual human conversation.
Too often, players and agents will attempt to compel positive coverage from their favoured journalists, and those journalists, fearing lack of access, fall in line. … But by exerting strict control, agents stifle their own player’s narrative potential.
Reading this, you might revert to that familiar phrase and say, “too bad, they don’t owe you anything.” You’d be technically correct; there’s nothing that compels them to speak to me for two minutes in a group setting much less for 30 minutes alone. But what everyone involved desperately needs to consider is the knock-on effects of withholding access. Under the guise of protecting a player, it creates a class of journalists who have no accountability to the players they cover, because they never see or talk to them in person, and have no relationships to cultivate. They operate on a “write from a distance” paradigm, putting players under a microscope anytime they appear on TV and making them look bad (or good) for the most superficial reasons. Watch Lucas Glover make this little kid’s day! Watch J.T. Poston toss his club in the lake! It’s a bad system that persists because of traffic incentives, but by nuking access, agents and players guarantee that it becomes even more prevalent.
That leads inexorably to a downward spiral on both sides. A player sees a negative post about himself, blames the media and grants even less access. He appears remote or chippy during post-round pressers, often to writers who had nothing to do with the negative post. This creates resentment among the press and promotes more clickbait content by default, and that, in turn, creates more antipathy in the players. On and on and on we go.
The Players Championship seemed to represent a critical low in this relationship. Beyond the Morikawa conflict, Scottie Scheffler appeared annoyed and short and even defensive with the press all week. Bizarrely, he refused even to answer a simple question about course conditions, acting as though the reporter was trying to pull one over on him, and when a colleague referred to “getting back to where you were” at the start of a question, the meaning of which is both obvious and innocuous, he responded tersely: “I’m still right here, so, don’t need to get back anywhere. I’m right here.” Rory McIlroy, the eventual champion on Monday, seemed similarly vexed when asked about taking a heckler’s phone during a practice round, which only came to light when another fan’s video posted on social media went viral. I asked him about it Thursday, and we had this exchange:
Q: The whole thing was made stranger by the fact that it wasn’t a civilian, that it was a player. Did you know that, and did it surprise you when you learned that?
RORY McILROY: I’m really happy that I shot 67 today.
My feelings weren’t hurt, and he has every right not to talk about it, but the response was slightly unfriendly in its brusqueness. Imagine if, instead, he’d said something like, “I appreciate that you have to ask the question, but I’d prefer not to discuss it.” Same information, but with more respect. Increasingly, players behave as if the media aren’t worthy of their respect, and while they’d have plenty of agreement from broader society, acting on that belief makes life worse for both sides.
No golfer in modern times was asked to talk to the media more than Tiger Woods, who often talked after both good rounds and bad.
On that note, I’d bet the people who read this piece will have overwhelmingly negative views of the media—I’m confident the Facebook comments will prove the point. Jason Sobel had me on his PGA Tour radio show Saturday, and in discussing this topic he brought up an online piece with the title, “Everything you need to know about Bennett Scheffler,” who is Scottie Scheffler’s 10-month-old son. I think most people can agree that content of that type is weird and offputting. But the implicit leap—that someone like Scheffler might come across a story like this and write off the entire media as intrusive jerks—gives players an out they don’t deserve. We’re all adults, and we have the ability to discern good and bad elements within a broader ecosystem. I do not hold Scottie Scheffler responsible for the actions of Angel Cabrera, to use an extreme example. Nor do I think the actions of Angel Cabrera say anything about the character of all professional golfers. They are different people, and I am different from someone writing clickbait about a baby. It’s not a hard concept.
Another easy concept to master is the multiple roles a media member has to play. I could write an uplifting personal story about a player one day, but have to cover him getting arrested the next day. It’s part of the job, it’s not personal, and to the degree that a player doesn’t like or understand it, they should be encouraged to remember the role the media plays in promoting a sport and thus contributing to the amount of money they make. On the flip side, journalists should understand when players won’t discuss a specific issue or can’t give them immediate time. (This is a comparatively minor problem; journalists already operate with the understanding they have less power than players in an average interaction.)
Nor is manipulation a smart tactic. Too often, players and agents will attempt to compel positive coverage from their favoured journalists, and those journalists, fearing lack of access, fall in line. That might seem like a superficial win for the player and agent, but the content that emerges from a relationship of that type will always lack the bite of truth that distinguishes the best stories that have the best net effect for the players. By exerting strict control, agents stifle their own player’s narrative potential.
I’m fighting against the tide here, but I don’t believe the relationship between media and players has to fall into the ugly silos of “antagonistic” or “neutered.” Things weren’t always so dire. John Feinstein, who passed away Thursday, created incredible material when he was given access, and his writing often proved hugely beneficial to his subjects. He had his enemies, but when he had a disagreement with an athlete or coach, they would talk it out, and often reach a greater understanding. In the rare case when a subject came off less than glowing, like Bobby Knight in A Season on the Brink, the damage was less than you’d think—as Pat Forde wrote at SI, “Indiana fans still idolised him, and he continued to walk a fine line between motivator and bully for another 14 years at the school before crossing that line and getting fired.”
It’s not just speaking to the press, but the approach when not speaking, that matters.
What Feinstein managed was to show the humanity in his subjects, but in the age of restricted access, it’s getting harder and harder to do that. You can’t write what you can’t see, and important conversations simply aren’t happening. And sure, I’m biased, but even before I became a journalist, I believed that a story from an independent outlet carries more substance and weight than anything a player could put out himself, on social media or otherwise. That’s what we’re losing, and when I say “we,” I mean the athletes, the writers and the fans.
Which is why the operative question when it comes to this relationship should be, “How is it possible to work together for the best results?” rather than the reductive “What do the players owe the media?” We aren’t natural enemies, no matter how many people want to push that narrative, nor we do have to blindly lump each other in with our worst elements. A little bit of individual good faith would go a long way—my email is always open—but as with so many other aspects of society, we’re consumed by escalating mistrust. When we contemplate each other from a bitter distance, it should be no surprise that the situation keeps getting worse.
Main Image: Supplied
