Golfers Are Latest Athletes to Avoid Questions. Is There a Price to Pay?

The Masters Tournament, as well as partners CBS Sports and ESPN, are trying to battle back from a double-digit drop in TV ratings last year. The PGA Tour is still battling LIV Golf for the future of the golf business. And Tiger Woods, the sport’s biggest TV draw for nearly 30 years, is limping into semi-retirement with another injury.

Yet just when things are looking up for golf, some stars on the PGA Tour are reminding members of the media that they won’t do anything they don’t want to do, including talking.

It started last month when Collin Morikawa refused to speak to the press after a crushing loss at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. When asked about it a week later at the Players Championship, Morikawa doubled down: “I don’t owe anyone anything.” Morikawa stood by his comments this week at Augusta National Golf Club. Surprisingly, Rory McIlroy supported him.

“He’s right. I think he could have worded it a little bit better. Every other athlete, whether it be in the NBA, NFL, they’re obligated to speak to you guys after a game. And we’re not,” noted McIlroy, who left Pinehurst without talking to the media after losing the 2024 U.S. Open. “Whether that’s something the PGA Tour looks to, in terms of putting that into the rules and regulations. But as long as that’s not the case, and we have that option to opt out whenever we want, expect guys to do that.” 

Sure enough, after McIlroy collapsed late with two double-bogeys on his final four holes Thursday, he snubbed the media and headed straight to the practice area without doing interviews. But his position in 27th place spoke for itself.

Despite superstar Scottie Scheffler winning the Green Jacket, viewership for last year’s Masters final round sank 20% to 9.59 million average viewers. Discounting the COVID-19 years of 2020–2021, it was the least-watched Masters final round since 1993. 

At a time when all leagues are desperately chasing younger fans, the Tour has the oldest TV audience in sports (around 64 years old on average). McIlroy should know better since his own TGL indoor golf league is making inroads against the game’s graying base by attracting viewers with a median age of 52. But the global superstar cited arcane media policies to justify blowing off people who amplify his accomplishments.

McIlroy is not seeing the forest for the Georgia Pine trees at Augusta National. Technically, he’s right about the Tour’s stricter media policies versus those of the NFL, NBA, MLB, or NHL. But he’s dead wrong if he really wants to expand the Tour’s revenues by attracting new viewers. Legendary golfers from Phil Mickelson to Greg Norman have faced the proverbial music after agonizing collapses, noted Golf Channel’s Eamon Lynch. So why can’t this generation do the same? Did we mention that the PGA Tour is also in an existential battle for eyeballs with rival LIV Golf?

“He’s right as a matter of policy. But I would argue wrong as a matter of principle. The players are not obligated in any of the rules and regulations of the PGA Tour to give time to the media afterwards. It’s another argument as to whether they ought to be obligated, or, should they feel an obligation. Because they are now nominally owners of the PGA Tour,” Lynch said this week. “They ought to be their own marketers. They should look up on that as customer service in a way. You have people who have invested time and money in your product. I think they are entitled to a little bit of something at the end of the narrative of the week.” 

There’s a classic push-pull dynamic at work. TV networks and journalists want more player access; players try to set boundaries. Media members make plenty of mistakes. Blowups between athletes or coaches and the press are as old as pro sports. But unfortunately, McIlroy and Morikawa are not alone. I’m seeing an increasing amount of pro athletes haughtily disdaining their obligations to the media—which are really an obligation to fans.

Blame it partly on the pandemic. Some athletes came to like the distance and barriers built during the COVID-19 shutdowns to keep them separate from the media and vice versa. Other athletes are too rich, spoiled, and self-centered to care about stiffing the reporters who cover them. Marshawn Lynch even built a media career off his canned “I’m just here so I don’t get fined” answer during Super Bowl media day. But I’m worried U.S. sports is moving toward the European model, in which players are practically inaccessible to the media, except in strictly controlled settings.

Take the tension between the WNBA and those who cover it. The fast-growing league complains that it gets only a fraction of the coverage lavished on the NBA, but reporters who cover the WNBA told Ben Strauss of The Washington Post the league “often falls short of making itself more accessible to the media, even as its leaders rebuke the media for a lack of coverage.” Media darling Caitlin Clark is calling on the WNBA to end the practice of pregame interviews this season. “I don’t mind [press conferences] after games. I hate doing them before games,” she told David Letterman on Netflix’s My Next Guest Needs No Introduction.

Citing her own mental health, tennis superstar Naomi Osaka withdrew from the 2021 French Open after refusing to participate in mandatory press conferences. After dodging media members for three straight games, Russell Westbrook was warned by the NBA. The former MVP countered by giving half-hearted answers like “not sure” and “I don’t know.”

Shannon Sharpe wasn’t buying Westbrook’s routine on his Nightcap podcast with Chad Johnson. Westbrook should fulfill his duties like a pro, said Sharpe—not get cute with reporters trying to do their jobs.

“That’s in the [CBA]. That’s a part of the obligation. That’s why you make the big bucks. And now, when things go bad, you don’t want to talk,” noted Sharpe. “But when he was getting those triple doubles, you couldn’t beat him to the microphone.” 

In other words, Russ, you can’t have it both ways. Well said, Shannon.