Sports Illustrated slashing its golf coverage is a blow to the game  

They say irony is hard to define but you know it when you see it. After hearing the lousy news that Sports Illustrated was taking a machete to its excellent golf coverage, I did a quick Google search on this latest act of newsroom barbarism.

This was the first headline that popped up, from a May 29 posting from Front Office Sports:

“Several Longtime Writers Laid Off at Sports Illustrated.”

This was the second, from April 23:

“PGA Tour Lays Off 4% of Staff As Part of Restructuring.”

It’s no surprise that the second story was written by Bob Harig, the veteran Sports Ilustrated golf writer. Bob, as tireless, connected and fair-minded as any reporter could be, was one of the dozen or so writers and editors pushed out by SI in this latest effort to kill good journalism in the ruthless search to make more money.

Just to cite, and far too briefly, some of the other talented, golf-leaning SI staffers who have just lost their publishing home (where I spent 22 years of my own career on the masthead), I raise a flag to half-mast in the name of Jeff Ritter and John Schwarb, two affable and longtime editors steeped in golf; the columnist Michael Rosenberg, who writes with humor, indignation and insight, as his theme-of-the-day requires; and Stephanie Apstein, who wrote-up golf’s winners and as often its also-rans when she was taking a slide from her main beat, covering the pastime.

Part of what makes this news so painful to hear is that SI has a singular place in the history of modern American golf coverage. If you care at all about the game’s written tradition, you know these names and their good works: Herbert Warren Wind, Dan Jenkins, Rick Reilly, to start with the Big Three, but also Jaime Diaz, John Garrity, Gary Van Sickle, Alan Shipnuck, Tim Rosaforte, among others. There were more than a few world-class editors behind these writers as well, but for now I’ll offer just two: Mark Mulvoy and Jim Herre. Then there were the brilliant SI writers who dipped into golf now and again, including Gary Smith and Steve Rushin. Much of what I know about this game came from reading the writers cited here, and many others with the SI stamp on their work. The photography that accompanied all of these stories was often artful and unique. This was all expensive to produce. People were willing to pay for quality, and you could always go to your library, too. Some of you will remember libraries.

Let me pause here in the name of Harig. Harig knows more about Tiger Woods’s complicated medical journey than Tiger Woods. He knows more about the balancing act of creating a PGA Tour schedule than Brian Rolapp. When rules debacles flair, Harig is (I won’t say was) forever finding out what happened and why.

From its gaudy start, Harig gave LIV Golf the coverage it deserved, given that some of the biggest names in golf were leaving their longtime professional homes to join it in the name of money, money, money. LIV Golf was creating news and Bob’s professional MO is to cover news, without judgment.

Bob’s most recent book, Tiger v. Jack, gives you everything you need to know to settle that debate for yourself. That’s how Bob rolls. That’s what it means to be a true reporter. He’s 62, got his start in golf as a caddie and his start as a reporter at newspapers. He has 67,000 followers on X and knows all of Scottie Scheffler’s favorite Chipotle locations. It takes years to become Bob Harig.

The starting point behind these SI cuts is (this is painfully obvious) that the owners of the monthly magazine, and the 24-7 website, are trying to make money. The magazine and website are owned by Authentic Brands Group and are managed by an outfit called Minute Media. It’s a telling name. Attention spans have never been shorter. Both outfits are going to find out that less is less, and that cheaper is cheaper, in every way. SI should (somebody get me off this pulpit!) take its lead from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker. Those publications, and their websites, are thriving under the theory that more is more, and that serious people want serious news sources.

Part of what is going on here is generational, the seismic shift in reading habits. Reading on a screen is a completely different reading experience than reading ink on paper. Its wild inefficiency is entwined with its greatness. Reading on a screen is a minute-by-minute proposition. Send me an email if you have already quit reading this one. There is surely a “metric” for that. There’s always some next thing popping up and in, grabbing your attention and providing some kind of dopamine hit that often has no more value than a roll of Smarties and about the same staying power.

What Herb Wind wrote about (and with) Ben Hogan will have be on shelves forever. Dan Jenkins on Jack Nicklaus, the same. Gary Smith on David Duval, ditto. Part of what made their work possible is that their subjects actually valued the written word, in all its permanence. Yes, David Duval. Maybe Colin Morikawa is as interesting as David Duval, but he has to be willing to open the door for us to find out. In the meantime, we have all manner of Strokes Gained stats in all their glory. Fascinating.

This website, and by any means necessary (video and audio and typed copy), is committed to celebrating the game, with a mix of features and profiles, commentary, travel coverage, instruction — and news and news analysis when it rises to a we-need-to-know level. Competing with SI only made us better. SI did the news of golf at an exceptional level. (I nod here to Golfweek and Doug Ferguson of the AP, too.) I hope this is not true but it is hard to imagine that the future of golf’s news coverage will be better than its past. Golf will suffer as a result, and so will golf fans. 

I can offer no solution here because I don’t know of one. Shifting habits are shifting habits. The profit incentive is the profit incentive. I do know I’d be lost in my life without the Journal, the Times, The New Yorker. SI is no longer on that list.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com