By Sam Reeves

You’ve all heard about it, you’ve seen the clips, hell maybe you’ve lived it. I am, of course, talking about the ongoing athlete vs. media war. It doesn’t matter the sport, the league, or the athlete: the media interferes at the wrong time, almost regularly. Look, we all have bad days at work, but we aren’t met with an interview that is being broadcast to millions of people globally after we clock out. If you do have to do that, well, you should probably get a different job. That’s pretty weird if you have to do that.

There is a very recent example of this with PGA Tour player Collin Morikawa calling out a reporter for the tone of an article. It was labeled as a “tense” interaction between Morikawa and the reporter in question. When I watched the video of it, it didn’t feel all that tense. It was just a blown-over reaction by…you guessed it: the media! Yes, the media has a job to do and get the stories their editor is looking for, but there are guidelines in place on when to report on something and when not to. In this particular case, Collin Morikawa was approached about changing caddies again this PGA season while about to tee off with his pro-am playing partners, who, as Morikawa noted, pay good money to play in those events.

Collin Morikawa mentioned to the reporter that he is about to tee off with his pro-am partners and that his press conference slot is in 2 1/2 hours, and he will answer questions then. The reporter then took to his computer and wrote an article leading off that Morikawa wouldn’t speak to him because he “had” to play with his pro-am partners, leading to this “tense” exchange at the press conference of Morikawa calling out the reporter for phrasing it very poorly and making Morikawa out to be an entitled person.

Morikawa did express he understands the media has a job to do and understands it isn’t easy at times. However, he was not happy about the decorum displayed by this particular reporter. That is a key part of the relationship between athletes and the media. It needs to have respect both ways, or it just doesn’t work. This is central to golf because it is very much a mental game. The players are exhausted mentally and physically after a 5-hour round, and they aren’t exactly in a chipper mood when they don’t play well.

This isn’t the only example of media/athlete tension, but it is a recent enough issue for this to come to light…again. The people the general population trusts in their respective sports are Jeff Passan, Adam Schefter, and Shams Charania. It is the other smaller publication reporters that seem to give issues to athletes everywhere. I am not saying all media members are doing this; some are also very good at respecting boundaries and understanding the situation the player is going through. It just seems to be a behavior that is lost on up-and-coming media outlets.

We here at ASS will never be credentialed to cover anything sincerely, so I have no problem torching the media while not showing I can do better. It’s how I stay winning. Players are going to continue to snap at the media, and the media is going to continue to report on things that piss off players. It will be a never-ending war, so buckle up: it’s going to be a ride.