Media
Brooks Koepka’s coach unloads on golf media, LIV golfer treatment
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Claude Harmon hugs Brooks Koepka after his PGA Championship victory Sunday.
Getty images
As the golf year marches on, much will be made about Brooks Koepka’s fifth major championship. The speculation will include plenty about what it means for Koepka now that he’s ahead of Rory McIlroy in career majors. It will acknowledge that he was the first LIV golfer to win a major. And that he snagged a PGA Tour victory while not being a member of the PGA Tour.
But what will it all mean for LIV Golf? That will be discussed for months to come. What will it mean for LIV that their players currently hold not just one but two major championships? Is it just another indication that LIV pros’ abilities are unchanged by their new surroundings?
Among those sharing the strongest opinions: Koepka’s coach, Claude Harmon III
In the wake of Koepka’s PGA Championship win Sunday — both before the final round and after it — Harmon spoke with a couple of members of the media, one of whom was Golfweek’s Adam Schupak, who teed up the interaction in an article and printed Harmon’s thoughts in full Tuesday. You can read all of it here.
Harmon’s biggest gripes seem to revolve around golf media and how he thinks LIV golfers, their decisions and their play has been portrayed over the last 12 months. He begins by critiquing two Golf Channel analysts, Brandel Chamblee and Eamon Lynch, calling Chamblee a “paid actor”.
Harmon was also keen to note that all of golf media, in his estimation, believed LIV golfers’ abilities would drop off with a less intense schedule and with guaranteed paychecks from 54-hole tournaments without a cut. He is correct that those questions were asked. And not just by golf media. Tiger Woods himself asked the question during his press conference at The Open last July, saying, “But what these players are doing for guaranteed money, what is the incentive to practice? What is the incentive to go out there and earn it in the dirt? You’re just getting paid a lot of money up front and playing a few events and playing 54 holes. They’re playing blaring music and have all these atmospheres that are different.”
Harmon pounced on exactly that idea:
“You guys all think LIV’s, maybe you’ve changed your tune, but initially, it was all just bullsh-t, a bunch of guys playing who didn’t care, who got the money, who got the bag, and it’s 54 holes and there’s no competition and all that. So it was easy for you guys to just pretend like these guys just weren’t good players anymore. And I think you guys largely did that because you drank the Kool-Aid of everybody else. But how you guys all thought that these guys just weren’t going to show up and be great players is beyond me. I think it is an interesting Jedi mind trick that they played on you guys and you guys fell for it. Because you guys were all, ‘These guys were all washed up. They took the bag. They’re insignificant. They play against no competition.’ And that’s just not the case.”
What Harmon has conveniently looked past is that many of the most expensive signees for LIV golf didn’t play great golf throughout the summer of 2022 after joining the upstart tour. Cameron Smith was not playing like a top-5 player in the world after he joined. Koepka spent much of the fall playing like the 60th- or 70th-best player in the world, according to DataGolf. Bryson DeChambeau, played like a below-average Tour player for the first time in five years. Dustin Johnson, another Harmon pupil, has been good, but not his typical great. Was it an injury? Until last week, we had no idea Johnson was nursing a back injury during the beginning of 2023. Phil Mickelson has still earned just one top 10 in his LIV career, but then earned every trump card he ever needed with a T2 finish at the Masters.
Are LIV’s best shining right now? Undoubtedly. It’s cool to see. But only now is it fair for Harmon to make the case that there was no step back in performance. The numbers weren’t making that argument until just recently.
Harmon continued his criticism by saying golf media have shown a tendency to anoint PGA Tour up-and-comers who haven’t earned the recognition, at least in Harmon’s eyes. He cited Will Zalatoris, who has won just once on the Tour, as a player who was “crowned” by golf media.
Brooks Koepka won the PGA in 10 seconds — but it hurt to get there
“But my point with that is you guys all acted like Brooks was a sh—y player and Will Zalatoris was great, but the guy has won one [expletive] golf tournament, yeah, he’s finished second in a bunch of tournaments,” Harmon said. “So have a lot of players, but you guys are ready to crown him as if he’s the second coming of Christ and you guys are acting like Brooks Koepka was a bum.”
Harmon noted that Zalatoris was ranked in the top 10 in the Official World Golf Ranking despite having just one victory, which is accurate. Zalatoris was ranked 10th when he withdrew from the Masters in April with a back injury. It’s fair to acknowledge that, but Harmon’s gripe should then be with the OWGR rather than golf media. Players with many high finishes, particularly in major championships, can rise the ranking without victories. Back in October 2015, Koepka himself was ranked 12th in the OWGR, despite owning just one Tour title. It happens.
Finally, at the end of an interview filled with analogies, Harmon finished with cross-sport comparisons, likening Koepka to other major athletes and his decision to join LIV as similar to the free agency we see in other pro sports: that Koepka is like a franchise quarterback in the NFL or a starting pitcher in the MLB.
“Justin Verlander got $90 million to go to the Mets,” Harmon said. “Has he even pitched a game for the Mets? Is anybody writing about why he went there? Right. Nobody’s writing about why he went there. Right? Everybody thinks it’s great. If you’re a Mets fan, you’re like, great. Justin Verlander, two years. Nobody knows how bad his arm is. Nobody knows how bad his elbow is. Nobody knows how many innings he can go. But this is my point.
“I said this, we were at Portland and a couple of guys were like, ‘Why do you think they’re paying him this?’ I’m like, ‘Guys, Brooks Koepka is Justin Verlander. He’s a four-time World Series, four-time Cy Young.’ Even if he’s hurt at this stage of his career, what did Verlander get? He’s at the end of his career and they gave him $90 million. That’s pretty close to what I’m sure a bunch of these LIV guys got and nobody bats an eyelash.”
Harmon’s interview with Schupak also included commentary comparing LIV and the PGA Tour to NASCAR and F1 racing. For the full interview, click here.
For a bunch of people who supposedly hate social media, we sure do spend a lot of time on it.
Just 33 percent of U.S. adults have “some or a lot” of trust in social media, according to a late 2022 report from the Pew Research Center(opens in a new tab), and people who spend time on social media are more likely to experience mental health problems(opens in a new tab), including depression. According to BroadbandSearch, an independent research site that compares internet providers, the average American spends a little more than two hours a day on (opens in a new tab)the very same hurtful platforms they purport not to trust. And it seems like new social media platforms — any sort of online space in which people are publicly chatting with each other, including Facebook and Twitter and TikTok and, yes, LinkedIn — are popping up every day.
There aren’t loads of social media platforms that are brand new in 2023, but there are dozens that we spend our time on every day that have had some pretty radically nightmarish moments in 2023. Unfortunately, as it is the middle of the year, it’s time to rank these nightmares.
While evaluating these social media platforms, I’ve considered five questions:
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How widely-used is the app?
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How grumpy does the app make me because of the content?
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How grumpy does the app make me because of the interface?
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How likely is the app to disrupt democracy?
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How annoying are the influencers on that app?
There are many apps that launched recently that didn’t make the list — Geneva, Diem, Melon, Pineapple, Somewhere Good — because they just aren’t widely-used enough to asses just how awful they are. I’m omitting far-right social media apps like Parler and Gab — they are all worse than the apps I’m writing about here, and their content is too vile for me to make fun of in a listicle.
Here are the social media platforms that have stolen our brains so far in 2023, from least bad to worst. This list is just my opinion, but it is also correct.
Mastodon
A very nice escape from Twitter for the 20 minutes it was relevant.
BeReal
Fine, but no one uses it anymore so it is now therefore boring. Boring, to be clear, is not necessarily an insult when it comes to social media (see: Facebook further down the list, which I wish was more boring).
Artifact
Boring but alright.
BlueSky
This app seems fine but I don’t have access to it. Send me an invite and I will do my best to accurately review it.
Lemon8
A new app that is annoying to me, but others find it lovely.
There are LinkedInfluencers(opens in a new tab), which is annoying but not actively harmful.
Substack
Stay with me, but the newsletter platform is kind of killing it this year. It launched chats and a Notes feature to rival Twitter and some of the more popular Substack writers make a pretty good living from their newsletters. It’s this far down, though, because Substack isn’t without its problems: The platform allows some pretty hateful speech, like the transphobic newsletter from Graham Linehan.
Snapchat
This would be higher if it didn’t force Snapchat AI onto every single user.
TikTok
Can be vile, but can also feed you a pretty consistent number of frog videos. It’s lower down because entire nations are banning it for — you guessed it — potential threats to democracy.
I swear to God if I get fed one more video about dieting I’m going to scream.
Unfortunately for Facebook, most of us simply refuse to forget 2016(opens in a new tab) and the Facebook Papers. There’s an old saying in Tennessee(opens in a new tab) — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, ruin democracy once, shame on — shame on you. Ruin democracy twice — you can’t get democracy ruined again.
Elon Musk 🥴
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VIENNA, June 2 (Reuters) – OPEC has denied media access to reporters from Reuters, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal to report on oil policy meetings in Vienna this weekend, reporters, Bloomberg and people familiar with the matter said on Friday.
The three media organizations are among the world’s leading suppliers of financial news and information. They report on the outcome of policy meetings between OPEC and its allies, where ministers make decisions that impact the price of the world’s most traded commodity.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies is a group known as OPEC+ and includes top oil producers Saudi Arabia and Russia. Ministers from the group, which pumps more than 40% of the world’s oil supply, are scheduled to gather on Saturday and Sunday for regular biannual meetings.
OPEC staff declined on Friday to give media accreditation to Reuters journalists to cover the event. The staff handling media accreditation at one of Vienna’s luxury hotels said they could not issue accreditation without an invite. They did not comment when asked why Reuters reporters received no invites.
OPEC has not responded to requests for comment from Reuters this week on why it has not invited or accredited Reuters reporters for the meet.
“We believe that transparency and a free press serve both readers and markets, and we object to this restriction on coverage,” a spokesperson for Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters Corp (TRI.TO), said on Friday.
“Reuters will continue to cover OPEC in an independent, impartial and reliable way in keeping with the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.”
A reporter from Bloomberg was also denied accreditation on Friday, a person familiar with the matter said.
A Bloomberg spokesperson confirmed on Friday the company has not been given accreditation to cover the OPEC meeting.
The Wall Street Journal did not respond to a request for comment.
Reporters from the three outlets, many of whom have been covering OPEC meetings for years, did not receive invitations from OPEC ahead of the meeting.
Without accreditation, journalists cannot enter the OPEC Secretariat where the ministers meet, or attend press conferences during the event.
Reporters at other media outlets including trade publications Argus and Platts received accreditation on Friday. Argus confirmed its reporters have been accredited and will attend. Platts did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Media
OPEC denies media access to Reuters, Bloomberg, WSJ for weekend policy meets – Yahoo Canada Finance
VIENNA (Reuters) – OPEC has denied media access to reporters from Reuters, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal to report on oil policy meetings in Vienna this weekend, reporters, Bloomberg and people familiar with the matter said on Friday.
The three media organizations are among the world’s leading suppliers of financial news and information. They report on the outcome of policy meetings between OPEC and its allies, where ministers make decisions that impact the price of the world’s most traded commodity.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies is a group known as OPEC+ and includes top oil producers Saudi Arabia and Russia. Ministers from the group, which pumps more than 40% of the world’s oil supply, are scheduled to gather on Saturday and Sunday for regular biannual meetings.
OPEC staff declined on Friday to give media accreditation to Reuters journalists to cover the event. The staff handling media accreditation at one of Vienna’s luxury hotels said they could not issue accreditation without an invite. They did not comment when asked why Reuters reporters received no invites.
OPEC has not responded to requests for comment from Reuters this week on why it has not invited or accredited Reuters reporters for the meet.
“We believe that transparency and a free press serve both readers and markets, and we object to this restriction on coverage,” a spokesperson for Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters Corp, said on Friday.
“Reuters will continue to cover OPEC in an independent, impartial and reliable way in keeping with the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.”
A reporter from Bloomberg was also denied accreditation on Friday, a person familiar with the matter said.
A Bloomberg spokesperson confirmed on Friday the company has not been given accreditation to cover the OPEC meeting.
The Wall Street Journal did not respond to a request for comment.
Reporters from the three outlets, many of whom have been covering OPEC meetings for years, did not receive invitations from OPEC ahead of the meeting.
Without accreditation, journalists cannot enter the OPEC Secretariat where the ministers meet, or attend press conferences during the event.
Reporters at other media outlets including trade publications Argus and Platts received accreditation on Friday. Argus confirmed its reporters have been accredited and will attend. Platts did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Alex Lawler, Dmitry Zhdannikov, Ahmad Ghaddar, Julia Payne, Maha El Dahan; writing by Simon Webb; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
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