Hard Copy: How Breaking News has been Broken in the Content Farming Era

Earlier this week rumors swirled on social media that Rory McIlroy was finalizing a deal to join LIV Golf for an astronomical $850 million. The notion was both outlandish and counterintuitive to everything McIlroy has said up to this point, making the claim bizarrely captivating. It also exemplified a growing problem in sports writing and spreading misinformation.

The original publication — a financial “paper”, of all things — is a website littered with clickable ads and popups that generate revenue for the website based on article engagement and impressions. There’s little doubt that this specific article was a huge money-maker, too. The article has been shared thousands of times by various accounts on X and beyond, eventually prompting McIlroy himself to publicly comment on the baseless claims presented within.

We’ve seen this song and dance before. The “journalists” who authored the article at least had the decency to include the following passage, which tells you all you need to know about the truth behind their claims:

It has not been possible to verify the claims. Spokespeople for the Northern Irish player and LIV Golf did not respond to requests for comment.

This feels like the new standard operating procedure for a growing number of publications. Make a baseless claim when the iron is still hot (the day after the Masters, for example), toss in a “could not be reached for comment” disclaimer somewhere in the middle of the content and share, share share. But to which I can certainly attest, clicking “post” on an article only gets you so far. You also need a little help on social media.

Enter the Content Farmers.

Simply put, “content farmers” are social media accounts that scour the internet looking for stories that can be sensationalized with a clickbait headline and post them on their own timelines. Note that these accounts don’t write the articles themselves (that would be too much work), nor do they make it a habit of doing any actual reporting. Their goal is to amass a following as large as possible by using this practice over, and over, and over again.

The most notable accounts in the Golf Twitter realm include @FlushingItGolf, @NUCLRGOLF, and about a dozen more of their ilk. These two verified X accounts have over 200,000 combined followers, posting dozens of times a day to their audience. NUCLRGOLF even offers a subscription option for a small fee. There is little doubt these accounts are profitable in their own right thanks to X’s revenue share program.

I know what you’re thinking: this is just sour grapes from another website founder who has a fraction of the following of those aforementioned accounts. You’d be correct. Allow me to explain.

Golf Unfiltered has been around for well over a decade. We’ve tried to do as much as we can with the resources available to us and the tools used most at any point along that timeline. Golf Twitter wasn’t always a thing, nor was Squarespace, podcasting platforms or revenue share programs. We've dabbled in clickbait headlines ourselves, but never for more than an article or two. But above all else, we’ve done our best to bring thoroughly researched reporting (to the best of our ability) and in-depth opinions on golf’s current state.

We are not special in that regard, nor are we alone. Much more successful outlets like No Laying Up, The Fried Egg, The Golfers Journal, Lying Four and many others are not as much competitors as inspiration. Their collective work paved the way for countless other upstart media outlets, showing that passionate golf fans can come together and create something others might enjoy.

Content farming accounts are not the same thing.

Those accounts are the worst side of golf media. They are profiting off the hard work of others if not outright circumventing the need to do the same on their own. They shout into the ether, waiting to see what catches the eye of less-informed casual scrollers who never read past a headline before sharing the latest nugget. Sometimes, as was the case with Rory McIlroy, it catches enough steam to prompt public action, validating their efforts.

Online publications are really damn hard to manage. As my colleagues at GU will tell you, I make the same “joke” every year that this year will be the last for GU. It’s frustrating, expensive, and a lot of hard work. Most things that are worth it can say the same.

If you’ve made it this far into this article, thank you. If you’ve ever clicked on a single piece of content we’ve produced, thank you. If you’ve ever responded to a tweet or post on our platforms — even to tell us how wrong or dumb we are — thank you.

What happened this week with Rory and LIV was not about us or any of the other outstanding outlets mentioned above. It was about you and the level of disrespect thrown your way by content farming accounts. They don’t care about educating or enhancing your enjoyment of the game we all love. They just want your engagement and dollars. You are their marks.

If you’re comfortable with that fact, more power to you. I can’t stop you from following and engaging with those accounts. All I ask is to show support to the outlets who care less about your wallets and more about our shared experience in this game.

The Flavors of Golf on Full Display

The calendar says we’re still in the first week of 2024 and if the last few days are any indication of what to expect, we’re in for a wild ride covering a sport that is in search of a new image.

Golf — the game itself — hasn’t been immune to change, either. News of a golf ball rollback and other rule changes shook the sport in late 2023, only to be upstaged (depending on your fandom) by news of Jon Rahm switching tours to join LIV Golf shortly after. Divisiveness reigned supreme throughout the sport, each side looking for “mini wins” for their biases and arguments at every opportunity. “Exhausting” may have been the word most used to describe golf since 2021.

What has 2024 offered to golf fans thus far? Welp…

Rory McIlroy appeared on a soccer podcast — aptly named Stick to Football — and offered new, softer thoughts on LIV Golf, how the PGA TOUR has “survived” over the years, and even his original judgement of players switching tours. Those of us who actually took the time to listen to the interview understand that Rory offered objective, in-depth reasoning on his evolved thought process around the current state of men’s pro golf. For the social media bros who only went off a headline — like Greg Norman — you would have thought Rory made a tearful proclamation of wrongdoing and misjudgment. Others went as far as to suggest a “complete U-turn” by McIlroy, which is lazy at best and misleading at worst.

You can listen to the episode below:

Simultaneously, a blogger was on a personal quest to make a hole-in-one on a golf simulator that resulted in a marathon livestream session culminating in 2,627 shots over 37+ hours. We’ve seen this type of content before, but this one captured the attention of far more people than I would have ever imagined, including the likes of PGA TOUR players, professional athletes from other sports, and mainstream public figures. Since I have the mind of an old codger for such things, I poo-pooed the stunt while being equally amazed at how many people embraced it.

The dichotomy of these two examples is obvious since one has nothing to do with the other, aside from the fact that golf is at their foundation. But we’re golf fans on the internet and we’ve perfected the ability to find relationships where they don’t exist, our social media character limits our only barrier. The content must be produced! Give people what they want!

Are other sports having these types of conversations, too? Are baseball fans debating the legitimacy of home runs being hit on simulators, or the launch conditions of metal bats in college versus pine in the majors? Was professional basketball more competitive before the advent of the three-point shot?

This is where, I believe, golf’s ridiculousness reigns supreme. I mean that as a compliment.

Where else can we debate the merits of content like what we saw this week, aside from other hot-button topics like religion or politics? It feels like we all want to debate something collectively and need an outlet that appears safe on the surface, is completely unique to every individual who partakes, and has been around for over a century. The sheer volume of different golf flavors has never been more apparent than right now.

In a few weeks I’ll be returning to the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando to meet with brands and partners of GU and learn about even more flavors of this game. As with previous visits to the Show, there will be an underlying buzz of topics to serve as ice breakers to conversations with industry-minded colleagues we see once a year. However this year already feels different because the game itself feels different. These are not topics we’ve discussed in the past on such a grand scale and with the backdrop of “how are we gonna sell this stuff to golfers?”

Perhaps that’s the point. What worked for us yesterday won’t tomorrow. Golf has remained stagnant to some degree over the years in terms of what is offered to the casual player. Yes, the COVID boom introduced more players to this great game than ever before, but it feels like a healthy dose of disruption has blown in with them. We now think of more names and topics when we hear the word “golf,” which feels like a move in the right direction if we care about sustainability. Tiger could only get us so far, just as Jack and Arnold before him.

Amid the flurry of LIV, golf balls, simulators, artificial intelligence and crowded tee-sheets, the biggest shift in golf will be its very definition. Hogan’s famous quote regarding golf’s biggest battlefield may no longer be between our ears, but rather devoid of any boundaries, let alone within the confines of 18 holes.