Detailed Discussion on the Evolving Perception of Golf with Josh Thomson
In this conversation, Josh Thompson, the sports editor of the Journal News, discusses his experience covering golf and his personal interest in the sport. He consumes golf content through social media, websites, and Instagram, particularly enjoying golf travel and course information. He highlights that golf, along with tennis and swimming, has a different perception within the world of local sports due to its individual-oriented nature. However, local golfers who have achieved success at higher levels, such as Cameron Young, James Nicholas, and Michael Miller, inspire interest and support from the community.
Thompson also mentions the increasing popularity of golf, especially during the pandemic when outdoor sports became a popular recreational activity. He notes the difficulty in securing tee times at public golf courses and the continuous interest in outdoor activities. When it comes to high school golf, Thompson believes that the success stories of local golfers who have gone on to play in college or on the PGA Tour inspire young golfers. He mentions several local tournaments, such as the Met Open and Westchester Amateur, that receive coverage, along with major professional tournaments held at renowned courses in the region.
Regarding the sense of community in local golf coverage, Thompson explains that it is not as prominent as in team sports. Instead, people are often interested in finding the next rising star in the sport. Thompson believes that the individual nature of golf sets it apart from other sports and that the excitement lies in watching the best players compete head-to-head. He also mentions the attempt by LIV Golf Tour to introduce a team element to the sport but emphasizes that the focus will likely remain on individual performance.
Josh Thompson
My name is Josh Thompson. I'm the sports editor of the Journal News, Poughkeepsie Journal and The Middletown Times Herald Record. I've worked in Westchester for about 20 years, covering all sorts of local and college and professional sports, including a couple of US. Opens, many Barclays and Westchester classics when they were still here at Westchester Country Club and other USGA events and local MGA and Met PGA events over the years.
Sajiv Mehta
Great. And how do you consume golf content today, whether it be with watching it or reading, like on a professional level?
Josh Thompson
Yeah, I mean, I consume quite a bit of golf content in addition to just following local golf and local golfers who have gone on to do great things at the higher level. I'm a golf nut myself. I play a lot of golf and have friends who I play golf with on a regular basis. So, yeah, I consume a lot of my news, right or wrong, through social media. It's kind of how I learn about things. So I'm on Twitter a lot, both for work and also just for my personal interest. And so there are a lot of people I follow, a couple of good friends of mine working golf, and obviously I kind of follow them and hear a lot about golf from them. So that's kind of how I consume it, but certainly tons of websites and I'm following golf content, whether it's professional golf content, watching other people play or tips or course information, golf architecture, resorts, all that kind of stuff on Instagram a lot, which is where I got a lot of that stuff from. So all over the place I'm really into golf travel and golf courses and whatnot kind of in my free time.
Sajiv Mehta
Great. And obviously so you report on a lot of different sports. How do you see golf's perception within the world of local sports? On the high school level, at the youth level, how do you see its perception within other sports? And has that changed recently?
Josh Thompson
It's different because it's a lot golf and tennis and swimming and some of the other sports that we cover are very oriented towards around individuals, more so than team play. So I don't think you have the same kind of community feel for those sports as you do with football or basketball or wrestling or lacrosse or baseball or softball, even track and field and things like that. So I think that that is what kind of separates whether you're talking about local golf content or kind of the excitement around it, I think that kind of separates it from some other sports. So certainly when you're talking about golf, you're thinking about people in Westchester are following Cameron Young and his success or some of the other great players that we've had around here over the years who maybe have made it close, had a taste on tour for some Johnson Wagner, Michael Miller. You know, guys know, I've kind of covered over the years and maybe played in the PGA tour, played in some PGA tour events or some US. Opens, and I think that people follow it much more like an individual basis. Certainly when a golfer makes it big.
Josh Thompson
James Nicholas is another one, a Scarsdale guy who has had some success in golf. I think that people are definitely interested in their success, but just a different kind of it doesn't have that same community feel. I don't think that some other team sports do.
Josh Thompson
All right. And at my school, there's been, like, kind of with COVID and golf has become a lot more popular because people didn't really have much else to do during the pandemic. So other high school athletes have taken the playing golf recreationally, and I think that's kind of transferred to past the pandemic. And even now, is that something that's being seen on a more regional level, just recreationally, or is it more like, collected towards some small communities?
Sajiv Mehta
Well, I will say that as somebody who I'm 42 years old, so I'm not playing a lot of basketball or baseball anymore, but I do play a lot of golf and ski, and I've seen that outdoor sports have really exploded since the pandemic. And the lines that you see at ski areas or the difficulty getting a tee time at a public golf course, it's crazy around here. It always was difficult because there are so many country clubs and private courses in Westchester in the vicinity, so there are so few public options. And those public options, it's so much harder now than ever to get a tea time. And I think that was something that was true in the summer and fall of 2020 and extended to 2021, and I didn't really see much of a difference in 2022. I think that outdoor recreation became kind of a fad, and that fad hasn't really abated. It's been two and a half years, right, since the pandemic started, and I feel like the fever of people doing those activities is just as high running just as high as ever.
Sajiv Mehta
Cool. So obviously we talked about james Nicholas and Michael Miller's and the Cameron youngs and people who've really taken their success at the Westchester or local level here and taken it to greater heights. Is that something that you think's inspired more high school golfers? Is there more of a desire to play college golf or to take their game to the next level, or is it similar as it used to be?
Josh Thompson
Well, I think when you grow up and in some cases, if you're somebody who's 17 or 18 and you're still in high school, you may have played in local tournaments or tried to qualify for a local tournament that some of these guys are still in. I mean, Cameron Young is in his early 20s. He's not too far, six years maybe, removed from high school. So I think, yeah, that can't help but inspire people. It's not easy to be the next Cameron Young, but certainly you can aspire to be the next James Nicholas or Michael Miller. And after that, who knows? Not everybody has to be Cameron Young to have success in professional golf. And there's been so many players around here who have had success. Look at Rob Lebritz. Rob Lebritz is a pro at Glenn Arbor up in Bedford and he was a guy who had a lot of success winning local tournaments in his thirty s and forty s and then he went out and plays. Now he's on the Champions Tour and he's done really well in the Champions Tour so far. Only just getting started, he just turned 50. But there are definitely many options for professional golf and here in Westchester and in the tri state area, it's such a golf rich region, there are so many great courses and so many great players because of that.
Josh Thompson
And I think that there are know, so many people that could inspire young golfers, know, kind of show that path that it takes to be successful.
Sajiv Mehta
Yeah. And to that end, are people looking forward to the local golf content now and looking forward more to local golf content now? Is the engagement getting better? And if it is, then are people looking forward to the pro level or the high school level? What do people like to see at.
Josh Thompson
The local I think that when it comes to all local sports, especially when you're talking about youth sports, people are always kind of looking for the next big thing. I think when you see somebody who's doing really well, I think you want to see is this person going to be the next so and so. So I think that that's always kind of what drives when you're not talking about that community aspect I talked about before, which you get with a lot of youth sports that are team oriented football and those kind of things which are so driven by the success in the communities. I do think that it is who is the next big thing. So I think that people are going to want to know there will be another players who make it and have success in college and maybe make it on the PGA Tour. And so I think that for people it's know, kind of finding know who that next person will be. I think that's really what drives a lot of interest locally in a sport like golf.
Sajiv Mehta
Okay, and golf was played in the spring season, obviously, but do many events in the golf contest in the golf season constitute like newsworthiness? Or is it only like you're posting about sectionals or the big tournaments? Does it have its own season and so niche or is that more for lacrosse and other sports there and is it more just like the big tournaments? There can be stories about yeah, certainly.
Josh Thompson
So for high school coverage. If you're just talking about high school, we more so focusing on the sectional tournament and the state tournament because that's where the highest level of interest is. We do some preview content too, where we kind of put out a list for the top returning golfers. But in terms of local golf, which obviously you'd have some of the high school players involved with and some other players who've gone on to college, we do certainly highlight a handful of tournaments throughout late spring, summer, early fall. The Met Open is the biggest tournament in this area every year it's a top mostly professionals, but also some amateurs who are really good playing. The Met Open every year, that's a big three round tournament. You have the Meta Amateur, Westchester Amateur. There are definitely a handful of local golf tournaments we cover. The Anderson Memorial at Wingfoot is a big tournament that we usually would have some coverage of. At Lohud, we have a golf writer, Mike Dougherty, who handles a lot of that. Then, you know, because we have so many great courses, there are these years know, the professional golf scene kind know has an impact on the local golf scene too, and we'll cover that as well.
Josh Thompson
We had the US. Open a Wingfoot two years ago. There are majors at Baltis Roll in New Jersey. Obviously, you have Beth Page coming up, which is going to be a factor at the Ryder Cup in a few years. So, yeah, there's definitely many years around here where it is a local golf scene, and we're going to cover it high school players and local pros. But then, obviously, the courses are so spectacular around here and there can be a story in themselves, right? And so that's something that we end up covering a lot, which is why I've been to a couple of few US. Opens and some other tournaments, PGA Championships and stuff that's things that we've kind of covered around here over the years.
Sajiv Mehta
So going back to the next big thing and the sense of community that we've seen or rather haven't seen in local golf and it's reporting, do you think there's like an easy way to change that, or do you think that would go to the format of high school golf, or what do you think?
Josh Thompson
No, I don't think it's a format of high school golf. I think it's kind of the nature of the sport. It's not different than other sports that are of lower interest in the footballs or the basketballs or the wrestlings, which take up a lot of our coverage. And I think, too that you've seen over the years. Look at the difference between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf Tour. LIV golf is trying to kind of inject a team element into it. It remains to be seen whether or not that will kind of take off or not. But I think that for most of us, the excitement around golf coverage is seeing the best players in the world play against each other head to head as individuals. That kind of separates golf from a lot of the sports that people follow in America. And so I think that when it comes to even just local golf, it's really going to be that who's the best player, who are the best players. I think that's usually what's going to drive what people are interested in.