The End of Newspapermen Covering Golf Near?

With the news that Jim McCabe has left the Boston Globe to replace Rex Hoggard at Golfweek (now at GolfChannel.com), Sal Johnson recaps the dizzying changes in golf newspaper coverage over the last decade. I also understand there has been a shake up at the Daily Telegraph, so it's not just an American issue.

Let's face reality, this isn't an isolated problem to fall on just the Boston market but a total purge on golf writing in not only this country but around the world. Just in the last couple of months we have seen the golf writers of the Los Angeles Times, Thomas Bonk, take a buy out. In Chicago, Ed Sherman of the Chicago Tribune left after the PGA Championship. Vartan Kupelian is no longer with the Detroit News, the writer of a paper in Washington is waiting to see if his contract will be renewed in '09. Just this week Bill Huffman is writing his last column for the East Valley Tribune and in neighboring Phoenix, the Arizona Republic told it's golf writer John Davis that he would be cut in half on golf, had to focus on just local golf no longer writing about the PGA and LPGA Tours and would be on the copy desk for half of his 40 hour week. Cities like Atlanta, St. Petersburg, Florida, Palm Beach, Florida, Kansas City, Houston, Texas and Hartford, Connecticut no longer have golf writers. Of course many of you may wonder why this is so important, but in the scope of things it's very important and one of the growing problems for the PGA Tour in the months ahead.