Rickie Week At The Players Means...Long Form Stories!?
The lone negative of Rickie Fowler winning the 2015 Players in unbelievable fashion?
The youth-obsessed PGA Tour has bequeathed second-coming-of-Christ status on the week, riding Rickie like Kent Desormeaux on Exaggerator trying to catch Nyquist. Promos, more promos and undoubtedly on site "activation" that'll have his face plastered everywhere but on the ice sculpture in the Commissioner's buffet.
However, the win also allowed for a fascinating move into long form journalism, with D.J. Piehowski filing a lengthy profile and interactive piece for PGATour.com that's well worth a look. Just one highlight from the bio portion of the project that also includes graphics, embedded video and other goodies:
Rickie started to practice and play tournaments regularly, but on Wednesdays, he’d hit balls with his grandfather and hear stories about Taka's childhood, during which he was forced into a World War II internment camp for people of Japanese heritage.
Those moments with the man who introduced him to golf are the reason Rickie (whose middle name is Yutaka) cried after losing the Waste Management Phoenix Open in a playoff in February. It wasn’t because he missed out on a PGA TOUR victory; golfers lose far more tournaments than they win. It was because his grandfather, one of the 618,000 fans at TPC Scottsdale, had never seen him win in person.
Those moments led to Rickie getting his grandfather’s name tattooed in Japanese on the inside of his left bicep last year. They led to school projects and reports about Yutaka’s experience in the internment camp.
“I’ve never heard my dad talk about it and I’ve never heard Rickie talk about it,” Lynn says. “I think it’s possible Rickie could be the first person my dad gave those stories to.”
The epic Sunday finish also opened the door for Garry Smits to get more than a few inches of space in the Florida Times-Union to focus on Fowler's three times around the 17th hole.
On a day of extraordinary shot-making and putting from multiple contenders, Fowler’s three turns at No. 17 made the difference in his playoff victory over Kevin Kisner and Sergio Garcia to win the Players — and will be the defining moments in his victory, and to date, the most scintillating final round in tournament history.
A couple of nice meaty long-form stories got me to wondering where you feel we are with stories over say, 2000 words? With the reduction in print subscriptions and consumption, it was thought that long form could survive because the Internet was not worried about space. But then we realized that it's hard to hold attention spans online or on mobile devices.
Yet it seems to me that of late, more publications have been trying to bring back the long read, often with a dedicated sponsor. A few informal questions if you feel compelled...
A) Do you long for long form reads about golf related topics?
B) Do you reward a publication that publishes them with some clicks or a subscription? Or not think much about that?
C) Do you notice a sponsor if a story is brought to you by one advertiser?
D) Do any recent long form reads stand out as memorable?
Thanks class, happy Monday!
Monday, May 9, 2016 at 12:43 AM
Reader Comments (28)
B) No
C) Yes, of course
D) No
I am more discriminate with my time than earlier in life. If long form is encountered, I try to assure myself it's worth reading before delving into it. The Woods article, for example - I simply don't have enough interest in his personal life to invest that many minutes of reading. Perhaps it's late in life ADD, but the highlights on websites like this are sufficient for me.
@ Convert +1 Long form does not equal well written or accurate/unbiased.
B. Yes to clicks and subs
C. Can't recall, but isn't it meant to be subliminal?
D. Players Tribune has shown the way.
Off-topic, how many wins is that now for Parsons Golf?
(Contd p.142)
B. No
C. No
D. The Selling of Jordan Spieth
Most of us simply want an interesting story well told. By providing a summary on this site with a link to a full story you accommodate each need.
2 Don't consider it, usually.
3 Sometime.
4. Yes, but I'm referring to books, not magazine length.
MacDuff +2 brilliant!
2. I do not take subscriptions. I often click on an internal link, or try a site again if it has provided a good piece of writing on a subject of interest.
3. No. Unless they are the audio sort that starts without warning, in a page full of ads, and it takes ages to find the right one to shut the &^*%ing thing up.
4. The Woods and the Spieth. As someone noted, there was not a great deal new in the Woods piece -- I too had read the Haney book -- but it was well enough written to propel me forward. I tried the Spieth article as I was not persuaded of his sanctity and this was something that was going to show his human side. It's one example of a situation where I clicked on an internal link.
In sum, I suspect those you recommend would always be worth a look. I agree with another poster that often what you provide in situ on the blog is adequate to cover my interest, but sometimes one indeed does want a few more answers, or at least angles, on a story so it is worth a bit of a delve. Appreciate the service.
When you consider that the Masters has free parking, this just makes Tim Finchem the greediest SOB on the planet.
But like a lot of people, I also really appreciate the internet's ability to curate for me, which in the case of both of these stories, is one way Geoff's site really shines for me (despite the fact that Geoff sometimes seems to feel the need to undercut a bigger story's value in an attempt at appeasing the "it is what it is" crowd with its 140 character attention span even as he discovers and highlights the story for us).
The subscription model can't survive the curating model. Too often, one good story that hooks you on a subscription is quickly followed by disappointment and cancellation, making you realize that you'd rather come across the one good story by way of recommendation. It's the same way the Apple music model made the buying of whole albums to get one good song obsolete.
Where advertising fits into the curation model is still being discovered. I do tend to favor the single advertiser sponsoring an in depth article. It reminds me of what made The Players such special viewing last year vs. the garbaggio model of commercial slamming that most golf broadcasts still subscribe to.
Slowly everything turns. And assuming the Millennial generation doesn't return us to cave man hieroglyphics with its emoji habit, curating sites like this one will ultimately be the sites worth advertising's attention.
B) Yes, I used to reward Global Golf Post until it just became Brian Hewitt's political outpourings and monolithic opinion. Either keep politics out, or have diverse viewpoints. Long forms can move towards that.
C) I do. Not a problem with it if AT&T is not bringing a Spieth puff piece or of that ilk.
D) The Alan Shipnuck Tiger piece was excellent. Lots of different opinions, a couple of hypotheses. Changed my opinion. The Wright Thompson article was horrid. The Grantland story on the putter by the former man was a great article. Too bad they had to openly flay the writer because somehow it did not fit GLAADs approval.
B. I have never thought about rewarding a publisher with clicks until you just asked the question
C. Not at all - I try my best to ignore all ads
D. WT Tiger Piece, Goldbergs piece on Obama in the Atlantic
Has a publication ever named a sponsored writer as universities have named endowed chairs? The writer's sponsor would be part of the writers title on the pieces. I would note the sponsor with out concern, unless I felt the writer was biased to favor sponsor. GD shows on top of this site's mast head with only an occasional concern.
As for clicks and ads, I'm afraid I don't think about one and never notice the other.
I don't remember the last question...
Hate opinion pieces, so Objective ( tongue in cheek) Why cant we write an article with the subject's input. We just love projecting our belif system, as if we are demigods, the true arbiter of truth .
I follow Richard Deitsch, Don Van Natta and longreads on Twitter, check out their weekly compendium and then save the ones I'm interested in as pdfs, to read at my leisure.
There are sites doing interesting things with visual content woven into longform layouts, but it's not really my cup of tea.
B) don't think about if
C) yes, The sponsor ads in the fowler piece were unobtrusive, imho.
D) not golf related; one on Richard Best and Dusty Kleiss.
Well researched long form pieces are preferable to me...always...providing they're well researched with NEW info whilst NOT being a slick puffy marketing package.