"Can ‘fanboys’ and traditional golf journalists coexist on the golf beat?"

You know the great philosopher Clemenza once said these little wars have to “happen every five years or so -- ten years -- helps to get rid of the bad blood” and just like he said way back when, it’s been “ten years since the last one.”

The Presidents Cup afforded another old v. new media, and rather curiously, I’m now included in the old part as a former new media guy because I write complete sentences (most of the time). If you are not on Twitter—consider yourself blessed—Alan Shipnuck toes the middle line like the artist he is in trying to explain what all has been going down, why the game’s leading governing bodies are favoring the new efforts to cover events and best of all, avoid the bot/groupee onslaught of defensive messages.

He writes:

But the protagonists are fun-loving guys and the nation of Stoolies has a blast tagging along for all the hijinks. Old Man Media tells the reader what happened; hopefully they add broader context like why it happened and what it all means. Barstool tells its viewers and listeners how it felt to be there. They are two entirely different missions, but they should be complementary.

The Barstool audience is too vast to ignore, especially for the USGA and PGA of America, which have only one or two big tournaments a year and lack media operations as advanced as the PGA Tour’s. It’s why they were the first folks to credential Barstool. For years the Tour tried to ignore Barstool, but at this most recent Presidents Cup, the Barstool guys were all over Royal Melbourne. It will be interesting to see how much access they get going forward. If history is a guide, it will be a lot, and Old Man Media will have to endure it.