Kyle Porter didn’t come to journalism via the era of ink-stained fingernails, but the industry’s trends bend toward his vindication. After running an Oklahoma State blog for a couple of years, Porter caught on as a golf reporter at CBS Sports in early 2013. In that role, he’s become one of his generation’s most established golf writers, cranking out written stories, podcasts, and tweets at rate few can match. Some of those tweets are more infamous than others — an offhanded thought about the 2019 Open at Royal Portrush briefly turned him into Memphis’ public enemy No. 1 — but anyone who takes as many shots as Porter is bound to have a couple of misfires. “Honestly, they took a chance on me, because I had never covered golf before,” Porter said. “The thing that I did have was a year and a half or two years of running my own website. And I was like, ‘Hey, I might not necessarily know how to cover golf, but I do know how to do this every day: I know how to write every day, and I know how to jump into all this.’”
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LYING FOUR: So, the most important question first — what would you say is your favorite thing about Memphis?
KYLE PORTER: [laughs] Besides Tony Allen?
LYING FOUR: Well, that and the level-headed sports commentary.
KYLE PORTER: I’ve been there a couple of times — and by the way, this is like my second or third interview previewing Memphis, which is hilarious. I went to the Liberty Bowl; Oklahoma State and Missouri played in the Liberty Bowl two years ago, and the town of Memphis is great. The Liberty Bowl is not so great; it’s kind of like a high school stadium, which is not good. But it was good: the food was great, and the people were really nice. I guess I’d go with either Tony Allen or the barbecue; the barbecue is really good.
LYING FOUR: See, you’re a Memphis guy! This whole thing has sullied your preexisting appreciation for Memphis.
KYLE PORTER: I love going to all these different cities in the U.S., and this is one of my favorite things about going to major championships. I thought about this when I went to Pittsburg to cover the U.S. Open in 2016. You get to go to these cities, and they’re not spectacular cities; it’s not like going to Australia, China, or whatever. But it’s cool, because there’s history there; they’re fun; you get to learn just a little bit about the nuance of these places. Honestly, it’s one of my favorite parts of getting to do this job: going to these different cities, checking them out, and seeing the sights. It makes it a lot of fun.
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LYING FOUR: I’m pretty sure I’ve heard you tell this story before, but how did you get into sportswriting?
KYLE PORTER: I was working at an insurance company here in Dallas back in 2011. And it was fine; it was a good job. But I was a little bored. I kinda wanted to start something, and my wife challenged me: she said, “Hey, just do something for two years. Do anything, just pick something.” So I started an Oklahoma State website that I’m still running today, called Pistols Firing. Through that, I met a couple of different guys that lived in Dallas at the time — one of them still does: Jonathan Wall, who covers equipment for Golf.com now. He was an A&M fan, and this was back when A&M was in the Big 12. I was covering Oklahoma State-A&M stuff, and we somehow connected through that. And then David Ubben, who covers Tennessee for The Athletic now; he was living in Dallas at the time. I got connected with them through some church stuff, and it was one of those things where I wanted to get into this business, but I didn’t really know how; I was running this blog that made no money — it was actually costing me money. That’s everybody’s story, right? And through Jonathan Wall and David Ubben, the job at CBS Sports came up, because Shane Bacon was moving on. So this writing job at CBS Sports was coming up — and David Ubben knew the editor there, and Jonathan Wall was really tight with Shane Bacon. I got hooked up with some of the people at CBS Sports, interviewed — and honestly, they took a chance on me, because I had never covered golf before. The thing that I did have was a year and a half or two years of running my own website. And I was like, “Hey, I might not necessarily know how to cover golf, but I do know how to do this every day: I know how to write every day, and I know how to jump into all this.” It was cool, man. That was eight years ago, and it’s been a blast ever since.
LYING FOUR: It’s interesting to hear you say your wife had to nudge you toward it. It sounds like you felt like sportswriting might not be a perfect fit for you.
KYLE PORTER: Here’s the thing I didn’t know at the time: anybody can go out and write one great article. You can construct one great tweet. You can do a great job for one day — but can you do it every day? Can you do it every week? Can you do it every month? Can you make a career out of it? And I think that’s what I was nervous about: I was like, “I think I can do this, but I’ve never done it on a larger scale.” She’s been great. She’s incredibly encouraging. She’s probably the best editor that I ever will have — “Hey don’t do that,” “Hey don’t send the Memphis tweet” — I should’ve run that one by her first. She’s always believed in me more than I’ve believed in myself.
LYING FOUR: The worst thing that could happen to Twitter’s bottom line would be if our smarter wives all started copy editing our tweets. The whole network would collapse within about 48 hours.
KYLE PORTER: For sure. That would be the worst thing to happen to Golf Twitter, because there would be no red meat. It’d be just a bunch of bots running around.
LYING FOUR: All across the country, you’d hear the words echoing, “What are you thinking? You’re gonna put that on the Internet?”
KYLE PORTER: We had a conversation the other day — and my wife follows golf casually, but she’s not super-into it. I told her that I had a take; I told her, “I think J.T. might win 25 times in the next decade.” And she was like, “Did you — did you say that publicly?” And I was like, “Yeah, I said it on a podcast!” And she said, “Look, you’ve had some stuff that people have framed badly for you, but that one’s on you.”
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LYING FOUR: What’s the state of the union for sports media right now, and for golf media in particular?
KYLE PORTER: The first thing that I think of — and I’ve talked to D.J. Piehowski about this — it seems like there’s a bubble. There’s a lot of content; there’s a lot of outlets; there’s a lot of people. And I do wonder what it looks like in 10 years. I don’t know how this is gonna play out — but to me, 10 or 15 years from now, there are fewer outlets and fewer people, but I think maybe they’re better. It feels like we’re in the middle of this thing where there’s so much stuff, and yet the revenue that’s able to be generated is obviously on a downward trend. I think think you’re starting to see this with the pandemic a little bit: stuff gets eliminated over time, and the pandemic has sped that up. I think when we’re sitting here 10 years from now, there are just fewer places. And I hope I’m at one of those places — I’ve tried to align myself with those places — or as one of those people that’s able to be in the top tier that’s covering a sport. But I do think that’s gonna happen.
LYING FOUR: How has the way you do your job changed since you started in 2013?
KYLE PORTER: The biggest change is that when I started, it was, “Hey, do five or seven blog posts a day” — kind of like the early Deadspin stuff, right? I always read about Will Leitch doing 20 posts a day, and I think, “How did you not die? That’s insane.” But it’s flipped a little. We do so much more video work and podcast work now. And that’s fun. My love will always be, “Hey, give me 1,400 words on Spieth’s third round at the Open.” My passion is words, and writing them. I love reading. And that’s the thing that I always go back to. But the podcast and video stuff is fun. I mean, I’m gonna get off this call and do a 30-minute video that’s gonna be on CBS Sports HQ, which you can watch on your TV or your computer. And that’s kind of crazy. I’m sitting in my shed in my backyard, and somebody in Japan can theoretically watch me talk about Tiger Woods. There’s certainly accountability there; I want to be good at this, if it’s going out to people who can watch it.
LYING FOUR: That requires such a diversity of skillsets. When I was in journalism school 20 years ago, it was all about writing, writing, writing. Now, for a 20-year-old kid who wants to get into sports journalism, I wonder if the most important skill is just being able to learn new tricks.
KYLE PORTER: For sure, and I think there’s two different things here. One, can you be good on camera? Can you hit the beats on a podcast? But the other thing is, what’s the thing about journalism? You want to have little nuggets, whether it’s a one-liner or a piece of information, and those can still apply to a podcast, video, or article. That part doesn’t really change. I often will say something on CBS Sports HQ and think, “Hmm, that was a pretty good line,” and then use it in an article later that day. That’s the thing that doesn’t change, but it does get applied differently, and you do have to be more self-aware of how you’re using your words, and how other people are receiving them on a variety of platforms. That’s the part that’s changed quite a bit.
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LYING FOUR: Who do you pull for the most on the PGA Tour? Is it still Rory?
KYLE PORTER: Yeah, it’s Rory. I really struggle with this — I think it’s dangerous to get into this, “Oh, he’s a great guy”-type thing. We did that with Tiger in the early 2000s. We’ve done that with lots of athletes over the years, and it usually doesn’t end well. So I’ll say this about Rory: regardless of whether you think he’s a great dude or not a great dude, he’s the person that I most enjoy listening to. He’s the person that I most enjoy watching talk and think. I think you can do that without getting into the “he’s a nice guy” thing. But to say he’s self-aware — that’s more objective. And also, I love watching his swing. It’s unbelievable. And you marry those two things: how fun he is to watch talk, and how fun he is to watch play. He’s an easy person to root for and enjoy.
LYING FOUR: I don’t know if this is unique to golf, but golf is at least different from other areas of journalism in that every person reporting on golf has his or her favorites. How do you reconcile that with the traditional concept of neutrality in journalism? Is golf reporting just different?
KYLE PORTER: In high school and college years, I would always listen to the Dan Patrick Show on ESPN. And he would always say, “You have to be objective. You can’t root, you can’t root.” And it always seemed disingenuous to me, because even if that’s the rule, you’re still rooting. Nobody doesn’t root; nobody doesn’t have favorites. So you might as well put your cards on the table and be like, “These are my favorites.” It’s almost like a disclosure: “These are my guys, and I want you to view everything I do or write through that prism, just so you know up front.” I feel like most people in the No Laying Up-type era are up front about that. And I’m gonna try to be objective and do my best, but I feel like it’s fair for you to know that up front.
LYING FOUR: How has COVID changed the way you cover golf? And do you think any of those changes are permanent?
KYLE PORTER: It hasn’t changed a lot for me, and this is where I think it’s been a benefit to someone like me. I don’t travel a ton; I’ll go to five or six events a year, the majors, a Ryder Cup, the PGA Show, and I’ll do Golf Channel once or twice a year. For me, the majority of my job is watching golf on TV, writing hopefully funny things about it, getting quotes from interviews on TV. I think older journalists sneer at that, and I get it; there are things to be said about that. If everybody did that, there would be no quotes; there would be no nuggets; there would be no tidbits. But my job is just defined differently than somebody like Doug Ferguson of the Associated Press. And I think that these leagues — and this is not a PGA Tour-specific thing, because you see this in college sports — they pull back access. They don’t want you to have access. They want more control. And what that creates is more value on being funny or having the Twitter-type stuff. COVID’s only exacerbated that: we’re doing these Zoom press conferences because COVID creates less access. For somebody like me, that’s a little bit of an advantage because that’s the world that I was already living in, and now other people are having to be introduced into that world. And not that I’m the best at it or anything, but I think I’m more used to it than a lot of the other people who’ve been introduced to it over the last few months.
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