Rick Reilly, we all know who he is and we all used to read his work in the back of Sports Illustrated – although some of the younger golfers on Tour may have no clue who he is because he moved on from that job a long time ago, seems to have gotten either lazy or just plain worse at his so-called job.
On Wednesday, ahead of the Ryder Cup in France, Reilly posed a question to Justin Thomas about his dad being a sports writer. Thomas was, of course, extremely confused as his dad is a PGA Professional and his personal coach and has never been a “sports writer” in his life. The exchange was extremely awkward and made Reilly look like a moron.
However, Reilly’s question was actually a valid question this week because JT’s dad is writing a little diary about the Ryder Cup which you can read here. This is likely what Reilly was referring to.
Where Reilly went wrong was that he just threw out that Mike Thomas was a sports writer and didn’t give JT any context when he clearly had no idea his dad was doing this.
Journalism 101, if the person you’re interviewing doesn’t know what you’re talking about after asking them the first time, point out that “hey, your dad is writing this little diary” and maybe they’ll give you a response instead of laughing at you and making you look like an idiot on world wide television.
