Twitter gives fans, bloggers, and PGA Tour stars a chance to connect in ways that are completely unprecedented in the history of the game. This medium offers tremendous benefits to fans and players alike (not to mention makes watching tournaments infinitely more fun), but there’s obviously some downside as well. This week has given us two feuds between some of the more colorful personalities in the golf twitterverse – I figured this was RIPE for a hosel rocket (hot, utterly forgettable miscellaneous takes). Let’s go to the mats!
@IanJamesPoulter vs. @ThreeGuysGolf
Poulter floated this tweet on Monday, which appears to be basically unprovoked:
I give people a look into my world & so many people don't like it & give me shit. If you don't like it click unfollow it works perfectly.
— Ian Poulter (@IanJamesPoulter) May 6, 2014
Poulter has 1.6 million followers. He’s also (biting my tongue here) an extremely “polarizing” personality. Someone who spends as much time as him on twitter should be familiar with the haters, especially because he brings a lot of it on himself, mainly with tweets like these:
Time for the @rollsroyce Ghost to go. Not driving it at all. Might get the @BentleyMotors Mulsanne after the summer. pic.twitter.com/kXfTjrgaJM
— Ian Poulter (@IanJamesPoulter) May 2, 2014
Cool man. You’re rich, we get it. Our friend Adam Staelin from Three Guys Golf was not impressed, and responded to original tweet at the top (where Poulter whined about the haters) with this response, to which Poulter fired back:
It was all given as well. Block@threeguysgolf saw you in feherty and was a fan. Your inside look has made you look like a spoiled rich kid
— Ian Poulter (@IanJamesPoulter) May 6, 2014
Nowhere in Adam’s tweet did he say that all of his talent was given to him, nor that he did not earn all of his money. He just said he acted spoiled (which is accurate, if you ask me). Not only did he pull the classic “I’m going to block you” tweet, he didn’t even block him! Adam’s response, along with another Poulter follow up are below:
Obviously I should give it all away to stay unique & good then @threeguysgolf, Don't hate just because I won the lottery. #Muppet
— Ian Poulter (@IanJamesPoulter) May 6, 2014
What? I’m honestly having trouble keeping up with Ian’s logic. No one is saying to give away your wealth. He’s saying don’t be a tool and brag about how much money you have on twitter. But Poulter just continues to show his true colors:
If you won the lottery would you buy a new house & a nice new car & go on nice holidays? I thought so….. @threeguysgolf #Hypocrite
— Ian Poulter (@IanJamesPoulter) May 6, 2014
Again, what? No one is saying you can’t have nice cars, Ian. We’re saying it’s unbecoming to brag about it on twitter, and to put down your followers, 99.9% of which are not as wealthy as you. We’re not done:
I guess you don't need to with so few followers. Fans choose to follow.@threeguysgolf but I would not brag about it. #thatsthedifference”
— Ian Poulter (@IanJamesPoulter) May 6, 2014
You know you’re getting schooled in a twitter debate when you have to pull out the follower count line. This is how Ian pictured the reaction to that “burn”:
Here’s the actual reaction:
Decision: If we’re scoring this fight, we’re going to stick up for our fellow blogger. Everything he said was solid, accurate, and he expressed his opinions in a respectful way. Poulter acted like a child, fake blocked him, then tried to burn him on his twitter follower count. Weak.
People love bragging on social media. Everybody does it whether they mean to or not (the golf media is especially fond of the humblebrag), and we at NLU do it on our twitter account all the time. But if you’re going to brag, you do so with the understanding that some are going to take exception, especially when you’re Ian Poulter and have an outsized reputation as it is. Not surprisingly, this is hardly the first time Poulter has gotten fired up on twitter – quick google search for “Ian Poulter twitter rant” returns 14,000 results. After nearly 16,000 tweets, I had hopes that his comebacks would have been stronger and wittier.
@Keegan_Bradley vs. @ghostofhogan:
For the main event we head over to a matchup between GhostOfHogan and Keegan Bradley. GhostOfHogan (Paul Regali) is well known on the twitter circuit for his bold opinions, lack of filter, and propensity for chumming the waters to elicit strong reactions. Meanwhile, with the Bruins in the thick of their NHL playoff run, Keegan’s account is filled mostly with Boston sports homerism (which is fine, he’s a big fan). This feud all started with a tweet that you would expect to read from Ghost:
http://twitter.com/ghostofhogan/status/463676227979472897
Keegan was either fed up with Ghost blowing up his timeline (a quick snapbird.org search shows that Ghost has mentioned Keegan 38 times on twitter since September 1, 2013, and Keegan had not mentioned Ghost once since asking who he was back in July). Here were Bradley’s two responses:
.@ghostofhogan asking me to write back to u on twitter? #getalife
— Keegan Bradley (@Keegan_Bradley) May 6, 2014
And just like that, it got weird! By putting the period before Ghost’s handle, both of these tweets went public to all 300,000 of Bradley’s twitter followers. It was right about this time, that I started doing this:
Just wait, it gets better:
http://twitter.com/ghostofhogan/status/463782396576272385
http://twitter.com/ghostofhogan/status/463782617632878592
Wait what? Why would Keegan lie (and publicly) about that? We’re not done:
http://twitter.com/ghostofhogan/status/463804340830875649
http://twitter.com/ghostofhogan/status/463808092539338752
Lawyers? About a tweet!?!? Not done….
http://twitter.com/ghostofhogan/status/463813577652981762
http://twitter.com/ghostofhogan/status/463815560107528192
http://twitter.com/ghostofhogan/status/463815861887709185
There has been no response from Keegan, but his best friend, Jon Curran, also chimed in:
@ghostofhogan @Keegan_Bradley paul I remember "the letter". Almost called the cops it was so weird.
— Jon Curran (@JonCurranGolf) May 7, 2014
Decision: I have no idea how to score this one. Why would Keegan lie about that? Does he really have the wrong guy? Why hasn’t he responded any further? Is Ghost seriously going to take legal action!? We’re going to have to wait and see what is actually going on here. I’m doubting we actually get a resolution, but regardless, I’ll be standing by with my popcorn. If Keegan gets sued, I suggest he goes this route: