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Walking the Fairways with CBS Sports Writer Kyle Porter

·51 min·3 clips

Kyle Porter says he has "fallen out of love" with professional golf while falling back in love with playing it.

1. Making Media focuses on CBS sports writer Kyle Porter and his work covering golf since 2012. 2. Host and guest discuss Kyle Porter’s role at CBS and why his outsider path, without journalism school, matters to his voice. 3. The episode asks what golf writing actually involves when a fan imagines "enviable" access but the job is also reporting, travel, and family life. 4. Porter says covering the Masters means running around for quotes instead of "posting up on 16" with a beer. 5. He explains that he does play a lot of golf on the road, but at home he is "grinding out work" and taking care of four kids. 6. Porter says working too closely on Oklahoma State athletics made him fall out of love with that program, which shaped how he thinks about professional golf now. 7. He says the PGA Tour-LIV fight has made him "not loving professional golf as much" in 2024. 8. Porter contrasts that frustration with a stronger love for his own golf game and points to his mother playing in multiple U.S. Women's Amateurs. 9. He compares CBS with No Laying Up and says the organizations are "drastically different" while the actual writing work is closer than outsiders think. 10. Porter says CBS has told him to "do your own thing" while warning him to rein it back in if a tweet or idea goes too far. 11. He recalls asking Jim Nantz a question on a Masters call and hearing Nantz say people often assume they work together more than they do. 12. Porter describes CBS Sports HQ as a free "ESPN news" style product that now connects writers, Jim Nantz, and Trevor Immelman across the CBS system. 13. He argues that independent golf outlets like No Laying Up, The Fried Egg, and The Golfer’s Journal pushed the sport toward more creative storytelling. 14. Porter says his wife told him he does not really "write about golf" so much as write about life through golf. 15. He uses Jordan Spieth at the 2023 Tournament of Champions to argue that the PGA Tour should value social clips and fan interaction more than it does. 16. Porter says a 15-second Spieth video got taken down, which he sees as a philosophical problem for a sport that needs every extra 1,000 or 5,000 fans. 17. The conversation is conversational and reflective, with Porter answering long questions about media, business, and his own habits. 18. The tone stays practical and inside-baseball, with examples from the Masters, the U.S. Open, St. Andrews, and CBS Sports HQ. 19. People interested in golf media, independent publishing, and sports storytelling will get the most from it. 20. Listeners wanting scorelines, tournament previews, or pure golf instruction may skip it.

As heard by us

A sharp look at how a niche sports writer keeps a durable voice.

Kyle Porter’s path through golf media reads less like a tidy career arc and more like a voice finding a place to live. The best part of the conversation is how it ties his CBS work, newsletter, and books to a simple problem: how to stay close to the work you care about without…

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Why you'd press play

You want the business logic behind a golf writer who stayed close to the work.

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