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Over the weekend, a young golfer made history, becoming the scond youngest Masters winner ever, at 21 years old, behind only Tiger Woods. He also was the first-ever golfer to reach 19 under, but ended up with a bogey on the 18th hole to end up 18 under, which tied the tournament scoring record held by Woods.
So, as it so happens, he became something of a Twitter sensation. Spieth now has 339,000 followers on his official account.
He got a note of congratulations from none other than Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey.
He has had women flinging themselves at him (even though he has a girlfriend)
And one of his own tweets was favorited over 69,000 times!
For a golfer whom I bet the majority of people had not heard of before this weekend, that’s not bad. But how does he compare to other golfers?
Impressively, he now has only 10,000 fewer followers than Sergio Garcia, a much more accomplished golfer, and who has won over 20 international tournaments, including The Players Championship in 2008. He has 349,000 followers on his account.
Phil Mickelson, who I would have said was the second most famous golfer in the country, has a pretty paltry following on Twitter, with only 74,000 followers.
To be sure, Twitter is a relatively new phenomenon (9 years old). Mickelson is 44 years old, and won his first Masters in 2004, and then the PGA Championship in 2005 when Twitter wasn’t around. Anyone who’s made their name before Twitter wouldn’t necessarily have a following, because back then, Twitter wasn’t the way to collect fans. Today’s stars will attract a much larger Twitter fan base faster, only because the public expects them to have it.
And what about that most famous golfer in the world – Tiger Woods? The one who, for a couple of decades, was the best at his sport? He blows them all away with 4.36 million followers on Twitter. I have to wonder, though, how many of those people are golf fans, and how many of them are only sitting around waiting for his personal life to blow up again.
Despite being the top golfer on Twitter, Woods’ number of followers still pales in comparison to numerous other athletes.
Soccer star Christiano Ronaldo, for example, has nearly 35 million followers. That’s not surprising given how fantastic the rest of the world, outside of the United States, is about that sport. Tennis champion Rafael Nadal has 7.75 million.
When I did the Twitter Superbowl earlier this year, I found that even some of the most famous NFL players only have around one million followers. Baseball players, who have long been some of the most recognizable sports stars, don’t do that well either. Alex Rodriguez has just 117,000 followers; then again, he hasn’t tweeted since July of 2014. I wonder why that might be…
Albert Pujols has 150,000 followers, Clayton Kershaw has 250,000, and David Ortiz has 817,000.
It is there is one sport that dominates above all others on Twitter, is is basketball. The NBA that seems to have cornered the market. LeBron James, meanwhile, has over 20 million and tennis champion Rafael Nadal has 7.75 million. Kobe Bryant has 6.48 million, Shaquille O’Neal has 9.67 million (that’s gotta burn Kobe!) and Carmelo Anthony has 6.49 million.
You know who Woods does beat? Disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, who has 3.84 million followers and still identifies himself as “7 X TdF champ.”
Sure you were, buddy. Sure you were.
(Image source: betcheslovethis.com)
