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In the summer of 2020, amid a renewed nationwide wave of protests against racial injustice and police brutality, we received multiple inquiries from readers about an anti-Black Lives Matter diatribe that Facebook users attributed to the golfer Bubba Watson. The post typically began with the following attribution: This is from Bubba Watson, pro golfer and a stand up guy. Exactly the way I feel today. The message itself was composed of a litany of conservative talking points on the major political and social issues from the summer of 2020: protests against racial injustice and police brutality, the Black Lives Matter movement, the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, state lockdowns, and face-mask policies. The message typically began: Watson's representatives did not respond to our requests for clarification, however, several days after this fact check was originally published, the golfer definitively clarified that he did not write the anti-Black Lives Matter screed. In a July 24, 2020 post on his official Facebook page, Watson wrote: Even before this clarification, the attribution to Watson appeared dubious. In interviews, on his website, and in social media profiles, the golfer had made no visible comments whatsoever on any of the controversies addressed in the Facebook post, and more generally, Watson does not typically comment publicly on political and social controversies. Another sign that the Facebook post did not originate in something Watson said was the fact that the message itself was shared on Facebook for more than two weeks, with no author listed, and his name only began to be attached to it in late June and early July.
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