Twitter quitter: Simpson decides to discontinue tweeting

• By Jason Sobel
• Sep 13, 2011 3:01 PM ET

Social media may be the biggest craze today, but at least a few PGA Tour players have chosen to shut down previously active Twitter accounts.

FedEx Cup points leader Webb Simpson revealed on Tuesday that he recently decided to stop tweeting.

“My main reason I signed on was just kind of to read what other people said,” he explained. “I loved hearing what other athletes say or other people I like to follow. But at the same time, getting in contention, I get more followers; I win, I get more followers, and there's a lot of negativity there, people saying really mean things.

“So last week I deleted it on my phone. I still have the account, but it was just kind of - it's hard not to read what people say. Don't get me wrong, 90 percent of the people were very complimentary, but you still have people out there that they want to share their opinion any way possible. I'm signed off currently right now.”

His decision comes on the heels of Sergio Garcia, who also recently cited negative posts as his reason for giving it up.

“The way I am, I can’t handle some guys just busting you all the time,” he said. “So I knew that at some point in time, I was going to explode and start saying things to those guys who are just saying things to kind of get you out of your comfort zone, because they probably don’t have anything better to do. That wasn’t going to help me.”

Lee Westwood threatened to discontinue tweeting earlier this year – and did for a while – but has since picked it back up again.