SWING & MISS

TV networks expect viewers to spot Tiger flaws on replay

F OR ALL its excesses and absurdities, TV can be too good to us, excessively flatter us. For example, TV thinks that, unlike the best coaches and most advanced technology in the world, we know, at a glance, what is wrong with Tiger Woods’ swing.

Thursday on the Golf Channel, Woods, still spinning his wheels — perhaps it is time he wore his red shirt on Fridays — hooked his tee shot into a tree line.

GC then did what TV has been doing since Woods began to regularly hit bad shots: It showed his swing in slow motion, as if we could see what he is doing wrong, as if we could fix him. Yep, as soon as Woods finished his round, he will sift through his email suggestion box.

“Tiger — Just saw the latest slow-mo replay. Your right elbow continues to fly open, and if you don’t keep your left side still on your takeaway, you’re going to keep hooking your drives. — Purvis Hatton, Jr., Maynard’s Ferry, Tennessee.”

After all, if TV didn’t think we could see what is wrong with his swing, why keep showing us?

Years ago, Bruce Lietzke, a Tour pro known for not playing much but winning plenty, lent his drawl to halting a TV interview to question the usefulness of showing PGA players’ swings in slow motion.

Lietzke claimed that if TV’s expert analysts didn’t already know where the ball went — fairway or creek; if they hadn’t already been staked to the hindsight — they wouldn’t know if the swing produced success or failure.

And, Lietzke continued, if the video was frozen at impact and the experts were left to guess — they often would have guessed wrong.

But if TV wants to continue to think that we can identify the flaw or flaws in Tiger Woods’ swing, keep the slo-mo coming — and thanks for the compliment.

But perhaps it is a matter of mutual flattery. If TV thinks we can fix Tiger’s swing, it also expects us to continue to believe that TV has the uncanny, mystical ability to arrive at the very place on the course just seconds before some- thing noteworthy will occur.

Thursday, GC’s coverage — at all times it read “LIVE” — hadn’t yet shown Brendan Steele, though at 3-under par he was among the leaders. Suddenly, there he was, and about to putt from 18-20 feet.

What a surprise. He holed it to go to 4-under!

Moments later, Justin Rose, 2under and also among the previously missing, suddenly appeared, studying a long eagle putt. Then we heard, “There hasn’t been an eagle on the [par 5] fifth, today.” Rose sank it!

Far more likely, there had been an eagle on the fifth earlier that day — that one. But the GC/CBS crew hadn’t yet shown it, so the announcers had to play as stupid as they consider us.

The “Game of Honor,” the commercial TV version, emitted all sorts of stink Thursday and Friday.

As seen in commercials, Woods, with his expensive Nike signature clubs on the “Discontinued” rack — so what if his endorsements led to the bourgeois spending ridiculous amounts at his perennial urg- ings — has signed with Taylor-Made. He now, ostensibly, will play Taylor Made clubs.

Now look at the first two rounds’ pairings: Taylor Made’s top two, Jason Day and Dustin Johnson, joined by Tiger Woods! As police detectives say, there’s no such thing as a coincidence.

Ah, but the best-made plans ... All three played poorly, and though GC/CBS’s production stubbornly stuck to its strategy to show the trio to the exclusion of others, all missed the cut. The Gong Show.