The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Can laid-back style of ‘The Match’ translate to major golf tourneys?
Even though Tiger Woods was his usual detached self for most of the back nine, the celebrity match that included Phil Mickelson and the two best quarterbacks of our generation was more than the most-watched golf event in the history of cable television. It was also downright entertaining — rain, blurry cameras and all.
Turner’s use of cameras placed in the front and back of each personalized cart, the ability of the players to talk with the studio hosts, particularly with the garrulous Charles Barkley, and the incessant chatter of Mickelson and Peyton Manning proved that golf can be made infinitely appealing on television, even if it is just an exhibition.
The question now is: Can the networks that cover the PGA Tour borrow any of those production elements to liven their broadcasts when real-live tournament play resumes June 11 at the Charles Schwab Challenge?
I doubt it. But they should.
Turner Sports, which televised “The Match: Champions for Charity” at the Medalist Club in Hobe Sound, Fla., said the event attracted an average of 5.8 million viewers across four of its networks, making it the most-watched golf telecast in cable TV history. It not only broke what was said to be the previous record of 4.9 million viewers on ESPN at the 2010 Masters — the year Woods returned to golf for the first time since the scandal in his personal life — it more than doubled the average viewership for the two-team skins game the previous week featuring Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, Rickie Fowler and Matthew Wolff. NBC
Sports said that event attracted 2.35 million viewers across all its formats.
Granted, viewership numbers for tournament golf, especially majors, blow away the numbers posted by Turner Sports. For example, the final round of the 2019 Masters, when Woods won his first major in 11 years and fifth green jacket, had an average of 10.8 million viewers on CBS, including spiking to 12.1 million around the time Woods was finishing Sunday afternoon. A year earlier, the final round of the Masters drew an average of 13 million viewers.
But in these different times with no galleries, CBS and NBC might have to take some different, if not innovative, measures to compensate for the lack of crowd noise at regular PGA Tour events.
OK, they won’t have the use of those customized carts that raced around Medalist as though it were a NASCAR event. And it is unlikely players will be strapped with audio equipment to talk with Jim Nantz and Nick Faldo in the tower (or wherever the lead announcers might be located). Heck, player and caddie don’t like it when their on-course discussions are picked up by boom mics, as if someone is trying to steal KFC’s secret recipe for crispy chicken.
Maybe they should consider using Peyton Manning as an on-course reporter. Or even Barkley. To that point, major kudos to Justin Thomas for trading in his clubs for a microphone and smashing it as a first-time on-course commentator.
Or maybe we should just leave well enough alone and let the players provide the entertainment and excitement. Even if it will be quiet out there on the golf course.
Slow play? What slow play?
One of the benefits of the restrictions placed on courses during the COVID-19 pandemic is that rounds are being played at a much quicker pace. Players riding in single carts and not being allowed to pull the flagstick have not only eliminated five-hour rounds, it has almost made the four-hour round a thing of the past.
Throw in players not having to rake bunkers and 12- to 15-minute starting times designed to prevent backups, and 18-hole rounds are being played in 31⁄2 hours, sometimes even quicker.
The irony here, though, is the improved pace of play comes at a time when players would be glad to spend as much time as possible on the course, particularly after the governor’s two-month stay-athome order.
Nobody probably would have complained if the rounds were lasting five hours.