Tiger vs. Phil: 4 hours you’ll never get back
Christine Brennan: Faux golf out of place amid so many meaningful events
Thanksgiving will be upon us before we know it, bringing with it turkey, family, friends, pro football, college football, Black Friday, cold weather, clogged highways and packed airports.
And one more thing: Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson playing golf.
Nothing says the holidays quite like a meaningless $19.99 pay-per-view golf match between two men whose ages add up to 90.
The match, known as “The Match,” will start at 3 p.m. ET Friday, Nov. 23. I’m not planning to watch, and so far, I know no one who is. Someone we
might have thought would be interested, Rory McIlroy, said that he too has other plans.
“Look, if they had done it 15 years ago, it would have been great,” he said Tuesday. “But nowadays, it’s missed the mark a little bit.”
Organizers at Turner Sports likely anticipated critical reactions such as this so they decided to trick up the broadcast in all kinds of ways. Realtime, hole-by-hole statistics will be displayed on the screen to forecast the probability of different outcomes during the match.
Not surprisingly, there will be gambling. As luck would have it, the match is being played on a golf course in Las Vegas. The race and sports books at MGM Resorts will be delivering odds, moneyline and other information about the golfers’ performances, also right there on the screen. Tiger and Phil will make all kinds of side bets on shots and putts, with that money being donated to charity.
Your TV screen will be so full of numbers, facts and information that you might think you’re watching CNBC and forget you’re actually watching golf. Perhaps that’s the point.
And there will be drone coverage! Live, state-of-the-art drone coverage “delivering camera angles that have never been seen before for a live golf event.”
I’m imagining the possibilities: let’s go live to the Tree Cam. How about a Squirrel Cam? Perhaps a Phil’s Wallet Cam, for all the action there?
Tiger, Phil and their caddies will be wearing microphones throughout the match “to capture the strategy and competitive banter that takes place,” according to the event’s press release.
If we were talking about the final round of the Masters or the U.S. Open, I would be hanging on their every word. This being a made-for-TV spectacle that means absolutely nothing, it’s natural to wonder if the dialogue will be entirely spontaneous. Nothing is scripted or planned out in advance, right guys?
No matter how goofy or staged this might be, golf nuts will buy in, and the broadcast certainly could be a success, especially in the demographic that buys big cars, cigars and life insurance. They won’t mind a TV screen reminding them of a financial network as the markets open. With legal sports gambling coming in this country in a big way, and soon, perhaps this is what all golf broadcasts will look like someday. Once Tiger is done, the game will need something to perk up its ratings.
And you know what? If I had to pay to watch two guys play golf, I’d pick these two, even now. Tiger’s comeback at 42 is remarkable, and Phil is Phil, impossible to ignore even at 48. I’m sure they’ll put on a good show.
But in a holiday weekend overflowing with real, meaningful sports events, faux golf is out of place. Look at the trade-off you’ll be making if you watch: while either Tiger or Phil will make $9 million in the winner-take-all match, you’ll give up four hours of your life that you’ll never get back.