The Golf Watch

What went wrong with CBS' PGA Championship telecast

Non-stop commercials. Calling routine shots "career shots."  Cialis and Flomax.  Teasing Michael Vick on 60 minutes.  Treating the PGA Championship almost like the Buick Open.  That's what was wrong.

For a network with such a talented production crew and one of the best voices in sports, it's a shame CBS couldn't put out a better product for the PGA Championship.  At times, viewers would only get to see three to five shots at a time before another set of commercials.  It was hard to get into a rhythm with the final round because of how off the pacing was.

When Padraig Harrington dropped out, CBS only showed two other golfers.  Henrik Stenson was 3 shots back for the next 2 hours, and we barely even got a glimpse of his round. 

The coverage of the Masters (practically commercial-free), US Open, British Open and even Players Championship excels not for who is behind the mic., but for what they show....golf. 

Glory's last shot?  It's a shame.  It felt like just another Tour stop. 

Y.E. Yang PGA Championship headlines

As we always do, below are some headlines following Y.E. Yang's stunning victory at the PGA Championship.  Enjoy.

 

Y.E. Yang serves up historic PGA win

Ask the likes of Phil Mickelson and Aaron Baddeley what it's like to play in the final group on Sunday at a major championship with Tiger Woods. They'll tell you in a heartbeat: It's not easy.

But Y.E. Yang looked unfazed for 18 holes earlier today at the PGA Championship.  Whether it was the chip-in on 14 or putting out before Woods on 16, Yeng was clearly determined to be the first Asian born player to win a major championship.

Tiger told the media that he thought KJ Choi would be the first Asian to accomplish the feat.  But Yeng was the one who stepped up first.

Yeng will be remembered for years to come as not only a major championship winner, but also as a Tiger tamer. 

PGA overnight ratings drop

Big surprise--without Tiger Woods, the PGA Championship's overnight ratings for Sunday dropped 55% to a 3.0, according to Dick Friedman of golf.com...

Cratering. Devastation. Decimation. Those are a few of the kinder terms to characterize the decline in the PGA Tour's most conspicuous indicators since Tiger Woods underwent season-ending knee surgery just a few days after his epic U.S. Open win in June. In the immediate wake of The Tiger Show at Torrey Pines, the Tour was riding a crest: Its prime-time rating and audience share for NBC's final-round telecast that Sunday (10.0/20) had been even higher than the figures for the competing NBA Finals Game 5 on ABC (9.0/16).

Since then, however, golf's TV ratings have fallen into the abyss. Despite Padraig Harrington's thrilling victory on Sunday at Oakland Hills, the overnight rating for the PGA Championship was 3.0, down 55% from last year's final round at Southern Hills — an event won by (surely you recall) Woods.

Small galleries at PGA

This picture from Yahoo sports (Getty Images) says it all.  The crowds were not terrible yesterday, but certainly not great.  Jonathan Byrd (pictured below) was co-leader at this point and was on the first hole, his tenth.  Note, there is only one fan...

9th hole could raise eyebrows

If there's one hole that could stir some serious debate this week, it might be the 257-yard par-3 9th.  The hole has been lengthened 37 yards, making it so that players will have to hit hybrids and fairway woods.  Though Alex Miceli called it "a great hole" on Golfweek's Tuesday Conversation, Bradley Klein reports in the August 2 issue that the tees have been misaligned to the right.  He adds:

...anything hit askance here leaves a tough recovery to a green that does not hold well given its severe perimeter sloping.

The PGA generously describes the hole on it's website as such:

The green slopes severely from back to front and the contouring is very severe. Both the front left plateau and back right are protected by bunkers and make for difficult hole locations.

And why did the hole have to be lengthened?

(Photo courtesy of PGA.com)

Hazeltine lengthened for PGA

Kent Youngblood of the Star Tribune takes a brief look at some of the changes made to Hazeltine GC in preparation for next year's PGA.  And big shocker: the course has been lengthened...

The most obvious change is the course's length. In the 2002 PGA Rich Beem held off Tiger Woods on a course that measured 7,362 yards. Next August it will go 7,685 -- the longest major ever.

Tees were moved or added to increase yardage on nine of the 18 holes. In most cases the goal was not just to add yardage but to bring bunkers back into play.

Woods' PGA Championship win in '07 brings lower ratings

Although Tiger Woods won this year's PGA Championship at Southern Hills, the ratings on CBS were lower than in 2006 when he won at Medinah.  According to Nielsen, this year's telecast earned a 5.2/13 rating, a drop from last year's 5.9/14 rating.  Interestingly, Woods won by a larger margin in 2006 than he did in 2007. 

McDonald: PGA should dump Tulsa

Golf Publisher Syndications National Golf Editor Tim McDonald writes that if the PGA Championship wants to be included "in the same breath" as the other three major golf tournaments, then it should never come back to Southern Hills in Tulsa because of the heat.  "Walk around the tournament and you see people staggering around like refugees from a great war," writes McDonald.  "The local paper has been running the number of emergency calls for fans with 'heat-related illness.' I've lost track of the count, maybe because I'm so damn hot."  McDonald does compliment Tulsa and writes that he likes the city as a whole.  As for a major championship though, he adds, "the PGA of America has a couple of choices: Either get rid of August and move straight into September, or move the tournament somewhere cooler."

Caddies have a different look at PGA

Due to soaring temperatures at Southern Hills, caddies have a different look at this year's PGA Championship.  Rather than wearing the typical tournament bib, caddies are wearing polo shirts with nothing over them.  Craig Dolch of the Palm Beach Post writes, "As bad as the players have it, consider the caddies who have to lift 40-pound bags during the seven-mile walk up and down the hills."