"It’s serious enough that it scared me pretty well."

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As someone who recently had something removed that was less serious than Rory Sabbatini's skin cancer, I think it's great to see him using the situation to spread the gospel and perhaps starting a foundation to help the less fortunate. Oh, and he has a five shot lead going into Sunday's Honda finale, reports Larry Dorman:
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"I blame the top players, and you know who I mean."

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Ron Sirak on Nick Price's tough words regarding the potential demise of the Heritage Classic following his Honda Classic second round.

"It's sad, really sad." Price said. "That's one of our great tournaments. And it's one of the great courses of all time we play on our tour." Indeed, since Arnold Palmer won the inaugural Heritage in 1969, the tartan jacket has been put on by Johnny Miller, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Nick Faldo, Bernhard Langer, Davis Love III, Greg Norman and Price in 1997.

"When I won there I was really on top of my game," Price said, "and I used every club in the bag. A lot of the golf holes today are taking strategy out of the game. You have that at Harbour Town. I really hope something can be done to save that tournament."

The Bear Trap Keeps The Slow Play Spotlight Shining!

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Even with turtles Crane, Holmes and Cink having WD'd from the Honda Classic, Thursday's winds and the atrocity that is PGA National conspired to give birth to 5 1/2 hour rounds in the morning and I believe, even a longer rounds in the afternoon. Play was halted at 6:25 with several groups still on the course.

Steve Elling writes:

In a steady 30 mph breeze, the scoring average through the partially completed opening round was 73.826 for the field, or a staggering 3.83 strokes over par, which is rarefied air indeed in PGA Tour circles.

The highest scoring at any tour-sanctioned event in 2010 came at the difficult U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, where players averaged 3.98 strokes over par for the week.

"It's U.S. Open-like conditions out there," said Nick Price, a three-time major winner, after shooting 70 on Thursday.

In tough conditions like today I find the pace less offensive. It's the 5 to 5 1/2 hour rounds when the weather is good that really speak to what a blight this has become.

S.C. State Legislature Revisiting State Sponsorship Of Heritage Classic

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Josh McCann reports that the bill from last year to get taxpayer money to fund the Heritage Classic purse is back, with a caveat. State legislature Rep. Bill Herbkersman is the sponsor. Thanks to reader Jonathan for this:

For now, though, the bill offers no specific proposals; it merely summarizes the economic impact of Hilton Head Island's PGA Tour event, Herbkersman said.

The details would be added later if the tournament does not secure a new sponsor, he said.
He said the bill will provide a way to discuss the tournament with colleagues so they can swiftly act if necessary.

"It will give us an opportunity to talk about the ramifications, the financial impact on the state and what would happen if we didn't have" the tournament, Herbkersman said.

Match Play Ratings Soar: It's The Synergistic Cross-Channel Prioritization!

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For Immediate Release...

NEW YORK – March 1, 2011 – NBC Sports and Golf Channel generated significant viewership increases for the combined 28 hours of live coverage (55 hours total coverage) of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship Wednesday through Sunday.  With Tiger Woods eliminated on Wednesday and Phil Mickelson eliminated on Thursday,

...hint, hint, that used to spell doom...

and with England’s Luke Donald defeating Germany’s Martin Kaymer in Sunday’s final,

...two really nice but boring guys...

Golf Channel’s three-day average viewership was up 84 percent from last year while viewership for “Golf Channel on NBC” coverage rose 71 percent.

Golf Channel’s strong viewership for the WGC-Accenture helped propel the network to its second most-watched February ever (15.3 million unique viewers). Through the first eight weeks of the 2011 season, viewership of the PGA TOUR on Golf Channel is up 59 percent over last year.

Get ready, it must be the horrible winter rebranding!

“GOLF CHANNEL ON NBC” VIEWERSHIP:  The weekend coverage on NBC (2-6 p.m. Saturday, 2-7 p.m. Sunday), which has been rebranded as “Golf Channel on NBC,” averaged 2.5 million viewers, a gain of 71 percent from last year’s 1.5 million viewers on CBS, and the most-watched since 2008 when Tiger Woods won the event, defeating Stewart Cink.
 
GOLF CHANNEL VIEWERSHIP: Golf Channel’s early round coverage of the WGC-Accenture started Wednesday with its best day overall since 2009’s President’s Cup coverage and continued on Friday with its most-watched early round without Tiger Woods since THE PLAYERS in May 2008.

Whoa, let's try that again. Most watched since '09 Presidents Cup and most watched minus-Tiger round since '08 Players.

Highlights include:
 
·        Three-day average viewership up 84 percent over 2010 (771,000 vs. 419,000)
·        Wednesday’s Day 1 up 86 percent over 2010 (712,000 vs. 318,000).

Now that's impressive! Thank God we only have match play once a year.

·        Thursday’s Day 2 up 95 percent over 2010 (768,000 vs. 393,000).

That's even more impressive considering you-know-who was eliminated.

·        Friday’s Day 3 up 83 percent over 2010 (890,000 vs. 486,000).

Now this is getting silly. So glad we have put the kibosh on more match play. It's so unfair...and so ratings friendly!

·        Saturday’s earlier-than-scheduled, five-hour coverage of the quarterfinal match that concluded on NBC was up 71% over 2010 (562,000 vs. 328,000).
 
State of the Game Live, a Golf Central special that featured a panel of golf’s most-respected voices from NBC Sports and Golf Channel, including Johnny Miller and Nick Faldo discussing the most pressing issues in the sport, doubled Golf Channel’s year-to-date prime-time average for non-PGA TOUR programming.

Okay so it wasn't entirely an across-the-board ratings slam dunk.

CROSS-CHANNEL PRIORITY: The WGC-Accenture on Golf Channel and NBC was identified by NBCUniversal’s Marketing Council as a cross-channel priority.

So is that when they make sure you show the highlights on the local news and in general, place promotion over actual news as the priority? You know, like when my local NBC station opens with a story about Charlie Sheen's interview on Today...tomorrow?

It received extensive promotion across NBC Universal’s 20 channels and more than 40 websites. The WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship marked the first shared coverage for NBC Sports and Golf Channel since both organizations became members of the NBC Sports Group on Jan. 28 when the Comcast-NBC Universal transaction was completed.

It's not match play, it's the co-branding!

GOLF CHANNEL AND NBC SPORTS CO-BRANDING: All golf coverage on NBC has been re-branded as “Golf Channel on NBC.”

Yes, we noticed. Over and over again.

Be careful Golf Channel On NBC Powered By Jack Donaghy, you keep up these ratings home runs and the Commish is going to be asking you to write a big fat check this fall!

"America needs to wake up to match play. I used to think baseball was boring until I realized how much is actually going on out there. It's the same with match-play golf."

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The latest pond scrum between Steve Elling and John Huggan features an interesting dicussion about the unusual role Fanny Sunesson is playing as a looper and also now and sporting an instructor badge as Martin Kaymer's Deepak Chopra.
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Donald Wins Golf's Fifth Major!

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Yep, this week was that good in terms of quality play, compelling match-ups and result. The new world No. 1 lost to a consistent, if sometimes frustratingly talented Englishman. But Donald played superior golf all five days, eliminating the supposed fluky nature of running into a buzzsaw. (And it's worth noting that the other two semi-finalists have been playing at an elite level over the last year.)

Sure, the course is dreadful in terms of producing atmosphere and risk-reward situations, but it's not so horrid that it gets in the way of quality play.

From a fan's perspective, the match play has never been better. In terms of daily must-see golf with an interactive twist for fans (nice going Golfweek!), every day was must-see TV. It didn't hurt that there was a fun mix of storylines and a little controversy. Shoot, the match play is my fifth major! Check that, the PGA Championship is in serious decline. The match play's better!

More importantly, how did you do in your Golfweek bracket? I had Kaymer, but my dismal early week performance would not have been enough to overcome had he won.

It's A Scarf, It's A Keffiyah, It's A Snood: New World No. 1's Neckware Generates Much Needed Semantics Debate

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I would have though Marty Hackel's pronouncement of scarf would have made this established case law, but apparently there is still some question about what to call new world No. 1 Martin Kaymer's neck embellishment during Saturday's match play.
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Cary Grant Estate Calls: Martin, We Want Our Scarf Back!**

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You have to admire the bold fashion move by Martin Kaymer, especially since he has been vehemently opposed to stripes, patterns or anything else that a good anal-retentive German would oppose.

Still, it was a shock to see his cold weather, uh, accoutrement, during Saturday's match play. Maybe a gift from his recent Middle East appearances?

In case you were wondering, Kaymer got a thumb's up from Golf Digest fashion man Marty Hackel: