Rory Wins His 20th PGA Tour Title And Viewers Even Got To See Some Of It!

The CJ Cup relocated to a Fazio built near where Blue Origin lands rockets and despite The Summit offering up his usual insipid design, somehow attracted a stellar leaderboard.

Rickie Fowler wanted back in the winner’s circle but Colin Morikawa and then eventual winner Rory McIlroy passed him down the stretch for his 20th PGA Tour win. And we barely got to see it. At least, by modern golf TV standards.

A predictable confluence of issues arose to deprive American fans of seeing the leaders until their 9th hole when the action started to dull. The PGA Tour Champions’ SAS Championship ran long and then into a sudden death playoff. This cut the first 15 minutes out of the CJ Cup’s three-hour allotted window before Golf Channel tried a split screen that didn’t soothe angry viewers who’d already missed most of the front nine. Soon, the Champions took priority with Bernhard Langer taking his sweet time and Miguel Angel Jimenez trying to pass Lee Janzen. Eventually, the playoff ended, Janzen gave an emotional interview following a winning birdie putt, and those all-important Schwab Cup standings were shown.

The coverage ran 39 minutes late.

What went wrong?

The first groups of the SAS Championship did not tee off until 9:45 am ET, with the leaders going at 11:55 a.m. ET. Apparently the geezers needed their beauty rest?

Also, the Champions played in threesomes. Breaking five hours is out of the question on any tour playing threesomes, meaning the leaders were bound to finish at the CJ Cup’s 5 p.m. ET start. To account for the withering Schwab Cup race pressure and the possibility of a playoff, the Champions should have teed off a least 45 minutes earlier.

Making all of this worse: the Golf Channel app did not work for those attempting to stream the CJ Cup and there is no PGA Tour Live coverage option to run a stream of the coverage. The Comcast-ravaged operation appears to be running out the clock until a new media deal starts in January 2022, one where the PGA Tour takes more control (though they already have a foot in the door when it comes to programming and scheduling, so this weekend’s fiasco is largely a Global Home-based screw-up).

Perhaps in the future the Tour will find a place for this coverage or use other networks when increasingly longer rounds are running into each other? Of course, NBC is also folding their namesake sports channel soon, so that’s one less option. If they care, a major question at this point.

Ultimately this was just bizarre combo platter of bad scheduling, bad tee time math, slow play, a playoff and the leadership worrying about everything but putting out a good product. And boy did they hear about it.

I’ve seen my share of viewer-rage slaughters on social media, and even with most sports fans watching other things Sunday, there was understandable interest in this leaderboard. The rage was intense. But fans need to get used to this. Play not getting any faster as every par-5 is reachable and no one is forced to rush. Coupled with a host network that is just trying to get something on the air and a Tour focused on everything but the way its product looks, this is bound to happen again.

More of the feedback to a pinned PGA Tour Tweet announcing the Sunday start time:

A Fresh Example Of A Ten-Second Rule Violation Unbeknownst To The Broadcast Team

A putt that will leave your head spinning ... especially if you wait until the end. 😵‍💫 pic.twitter.com/PQeoIgfJPv

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) October 17, 2021

Here’s a public service message for those not aware of a rule seemingly known to most with a golf pulse: you cannot let the ball hang on the cup edge for longer than ten seconds in hopes it might fall. This was an easy one but because we’re in a State TV era where it must be positivity all the time, we can’t know for sure what caused the Golf Channel broadcast team to not even suggest a possible rules violation (while fans watching and Tweeting knew it right away—see replies to the video posted above.

To recap: Seonghyeon Kim obviously took way too long with his ball on the 18th hole edge and was penalized one stroke after the CJ Cup final round. On cue, the Tour’s rules staff saw the obvious breach and this news was Tweeted:

pic.twitter.com/IEBa24Pw3T

— PGA TOUR Communications (@PGATOURComms) October 17, 2021

The rule:

They did eventually acknowledge the breach, with Steve Sands suggesting the broadcast team was “worried about the time frame” but that it didn’t seem to be “much of an issue.”

Kim’s ball hung on the edge for 24 seconds.

Phil's Champions Win Edges Out Shriners' Ratings, But No One Was Watching Either One

Showbuzzdaily.com

Maybe you decided to go for a par-5 in two, dunked it in a pond and lost $20. Or you finally figured out you’re paying more for fewer channels after cutting the cord? Or you just feel understandably duped for having bought a $1,000 patio furniture set that’ll sit under a cover for the next seven months?

But know this, as least you aren’t paying millions to broadcast or sponsor PGA Tour fall golf. Or millions upon millions for the FedExCup.

Last week’s ratings for the 2021 Shriners Hospital For Children Open and Furyk and Friends event on the PGA Tour Champions are posted at ShowBuzzDaily.com and what’s the best thing one can say? At least they drew a rating, while the LPGA’s Founders Cup could not draw a large enough audience to be listed.

It was the rare win for PGA Tour Champions golf, with Phil Mickelson’s third victory in four starts drawing an average of 237,000 to the Shriners’ 210,000. Both drew what amounts to a courtesy number of 13,000 in the coveted 18-49 demo, so this was even more Villages-leaning than normal. Essentially, built into that number are the family dog and college freshman home for the weekend who tip-toed out by the TV while Pops was snoozing in a Barcalounger to Sungjae Im’s stirring victory.

The causes of this dire state were predictable, predicated and are no secret except to those whose bonuses depend on pumping out product: schedule oversaturation, Golf Channel reaching fewer and fewer homes, and too many other more compelling things to watch.

(Side note on the whole cable/cordcutting topic: this David Lazarus column in the LA Times highlights won way Spectrum is trying to woo back the cutters and it’s really quite unbelievable!)

In the embed above, other sports ratings were included from the bottom third for context. The 2021 Shriners numbers were also down substantially from last year when the pandemic cancelled college football games and other sports:

Saturation Point? Fall Golf Barely Draws A Rating

I’ve seen golf lose out to pretty much all of Animal Planet’s programming slate and Everybody Loves Raymond reruns before—as happened last weekend—and did not expect any self-respecting American sports fan to tune into the 2021 Sanderson Farms last weekend with so much else to watch. We had the MLB season coming to a close, more great NFL games, and total fatigue having set in on the PGA Tour’s oversaturated “product.”

Still, a .15 and average viewership of 247,000 and only 17,000 in the 18-49 year old, is pretty shocking to see in print given the Sanderson Farms doing 450,000/.29 last year.

Showbuzzdaily has all the numbers here. You’ll have to scroll down to see where golf finished.

This also means the weekend’s European Tour event at St Andrews and the LPGA’s ShopRite did not draw a Golf Channel audience large enough to register a rating.

In 2020 the Sanderson and ShopRite aired on the same weekend and drew much larger audiences:

Bryson Steals The Long Drive (Streaming) Show

Let’s call it the Golf Channel bounce.

In its transition to an all-PGA Tour focus all-the-time, the long drive property built-up by NBC and Golf Channel was abandoned a couple years too soon.

A weird, almost security-camera vibe to the streaming coverage didn’t stop the coveted young demographic from enjoying Bryson DeChambeau’s terrific showing (final eight) in the post-Golf Channel, re-imagined-on-a-shoe-string-budget World Long Drive Championships

Golf.com’s James Colgan covers the backstory of how long drive reached the point and is now resurgent thanks in large part to Bryson DeChambeau’s performance this week. Heck, maybe there’s a sports network out there that’ll take a chance on them? Cheap content!

When you have drama like this, who wouldn’t want to put this on TV:

incredible sequence https://t.co/7PoPdD7OEn pic.twitter.com/BepiUugq2q

— Brendan Porath (@BrendanPorath) October 2, 2021

Long Overdue Concession To The NFL: PGA Tour To Finish Saturday Before NFC/AFC Championship Sunday

The PGA Tour, Farmers and CBS have wisely decided not to fight the behemoth that is the NFL, moving up the Farmers Insurance Open to a Saturday finish. In previous years the NFC and AFC Championship games finished the Sunday of the Hope/Clinton/Phil/Chrysler/Humana/Careerbuilder/AmEx. In one of the many mysteries to rule the day in Ponte Vedra, that event stubbornly stuck to its Sunday finish and rarely saw much of a final round audience.

With the NFL’s expanded schedule for 2020-21, the Championship games have been pushed into Farmers weekend, the traditional start of CBS’s broadcast schedule.

The full press release and note the initials NFL never appear:

2022 Farmers Insurance Open® will feature Saturday finish on CBS

CBS Sports’ 2022 kickoff event to run Wednesday-Saturday including evening finish

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA, AND SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – The PGA TOUR and Farmers Insurance® – title sponsor of the Farmers Insurance Open since 2010 – announced that the Farmers Insurance Open will shift its tournament competition days to Wednesday-Saturday – January 26-29, 2022 – at Torrey Pines Golf Course. With a crowded sports weekend, the PGA TOUR, CBS, Farmers Insurance and the Century Club are excited to shift to a Saturday final round that will result in a Friday and Saturday evening viewing on the East Coast with finish times of 8 p.m. ET both days on CBS.

Golf Channel will carry the opening two rounds on Wednesday and Thursday (January 26-27). The final two rounds will be played Friday and Saturday (January 28-29), with more than six hours of coverage on CBS. Lead-in coverage on Friday and Saturday will be broadcast by Golf Channel.

Additionally, the diversity-focused Advocates Pro Golf Association Tour’s (APGA) Farmers Insurance® Invitational, now in its third consecutive year playing, will expand to two rounds, with round one being played on Saturday, January 29, on the North Course at Torrey Pines Golf Course. The final round will be held Sunday, January 30, on the South Course and will be broadcast live on Golf Channel, marking the first time an APGA Tour event will be televised. 

“We appreciate Farmers Insurance’s collaboration and innovative thinking with this shift in competition days,” said PGA TOUR President and EVP Tyler Dennis. “The PGA TOUR’s first network event of 2022 wrapping up on Saturday combined with football games the following day will create an action-packed weekend for sports fans. Farmers Insurance has also shown extraordinary commitment to diversity in our game, and we are thrilled with the expansion of the APGA Farmers Insurance Invitational which will include Golf Channel coverage of the final round.”

As a California-based organization, Farmers Insurance initially committed to sponsor the 2010 tournament just 10 days before the opening round and just months after arriving in the San Diego community in response to devastating wildfires.  Nearly a decade later, disaster resilience continues to be an important component of the business and community efforts of Farmers®, while the focus on diversity and inclusion has grown. 

“Over the course of more than 10 years serving as the Farmers Insurance Open’s title sponsor, the Farmers team has worked with the Century Club and PGA TOUR to evolve and grow the tournament’s impact on the game of golf, and in the San Diego community,” said Farmers Chief Marketing Officer Melissa Joye. “As we approach the 2022 event, we’re proud to continue our sponsorship and look forward to hosting the APGA Tour’s first-ever nationally televised event.”

“The teamwork, flexibility and creativity exhibited by the PGA TOUR and Farmers Insurance to adapt the schedule for a Saturday finish was outstanding,” said Dan Weinberg, Executive Vice President, Programming, CBS Sports. “For over a decade the Farmers Insurance Open has launched our season. Thanks to our terrific relationships, our viewers are in for a fantastic sports weekend on CBS with golf, football and college basketball.” 

“There is tremendous interest and momentum on the APGA Tour as we continue our mission to prepare African Americans and other minority golfers to compete and win at the highest level of professional golf,” said APGA Tour CEO Ken Bentley. “Farmers Insurance has been a founding and consistent supporter of our efforts for several years. The opportunities, connections and exposure that we already received through the Farmers Insurance Invitational being held the same week at the same venue as the PGA TOUR were already tremendous for the development of our Tour and our players. With today’s announcement of a 36-hole event with a final round on Torrey Pines’ South Course that includes our first live broadcast on the Golf Channel, we couldn’t be more thankful and grateful for the effort and support from the Farmers team, the Century Club, the PGA TOUR and Golf Channel. The Farmers Insurance Invitational will be a fantastic showcase of the talented players on the APGA Tour and their stories of perseverance and determination.”  

“We’re proud to present the first-ever national telecast of an Advocates Pro Golf Association Tour event with the Farmers Insurance® Invitational next January on GOLF Channel,” said Tom Knapp, EVP, Partnerships and Programming, NBC Sports. “NBC Sports and GOLF Channel are committed to growing the game of golf and utilizing our platforms to help the sport become more diverse and inclusive. We’re excited to showcase the competition on the APGA Tour and provide a national platform for the Tour and its players.”

In collaboration with Farmers, the Century Club has contributed more than $15 million to deserving organizations benefiting at-risk youth through the tournament since 2010. Patrick Reed, who claimed a five-stroke victory in 2021 at the Farmers Insurance Open, is expected to defend his title in 2022.

Ryder Cup Ratings Up From 2018, Down From 2016

Television ratings for the 2021 Ryder Cup are in and they’re solid given a number of factors.

• These were the first matches played this century without Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson

• It was Sunday runaway going up against some stellar NFL action

• The Friday to Sunday broadcast windows were all 11, 10 and six hours

• Plenty of cords have been cut since the last domestic playing and almost all ratings are down

Final day audiences increased from the 2018 edition at Le Golf National where Europe won handily.

Sunday’s final day at Whistling Straits drew a 2.14/3.5 million total audience. That’s up from a 1.8/2.67m in 2018 but down from a 2016 final day 2.7/4.27m.

The 2012 final day at Medinah drew a 3.8/5.5 million average viewers) over a similar six hour window as recent Cups.

Showbuzzdaily.com has all the numbers here.

The Friday increase for Friday’s action is solid given the decline in homes reached for Golf Channel compared to five years ago:

Day 1 #RyderCup ratings:

- Most-watched @GolfChannel weekday telecast on record, averaging a Total Audience Delivery of approx. 1.5 million viewers (8:30 a-6:56p ET)

- Viewership up 16% vs. Day 1 in 2016 (last domestic Ryder Cup)

- Peak of 2.1+ million viewers at 6:45 p ET pic.twitter.com/wVMf7jJphy

— Golf Channel PR (@GolfChannelPR) September 25, 2021

Friday in 2018 on Golf Channel averaged 765k viewers but also started at 2 am ET.

In 2016, previously touted as the most watched weekday for Golf Channel, Ryder Cup coverage posted 1.3 million average viewers per minute and a 0.94 rating in 11 hours of coverage, nearly identical to this year’s .93 but can attribute the 16% rise presumably to additional streaming numbers.

Not so hot was Thursday’s Opening Ceremony, which drew a .13 and average of 209,000 viewers. So not far off from a fall PGA Tour final round.

The PGA Tour's 2021 Season Opener Barely Draws A Rating

You want wrap around, something has to pay.

That and some more research is needed to see just how historically awful the PGA Tour’s “Fortinet Championship” ratings were, but as far as season openers go it’s hard to imagine even the old Safeway or fall events of recent years failed to write for three days until a final round .03/330,000 average viewers.

Going against the NFL and it’s incredible season start will always be tough sledding, but to see what people watched in larger numbers than what was an interesting final round won by Max Homa, suggests something deeper going on. Namely, Golf Channel reaching fewer and fewer homes while all but giving up on promoting the “product”.

It’s alarming given the Fortinet was the beginning of the PGA Tour’s new nine year contract with the Comcast owned network.

Showbuzzdaily.com with all the weekend numbers.

Johnny: "Too many announcers want to be friends with their fellow players, even though they’re announcers."

Great stuff top to bottom in part one of Adam Schupak’s conversation with Johnny Miller, but his comments on the state of golf announcing and long broadcast windows is of particular note.

I’m sure sensitive flowers will be put off by the reference to himself as the “one Simon Cowell” in golf, but get past what is essentially true and read the full answer.

GW: Have TV golf announcers gotten too soft? 

JM:  Well, they’ve always been soft. There’s only been one Simon Cowell and you’re looking at him.

This is a really an important thing I’m going to tell you. The greatness of golf – whether you’re a 100 shooter or whatever – is how well you can finish off your milkshake bet or whatever. The greatness of golf is handling your nerves and your choking point and whether you can perform when you need to.

So to ignore that, which has been basically ignored by every golf announcer except for me, and say a guy has swung all over, he’s choking – my very first tournament, Peter Jacobsen has got this downhill lie over water in front of the green, and when you try to hit it over water on a downhill lie, like 15 at Augusta, and you try to hit it high off that downslope, you either hit it thin or fat, that shot. It happened to Seve when he hit it in the drink at the Masters. I said, this is like the perfect situation to choke on.

Now, I didn’t say that Peter would choke on that shot, but no one had ever said choke in the history of golf, OK. Now, I’m not bragging, but that’s the way I viewed the game. It’s how well can you handle the choke factor, and to sort of ignore that because it’s uncomfortable or – you don’t have to say choke, but to not talk about the pressure, that’s why people loved Tiger is because he could actually raise his level to win tournaments. He was the opposite of folding under pressure. He was the best ever at that, better than Jack even.

Fighting words!

Here’s the strongest case made by Miller:

The great champions can lift their game to get the job done or make the great shot, and I was willing to go there. Too many announcers want to be friends with their fellow players, even though they’re announcers. I don’t know, they just don’t talk about it.

The people are starving for the truth. They’re starving to know what’s really happening. But you can’t just say a guy is choking. You have to say the guy has played fades all week long, now all of a sudden he’s hitting hooks, you know he might be choking. Or he hasn’t missed a putt inside six feet, now he’s missed three in a row. In other words, you can’t just pick it out of thin air and say the guy is choking. I would never just say it without showing you why it’s choking. It would be unfair to say a guy is choking. A guy who’s never hit a hook and he starts duck hooking it on the last five holes, he might be choking. If you’re hitting shots you’ve never seen before or it’s not you, you’re not handling the pressure. You’re folding.

I don’t know if anybody will go there again. Maybe they don’t need to. But I think it’s part of the greatness of golf how well can you handle pressure.

I was glad to see him not shy away from questioning his longevity in an era of all day broadcasts since it highlights the issue of prioritizing showing a ton of shots over storytelling or drama.

I’d rather be going nowhere fast than somewhere slow. I like to be going fast, so for me to be on the air for the Ryder Cup for 11-12 hours straight was like – that was so not me, I can’t tell you. That’s where golf is going. It’s getting where the hours that they’re demanding to cover and all the coverage, I got out at the right time because that’s just – if they said, come on in and do the last four hours, that would be fine, but I don’t have the patience to – golf has gotten almost crazy compared to what I knew.

When I first started announcing, two-hour coverage was normal. At the Masters, they just used to do the back nine on Sunday, right? Or did they do it on Saturday, too? I guess they did. Yeah, it’s changed so much. But you know, I think it’s good. It’s just not good for me. I probably wouldn’t have lasted 29 years if I had to do that kind of schedule and not only just Saturday and Sunday, but now sometimes you’ve got Thursday and Friday of the events.

Steph Curry To Join Golf Channel's "Live From" As Part Of New High 8-Figure NBC Deal

Variety’s Matt Donnelly reports on Steph Curry’s “sweeping, first-of-its-kind talent deal with Comcast NBCUniversal” that will feature Curry all over NBC and Universal, including next week’s Ryder Cup.

The “high eight-figure” agreement includes Curry’s Unanimous Media and covers all of the conglomerate’s various businesses.

It’s an impressive, if not urgent, move from Comcast NBCU, led by Brian Roberts and Jeff Shell, to secure talent with mass appeal in a landscape littered with blank checks from the streamers. NBCU has always touted its vertical integration program “Symphony,” but the Curry deal looks and feels like an aggressive play to realize the full power of its portfolio.

First up for Curry on the sports side is joining NBC Sports’ Golf Channel for coverage of the ultimate team golf event, the Ryder Cup. He will create original content for the channel’s acclaimed “Live From the Ryder Cup” coverage and GolfPass, which will be featured internationally on Sky Sports.

In the New York Post story there was this B-speak gem:

Aside from the Unanimous deal, Comcast NBCUniversal said its been developing a “symphonic cross-portfolio approach” of entertainment content deals with talent like Meghan Trainor and Miley Cyrus, Seth MacFarlane and Justin Lin.

2021 Tour Championship Ratings Down A Tick And Generally Stink For a $46 Million Investment

I realize that a variety of metrics are used to justify a $46 million payout and the many millions FedEx pays to sponsor the season-long chase. Still, when you look at the 2021 Tour Championship ratings and the zilch-buzz factor in the golf community last weekend, they’ve got to handle a lot of packages to justify the tab.

Amazingly the payout will go up next year. At least the ratings stand a chance of inching up a shade when they aren’t going against Alabama football, as they did this year and prompting Saturday’s meager 1.14/1.85 million viewers.

According to Showbuzzdaily.com, the 2021 final round drew a 2.30/3.97 million for part of the telecast which, for the second year in a year, was broken up in the ratings listing. Presumably the average audience size for the 1:30-6 pm window would drop below a 2 if they tallied the numbers in more traditional fashion. And I’m going to guess that a rating below 2 causes the purple and orange phone to ring in Jay Monahan’s office.

Sunday’s first ninety minutes drew a 1.36 with only U.S. Open tennis and the Solheim Cup as early sports viewing competition.

The 2020 Tour Championship finished on Labor Day Monday and drew a 2.42/4.00 million. That telecast’s ratings were also broken up into two numbers to goose the average. The early window drew a 1.51.

As for the far more satisfying Solheim Cup, Saturday’s NBC window drew a .41 and Sunday’s garnered a .59, with an average viewership of 878,000 on NBC. The four-hour Saturday afternoon coverage on Golf Channel drew a .28 and a 432,000 average viewers.

Monday’s singles spread out over a six-hour window on Golf Channel averaged 588,000 viewers.

**Paulsen at Sports Media Watch broke down both the Tour Championship and Solheim Cup ratings and noted this about the PGA Tour’s numbers:

Dating back to the start of July, 16 of 18 PGA Tour windows on broadcast television declined from the last comparable year.

Quadrilateral: Solheim Cup Takeaways

Inverness is a major venue and the Solheim Cup felt big thanks to the players, course and having Judy Rankin back. That all masked another low-budget effort from NBC/Golf Channel and the odd call to not show final day on the big network.

In the latest Quadrilateral, I cover the course and the brouhaha that is festering as I type due to fans badgering Nelly Korda online. Amazing how these Amer…oh wait, it’s Europeans? Anyway, a super three days of Solheim golf at a course deserving of more majors. And The Quadrilateral covers majors so subscribe!

Ratings: Playoffs Off To Their Usual Non-Robust Start, '21 Women's Open Up

Sunday’s exciting final round of the 2021 BMW—elevated to the level of all time greatness because that’s the fuel a culture built on narcissism needs—drew pretty much the same rating as last year (2.23 in 2020 to 2.28 in 2021).

The bad news? The audience grew older (gasp!) as the younger set focused on the Little League World Series. But hey, the BMW beat the kids this year!

With the final round drawing a 2.28 to a 1.57 for the LLWS—take that you little wannabes—we’ll ignore that the baseball ended long before the BMW’s Cantlay-DeChambeau six-hole playoff. One mostly played on the 18th hole where, incidentally, they didn’t have a shot tracer and it kind of stood out given the prevalence of a really fake creek players tried to avoid. Live drone shots would have been stellar with the huge and loud stadium setting on 18, but maybe BMW needs to make one first, then provide it free?

Anyway, the 2021 sports weekend numbers from ShowBuzzDaily.com and the 2020 ratings by comparison:

2020 Northern Trust and Women’s Open numbers:

And reminder 4,934 that the PGA Tour and TV networks have jammed majors together in a March-to-July window, all for the Olympics every four years and below average playoff ratings.

R.I.P. Ben Wright

Longtime CBS broadcaster and writer Ben Wright has passed away. Best remembered for his epic calls during several Masters—including the first Yes, Sir!—Wright’s career demise and comments to a reporter ultimately clouded his contributions to the game.

This unbylined obituary reported on a recent fall as the possible cause of his passing and shared this about this life in golf:

Ben Wright grew up 30 miles outside London. His love of golf began when his grandfather gave him a club with a hickory shaft for his 10th birthday. But Wright loved rugby and racing even more. He was an amateur driver until at age 19, crashing so badly in Essex that his face was disfigured and he was unconscious for three days. Medics had to use the handles of teaspoons to "pull the nose out of my face," he says. Not long after, he started covering golf for the Financial Times. That's where he stayed for most of his career, doing so well that he was summoned to Bobby Jones' deathbed so the legend could question him about a column he wrote about the slowness of play in the sport.

John Feinstein files this remembrance for GolfDigest.com and it’s largely centered around the career issues he faced after making several shocking remarks to a reporter.

He was a superb, often self-deprecating storyteller, and the truth is I showed up at lunchtime because the food was good and I loved listening to Chirkinian, Will, McCord and Wright tell stories. Sitting among “the boys” at CBS, Ben talked that way at times about women. It was borderline lewd, and in that sense, his remarks to Helmbreck were not out of character. Still, the question I never got to ask was this: Why in the world would you make comments like that to a stranger on or off the record? It made no sense at all.

Back to the great calls, here’s a superb sequence put together by The Masters account of the 1975 Masters when Wright was in the 15th tower:

Here’s the “yes, sir!” call in 1986. All of Wright’s commentary around this is just sensational.

The battle is joined!

There’s life in the old bear yet! And that information will percolate back to Seve Ballesteros…

For whatever reason the embed does not work but just follow the link.

Shock: Golf Ends A Bunch Of Events Around The Same Time, Ratings Stink

Even with the suspense of a Comcast Business Solutions No-Show Top Ten and a six-man playoff, the rain-expedited Wyndham ran on tape for CBS. They barely crested the dreaded 1.0 barrier as viewers rested for week’s Playoffs.

Or maybe the U.S. Amateur syphoned viewers as the Champions Tour played out on Golf Channel, with the Korn Ferry Tour regular season finale looming. A lot of good stuff for August but once again, golf jams most into a Sunday when people are trying to enjoy the outdoors. A Saturday or Monday finish apparently is too much to ask for.

Anyway, nice to see Mitch Metcalf and Showbuzzdaily back so we can see Americans would much rather watch Little League World Series regional games than the PGA Tour or U.S. Amateur. Not that it’ll humble the golfers. Ball goes too far.

It should be noted: Metcalf reports no numbers for Sunday’s U.S. Amateur mutiple-channel switch/infomercials-matter-more fiasco, except for Sunday’s Golf Channel window that managed to sneak out a win over Weather Channel’s Weekend Recharge, the 11 a.m. edition. However, the Am was no match for some NBA summer league games, reruns of awful movies, anything on the Hallmark Channel and a repeat of HLN’s Forensic Files II.