Tough Love: Today's 59 Scare & Q-School's Demise

I heard from very angry folks today and saw some of the Twitter backlash about the sheer horror of Golf Channel not broadcasting every moment of the Mickelson-Scott-Woods first-round pairing at the Deutsche Bank Championship.

In a nutshell: we've become spoiled. But in the bigger scheme of things, you need to direct your anger toward the PGA Tour for cluttering the schedule with the Web.com Tour finals.

Sure, it would have been nice to have full Mickelson-Scott-Woods coverage from the moment they got out of bed until they signed their cards. And Golf Channel called a tremendous audible by picking up bonus #59watch coverage instead of showing the Web.com Tour Finals from Indiana. (Even though it meant lopping off 30 minutes of the scheduled broadcast.)

But how difficult is it to understand that broadcast schedules are made in advance and Golf Channel has a stacked lineup this week (including an amazing 15-straight hours of live golf coverage Sunday)? And because we've become spoiled, it's easy to forget that televising golf is a massive undertaking. There are just so many hours in the day that a production team can be going full bore.

Then there is the obligation to cover the Web.com finals.

Longtime readers know that I've not been a fan of "calendar-year" schedule concept and creating the Web.com Tour finals in lieu of Q-School. The litany of sound reasons to have kept the prior setup can be rattled off at another time, but let's take note of what's going on today. The lack of attention or interest in those Web.com Tour Finals--how many even knew they were taking place?--is already apparent as the finals try to go up against a PGA Tour playoff event loaded with a super field on TV-friendly courses.

Could there have been a more cringe-worthy moment than Golf Channel signing off from their bonus coverage showing huge galleries and big stars to an empty golf course in Indiana?

So if you are outraged about only three hours of Deutsche Bank Championship coverage today--deep breaths first--direct your ire at those who have made the PGA Tour a year-round schedule, necessitating the end of Q-School and the ushering in of the ill-timed Web.com Tour finals that are clogging up an already full television schedule.