Thomas's 59 Highlights PGA Tour's Digital Conundrum

PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan highlighted digital as a big part of his focus and has expressed a desire for the PGA Tour to obtain ownership or partial ownership of the channel showing his tour product.

This has prompted the PGA Tour to create PGA Tour Live to show pre-Golf Channel coverage and to establish another option for showing golf, with the long term goal of possibly becoming home to Thursday and Friday coverage once the current Golf Channel deal expires (2021).

But when Justin Thomas teed off early and posted a Sony Open 59 Thursday, he exposed several weaknesses in the PGA Tour approach to digital, starting with PGA Tour Live sitting out the two Hawaii events, presumably due to cost. This isn't surprising given the expense of doing golf in Hawaii and the tour's propensity for saving a buck, as evidenced by PGA Tour-managed events ending spectator access to practice round days.

Golf Channel, set to start Sony coverage at 6 pm ET, did pick up the last two holes of Thomas's 59 more than one hour before scheduled sign-on time. Yet the PGA Tour directed fans to Facebook Live where the 8th 59 in tour history was seen through the cell phone camera of PGATour.com's Ben Everill (who, btw, did an excellent job analyzing the scene).

However, this is not exactly the most scintillating way to see a 59:

Would the PGA Tour's new Twitter streaming deal have helped? Nope. It's merely a way to preview PGA Tour Live coverage in the weeks PGA Tour Live is covering golf.

In the case of Thomas's 59, had the PGA Tour linked to Golf Channel's Golf Live Extra, fans would have been asked to log in via their cable provider. Sorry cord cutters!

Yet given the lack of PGA Tour Live presence this week, the PGA Tour should have worked out something to provide fans with a better view. 

According to the PGA Tour's Ty Votaw, the issue was contractual, requiring all viewing to go through Golf Channel's Golf Live Extra. Yet the tour directed fans to a PGATour.com reporter's cell phone video at Facebook Live, with no social link for Golf Channel cable viewers. By having PGA Tour social accounts not promote the Golf Channel's online streaming of the last two holes, it's been made clear the partners are not working together, even in a non-PGA Tour Live week.

This will not be the last time fans are caught in the middle of leveraging tension between the tour and Golf Channel.