How CBS Expected Us To Watch Live PGA Tour Golf Sunday And Why This Needs To Be Remedied, Pronto!

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You wake in the east. Maybe it's raining outside. Or, you just don't feel like playing golf.

You are excited about the 2018 Memorial's rare confluence of young guns, old legends, legendary tournament host and a top venue.  The U.S. Open is less than two weeks ago. Golf fan euphoria sets in!

On a scale of 1 to 10 in PGA Tour intrigue, the 2018 Memorial is probably 9.89999, with a tiny deduction because Chief Leatherlips is threatening to mess with all of this fun. After all, tee times are moved up to ensure a Sunday finish.  

So here's how your Sunday went if you wanted to undertake the mission of watching the coverage from start to finish, or just jump in for parts. All times ET.

7:30 am to 8:30 -  PGA Tour Live app

8:30 am to 11 - Golf Channel

11 to 2:30 - PGA Tour Live, CBSSports.com, CBSSports app--for the first time ever BTW, normally CBS would not stream and force us to watch a tape delay

2:30 - 4:00 - CBS comes on at allotted start time, tournament in progress

Instead of accommodating normal viewing sensibilities by providing live coverage over traditional airwaves for PGA Tour golf, CBS chose to put the viewers through the madness of moving between viewing platforms.

Meanwhile, on affiliates through the land, CBS could not interrupt some spectacular content. As the Memorial Presented by Nationwide streamed the following on LA's KCBS: Cindy Crawford's Beauty Secrets, AAA Benefits And Savings, Small Town Big Deal (featuring a Civil War reenactment!) and Relieve Your Foot Pain With WalkFit!

While this was a breakthrough week with CBS choosing to live stream the final round--a policy in place for some time at NBC--the discombobulated schedule did not service the viewer or sponsor Nationwide. 

While 2018 has been a year of progress for CBS. They now stream golf as we await college basketball to end, or when tee times have been moved up, or when a graphics changeover was an excuse to take a half hour off between telecasts. All of this makes today's treatment of a big time event, with a big time sponsor and big time leaderboard, that much more peculiar. 

The PGA Tour is working for three more years with an antiquated contract featuring synergy issues that viewers or sponsors do not care about. We've certainly seen change on a few fronts thanks to viewer complaints, so change is possible. But at some point changes should not be made only because viewers rant and rave. Executives are paid handsomely by these organizations because of an ability (presumably) to solve problems before they surface.  Put yourselves in the viewer's seat and envision ways to better deliver PGA Tour golf when Mother Nature intervenes.

Oh, and all of this was for naught. They had a lovely day in Columbus with no delays. Leatherlips strikes all the way around!