Sizing up the television coverage from the Farmers Insurance Open …
Tiger Woods has been known to drop
the occasional F-bomb on national television. So when he dropped one
after a wayward tee-shot on Thursday, you expected Golf Channel’s
production crew to clean up the word.
If only we were so lucky. The network
decided to let the word go, allowing viewers at home to hear the F-bomb
in all its glory.
But wait, there’s more! Instead of
letting the moment disappear, they ran the F-bomb again during a Tiger
Woods post-round highlight package. It forced Nick Faldo to warn parents
at home to covers their kid’s ears. Except he offered the warning
after the highlight had passed.
There’s no excuse for that kind of
garbage. As a major sports network, the Golf Channel needs to be mindful
of who’s watching at home. If you can’t catch the F-bomb the first
time around, at least clean it up for the highlight package.
Thanks a lot, CBS
CBS has a knack for going off air during
the middle of a critical moment in the tournament. They did it again
on Saturday as Bill Haas was lining up a crucial putt at the end of
his round.
Instead of getting to see the putt,
most viewers were forced to watch the The Best of Dean Martin Variety
Show infomercial. I wish I were joking.
CBS’s affinity for closing their
golf coverage early is becoming tiresome. They did the same thing on
multiple occasions last season, moving away from the tournament for
worthless shows that weren’t the least bit important.
To add fuel to the fire, CBS decided
to let the Minnesota/Purdue basketball game — a game that ran prior
to Sunday’s final round — run over its allotted time slot.
No biggie. But instead of going straight
to golf coverage, they spent the next ten minutes showing a
postgame show and commercials.
What’s the point of doing a postgame
show when viewers are waiting for golf coverage? CBS, you continue to
alienate your golf viewers more and more each year.
Is the sea foam really yellow?
Have people been, shall we say, relieving themselves in the Pacific
Ocean? It looked like it during Thursday’s coverage. (See above photo, via Geoff Shackelford.)
You almost had to stop and do a double-take
when the Golf Channel’s blimp view showed foamy waves that had a distinct
yellow tint to them. Not only that, the green of the grass looked intense.
What the heck was going on? Nobody
knows for sure.
But on Friday, the Golf Channel did
another shot from the blimp, and guess what? No yellow tint in the water.
I guess we can rule out the ocean-as-outhouse theory.
Jim Gray trips over his own words
Jim Gray was part of "LeBron James’
"The Decision" last year. On Thursday, he decided to take part in
"The Indecision" with Tiger Woods. He completely butchered the final
portion of the interview, leaving Woods and viewers at home cringing.
After discussing Woods’ putting,
Gray tried to transition into another topic with little success: "You
talked about … I mean, Kelly … Nick … Nick and Kelly … Ughhhhh."
Tiger lowered his head in embarrassment,
as Gray tried to figure out what to ask next. It was an awkward
moment, to say the least.
Davis, are you still there?
Why does the Golf Channel continue
to push this mic’d up coverage? If the first two weeks are an indication
of the quality we can expect this season, then maybe we’d be better
off watching the players from afar.
If you thought the Ryan Palmer being
mic’d was bad, Davis Love III took it to a new low, giving us 30 words,
at most, during the first round.
His topics of conversation included
the distance to the hole, his new snowboard, and shaping a shot to the
hole. The coverage also included a mic’d moment that didn’t include
any commentary!
"Sometimes you don’t need any words
to paint the picture," said the Golf Channel’s Kelly Tilghman.
And here I thought the whole point
of the mic was to give viewers insight into what the players were talking
about during their round.
Perfect pairings
The PGA Tour’s decision to manually
pair players together for the first two rounds of each tournament had
the Golf Channel jumping for joy.
"What they’re going to be able
to do is take a few guys from a certain category, tweak the names a
little bit and create some television-friendly groupings," Tilghman
said.
"I think it’s a wonderful thing,"
Nick Faldo said. "The most important thing is the entertainment —
Thursday and Friday to see these guys play; obviously, they’re the
major storylines and storytellers. We might as well have them live so
we can talk about them."
Is the Golf Channel conceding that
the television coverage would be boring if they didn’t have the PGA
Tour’s help setting the pairings? That’s what it sounds like.
Notes:
Phil Parkin was the Golf Channel’s
pick to handle the on-course commentary this week in San Diego …
Nick Faldo continues to sound completely inept when he’s breaking
down Tiger Woods’ golf swing. He keeps using the words "not getting
stuck" and "plane." But that’s the only
thing he says when they asked him to critique the swing …
CBS’s Peter Kostis did a much better job breaking down Woods’ changes
with a split-screen of his old and new swing … David Feherty was
in rare form on Saturday, taking digs at John Daly and Fredrik Jacobson
for their wardrobe (Daly) and weight (Jacobson).
Quotes:
"It looks like he’s been spending
a lot of time in the paddock," CBS’s David Feherty, commenting
on Fredrik Jacobson’s expanding waistline.
"Did Johnny major in tablecloths
and quilting?" CBS’s David Feherty, making fun of John Daly’s
white and red ensemble during Saturday’s third round.
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