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The Pro Tours

This section focuses on the pro tours (PGA, Senior, and LPGA). Articles typically focus on how the professional world of golf affects the recreational golfer.

How TV Can Make Me More of a Golf Fan

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First and foremost, let me state that I am in no way, shape or form being compensated for this post. I am offering up my opinion purely based on my experience.  My experience with what you ask?  My experience with DirecTV and how they made watching The Open Championship a better experience for me.

As I’ve stated before, I love to play golf, but I’m not a huge fan of watching it on TV.  Truthfully, I find it a bit dull.  So when I got a message on my TV from DirecTV regarding watching The Open Championship on multiple channels, I didn’t pay it much mind.  I figured it’s just a couple more channels that I won’t be watching.  But early on Saturday afternoon, something told me to take a look anyway…and I’m glad I did.  When I tuned to the channel in the message and began to watch, I was presented with another menu option.  When I hit the red button on my remote to bring up the additional options, the fun began.

Option #1 – “The Top 5 leaderboard” – A nice, quick reference when you just want to know who’s on top and what’s their score, without waiting for 156 names to scroll across the bottom of the screen.  But, if you want to see the entire leaderboard while scrolling through it at your own pace, well that’s available at…

Option #2 – “Leaderboard” – You don’t have to watch the bottom of the screen for the leaderboard and worry about missing the name you may be looking for.  Also, if it’s moving a little too quickly, you can use the menu to scroll at your own pace.

Option #3 – “Tune To” – This gave me five further options:

a.  “The Open Mix” – This splits my TV to show four separate screens – ESPN, Holes 1 & 18, Holes 7/8/9 and the International View.  More on this below.

b.  “ESPN” – This channel would show an alternate feed from ESPN (which was showing the regular broadcast) even when they were on a commercial.

c. “Holes 1 and 18” – Just as it sounds.  This channel would rotate between holes 1 and 18.  So rather than bounce all around the course, you see every player that passes through both holes.

d. “Holes 7/8/9” – See above, but for holes 7/8/9 instead.

e. “International View” – Not exactly sure where this feed was from, but I’m going to make the pretty obvious guess that it would be Scotland.  If not, then somewhere in the U.K. at least.  Anyway, it was another alternate feed from the other two ESPN’s.

Option #4 – “Scoreguide” – This is an option that shows up on all of the sports channels on DirecTV, and it showed up here as well.  This option gives you the scores from the rest of the sports world as well as the option to switch over to that channel if the game is on one of the channels you get.  It’s a nice feature for keeping up on scores from other sports or other games when you don’t want to change the game you’re watching.

I’ve had three different TV providers, and so far I’m pretty high on DirecTV.  It’s great if you’re a sports fan.  For me, I’m a big football fan and love NFL Sunday Ticket.  How can you beat having the option to see every game?!  And being able to plug-in your fantasy league matchup is the cherry on-top!  But this experience with golf as well has opened up a new option for me.

Now, when the PGA Championship rolls around in a few weeks, I’ll know that watching golf on TV will be that much better than it was before.  However, this in no way trumps Sunday Ticket.  Any final round still takes a backseat to the NFL.  Sorry.

Swing ’til you’re happy!

Finally…A Birdie Hits The Golf Links

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Really?  Is that all it takes to become an internet sensation?  Is this all I would have to do to go from a relative nobody to getting a story on ESPN?  I’ve flipped the bird to many people on many occasions, so why not me?  Oooohhh…I have to do it on a golf course, during a tournament, I guess.  D.H. Lee must have just beaten me to the punch.

So it finally happened in golf.  A pro finally had enough of a heckler in the gallery and sent a message.  And I’m not talking one of those flipping out about a camera click messages.  I’m talking the “We’re #1!” message.  The old one-gun salute.  We’ve seen it in other sports – remember Jack McDowell?  We’ve even seen baseball and basketball players run up into the crowd to go after fans (Ron Artest and Chad Kreuter come to mind).  But this is new to golf.  If a camera doesn’t click or someone doesn’t whisper during a swing, then there is almost no interaction with the gallery, either positively or negatively, whatsoever.  So what is the PGA to do with this?  Do they suspend him?  Do they fine him?  You know the PGA can’t have any of their players disrespecting their fans like that.  Or…can they?

I can’t be the only one who thinks golf could use a bad boy, right?  And I don’t mean a bad boy off-the-course such as a Tiger Woods or John Daly.  I mean an on-the-course bad guy that you want to hate, but at the same time you kind of root for because he’s different than every other boring face in the crowd.  Now I also don’t mean the PGA should encourage this kind of behavior, because it can get old fast, especially if too many players are getting in on it.  But if they take a guy like Lee, maybe pull him to the side and tell him something to the effect of:

“Pssst…hey, D.H.  That little act you pulled last weekend sure brought us a little more attention than usual.  I’m not telling you to do it again.  But…I’m also not telling you not to do it again either.  Maybe not the finger next time, but a little something else, ya know?  I promise we’ll make it worth your while.”

Want to get people to tune into an event that normally doesn’t quite get the ratings?  Want to make people interested in the highlights from a smaller tournament that normally just kind of slips under the radar?  D.H. Lee could be your guy!

Swing ’til you’re happy!

Do You Pay To Attend A Golf Tournament?

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Travelers Championship (photo by Bröder Media Group on Flickr, CC BY 2.0)

This weekend I attended the Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands for probably the fourth or fifth time.  And for the fourth or fifth time, I attended without forking over any money.  As a matter of fact, so did a few other co-workers as well as some of my company’s clients.  So that got me to wondering, how many people who attend golf tournaments actually pay to get in?

I would imagine that I’m somewhat in the minority.  But when I know I never paid to attend, the people I brought with me also didn’t pay to attend and, honestly, I can’t think of a single friend or family member who has ever paid to attend, then the minority probably isn’t so minor.  So for a golf tournament, is the gate more of an afterthought?  Now I have no idea how a tournament actually runs, but I would think with sponsorship money, then yes, it probably is.  I would imagine the gate is almost like a bonus.

Now I came across the tickets because the company I work for provides the tournament with some items they use in their off-the-course events and tents.  We give them a pretty hefty discount, and in exchange we get tickets and parking passes.  But the tournament is still paying us a good amount of money AND giving tickets away, not really “making” money.  In total, the tickets I received along with a parking pass, were valued at roughly $235.  Now I understand this isn’t The Masters, but still….that’s not exactly chump change.  And I was only one of several people in or associated with my company to receive tickets and parking passes.  I’m sure other companies do significantly more work with the tournament than mine does, so I would think they receive more tickets and passes than my company as well.  So considering all of the money that goes into everything surrounding the tournament, not too mention the $6.5 million dollar purse, how can they afford to let all these people in for free?

Well, maybe they don’t care about the gate.  Maybe they just want people there walking the course.  Maybe they just want the crowds to look good on TV and they’re willing to sacrifice the gate to make everything else look nice.  I understand that because I think about myself.  I love playing golf, but I’m not much of a fan of watching golf.  So chances are slim that I’m going to pay to watch it.  And when you consider it’s going to cost me a minimum of $39 to get in the door before you factor in parking, food and drinks, the chances drop to almost zero.  And double the ticket price if I want to get into a sponsors club!  Now compared to some larger tournaments, this may not seem like much.  But again, for someone who doesn’t watch golf to begin with, that’s no small amount.

But there’s one aspect where I’m going to give a lot of credit to the Travelers.  I’m not sure how many other tournaments do this, but they let all kids, 15 and under, in for free.  I like this for two reasons – 1. When most places have a “kids free” thing going on, it’s 12 and under.  So they’re extending this by three years.  2.  Allowing kids in for free is more motivation to bring your kids along and expose them further to the game.  In order to keep this great game alive well into the future, we need to keep the kids interested.  And if you can do it for free, then you have no excuse not too.

Swing ’til you’re happy!

The New Breed Of Golf Official

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Imagine you’re watching a baseball game.  Let’s say it’s around the seventh inning or so, and the umpires suddenly call a timeout and gather in discussion off to the side of the field.  A few minutes later it’s announced that back in the fourth inning there was a balk that the umpires missed and the penalty needs to be enforced.  So now, the runners on second and third jam your pitcher got out of unscathed earlier is not to be.  The other team is awarded the run they would have had due to the runner on third base, and now it’s a whole new ball game.  Does this sound ridiculous?  Absolutely.  Now imagine how much more ridiculous it would sound if the umpires themselves had nothing to do with it.  Rather, someone watching the game on TV called it in.

As ridiculous as it sounds, we all know what happened with Tiger at The Masters.  But did you know it happened again this weekend?  That’s right, this time to Sergio Garcia.  Apparently, Sergio marked his ball on the green, but didn’t put it back exactly from where he picked it up.  And once again, it took someone watching on TV to call a penalty. OK, once is a fluke.  But twice in three weeks?  This makes me wonder a few things:

1. If I was to notice a rules violation, who the heck would I call?  I get that in the Tiger incident, the caller was a former rules official, so he probably had a direct line to the guys at the tournament.  But just some average, everyday TV viewer…I wouldn’t know where to start!  Do I call the network?  Do I call the course?  And who would I even ask for?  What would I say?  “Hi, my name is Stinky Golfer Chris and I’d like to report a rules violation I just saw on TV.”  Yeah, because that sounds legit.

2. If it’s taking television viewers to call in after catching violations, how much are the officials missing that we (and they) don’t know about?  In my opinion, these violations were pretty blatant.  Seriously, you mean to tell me Tiger didn’t know he couldn’t drop his ball three or four feet away from his original spot?  Or Sergio didn’t realize he was putting his ball in a different place than where he marked it?  C’mon now.  Yet, no one on the course caught these at the time?

3. If they are legitimate mistakes made by the players, and they are completely unaware, how can you penalize them after the fact?  I would think a two-stroke penalty after the fact hurts more because it would affect the decisions the player would make had they known at the time.  My feeling is that once the player takes his next stroke, it’s too late.  The officials should have caught it then.

4. How does this happen in the first place?  If I’m playing with my buddies, we all notice if someone obviously puts their ball where it doesn’t belong?  We don’t call each other on it, but it’s noticeable.  If we see it, how don’t the people who are paid to?  What exactly are the officials looking at?  This isn’t a fast paced game that’s hard to keep up with.  We’re not talking an NBA game here.  We’re talking golf.

So two incidents in three weeks.  Is it just a fluke?  Or is it going to become a glaring flaw in the way golf tournaments are monitored and officiated.  I’d like to think it’s a fluke.  I mean, mistakes happen.  It could be just a couple of errors occurring close together.  But  either way, after two quick incidents, it may be time for the PGA to step in to try and prevent a third.

Swing ’til you’re happy!

3 Reasons Golf Falls Short Compared to Other Sports

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It's hard for golf to compete with other sports...
It’s hard for golf to compete with other sports…

About two weeks ago I was scanning through some radio stations and stopped at the sports radio show I tune into once in a while.  The hosts are talking about March Madness and how, in they’re opinion, the NCAA Tournament is the best sporting event going.  Meanwhile, they’re fielding calls from listeners agreeing or disagreeing with their choice.  Some say it’s the Super Bowl.  Some choose the World Series.  Others give their opinions on the NBA Championship or the Stanley Cup.  But one caller chose to take things in a different direction than the rest.

One caller asked why no one, other than he, were considering The Masters to be the greatest sporting event going.  While one of the hosts at least took it into consideration, the other practically laughed him off the line.  The host paying attention and going along with it even interjected that he actually prefers the U.S. Open over the Masters and considers that to be a worthy choice.  But his co-host?  Not a chance.  There was no way this guy was going to consider a golf tournament to be one of the greatest sports events of the year.  But why not?  The Masters is one of the four biggest events, arguably the biggest, in the golf year.  It’s loaded with stars of the PGA Tour, tradition and fanfare.  So why could he be talking it down?  I have a few ideas.

1. It’s too boring.  Let’s face it, watching a golf tournament on TV doesn’t really hold a candle to watching the other major sports, even if it is a major.  It’s quiet, slow-moving and honestly, we see the balls more than we see the actual players.  There’s plenty of skill and technique involved, but that doesn’t translate to the average sports fan because for all of the skill and technique there is, it doesn’t really require much athletic ability.  It’s just a tough sell, especially to sports fans who live in or close to a bigger market where professional teams from the big three sports play.

2.  The timing of The Masters.  There are two things wrong with the time of year the Masters occurs.  For starters, it happens right after The Final Four.  You can certainly argue that the NCAA Tournament is the greatest sporting event year-in and year-out.  So it’s incredibly hard to follow that up – and when you follow something as exciting as the Final Four with golf?  Well, you see the problem.

The second problem is that it occurs right at the beginning of the golf season.  We asked this a couple of weeks ago – why would the biggest tournament of the year happen right at the beginning of the season?  The timing of the sports biggest tournament just doesn’t make much sense.

3. There is no championship.  We’ve been down this road several times as well, but it matters!  There are four majors, but somehow none of them represents some type of tournament championship.  So when there are four “big” tournaments, they all end up discounting each other.  And if we can’t even decide which of the four is the most exciting in that particular sport, then how could we even try to compare it to any others?

It’s funny, but as much as I enjoy playing golf, I’m just not all that interested in watching it.  Is it possible that it’s because of the reasons above?  Maybe.  See, I need to know that the tournaments are going to mean something at the end of the year.  I don’t care who won the most money.  I don’t care what some complicated ranking system says.   I need a championship.  Now get me one of those installed at the end of the golf season and then you can start to convince me that it’s among the most exciting sporting events of the year.

Swing ’til you’re happy!

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