PGA Tour: Seeking The Grand Slam: Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

A busy time of year for moi, and a change of sport for a couple of days, so just a few thoughts to get the PGA Championship thread going:

1).Jordan Spieth goes for the Grand Slam this week, as Rory will do at the Masters, and Phil will also at the US Open - think I'd place my money on Rory to be the first, probably Phil will never do it, but it's a reminder as to how difficult it is to achieve. Palmer and Watson missed out on the PGA, Trevino had two of each, US Open, Open Championship and PGA but no Masters. Wonderful achievement to bag three nevertheless!

2).I'm not a fan of the changes to the Tour schedule and there are bound to be consequences, a ripple effect throughout the golf world (which, after all, is not 100% USA). It seems there's a hidden agenda in play, what with golf making an unnecessary intrusion into the Olympics, and the resultant dominos that are now falling and will continue to do so. I also fear what Pelley will do; the date of the BMW PGA is now in jeopardy, but where will it go? Perhaps the R&A will shift The Open back a fortnight, thus accommodating a summer's date for Wentworth? One possible benefit that Pelley could insist upon is keeping the Ryder Cup where it currently is - at a time when the Tour is starting downtime, but Europeans can play competitively in Europe.

3).One suspects that an "Asia" agenda is in play somewhere, just can't quite figure out how!
Regardless the Tour now has to cram in the:
WGC-Mexico
Arnold Palmer Inv
Players
Masters
WGC-MatchPlay
PGA Championship
Memorial
US Open
. . . . . . all in a 3-month span. Not to mention well-supported events such as "Honda", "Houston", "Quail Hollow", etc, that have loyal player followings. Something's got to give. If Pelley plays his cards right, Europe could be a big winner, if he overplays his hand, he could damage his Tour for years to come.

4).Quail Hollow has undergone changes since we last saw it, at last May's Wells Fargo - the first six holes have been almost totally redesigned, and the other twelve tweaked to bring them up to date. Nevertheless, Rory has a fantastic record there with his two wins and a play-off loss to Rickie Fowler. Would still expect course specialists to do well, including Lucas Glover who has a win, a runner up and other strong finishes. Hopefully the course will be allowed to stand on its merits without PGA set-up guys tricking it up - there are some super Par-5's and my favourite "short Par-4" on Tour, the 14th.

5).The owgr rankings this week saw Bubba wave bye-bye to the Top 50 for the first time in 7 years. While Charley Hoffman, after what seems like forever hanging around the rankings' second 50, all of a sudden is propelled to #20 on a string of fine play and nearly man finishes. Meanwhile, as suggested last week, Patrick Reed continues his slide down the rankings proving that playing every week wears even the young guns out.

6).Seamus Power squeaked into the FedEx Top 125 and could conceivably stay there this week even though he's not in the field. Will still need a good result at Greensboro and it may not be entirely certain that he'll make the field. Fingers crossed for him there.
And Henrik Stenson may have to play Greensboro too; he's only played 11 events so far this year, so still has to find four more. At 84th on the FedEx points list, he's not sure to go deep into the Play Offs so he probably has to play:
PGA, Greensboro and Northern Trust to reach Round 2 at TPC Boston.
Henrik being Henrik may choose not to do that, but hopefully a strong week at Quail Hollow will make that a moot point.

That's my lot, more on the Play-Offs and ramifications of FedEx points next week. Looking forward to seeing the changes at Quail Hollow - think they rebuilt all the greens and new greens are never as good as they're cracked up to be, could be on the firm side which is not necessarily a bad thing - and hoping Rory wins his 3rd PGA Championship.

Fantastic up and down from Thomas!

No major this time around for Hideki

Hideki's short putting woes have returned!

Mark James is so dull, why on earth is Andrew Cotter not working

Agonising for Hideki.

Brilliant from JT, wonderful iron.

Looks like the only reason Super, makes it a bit of a lottery tho..

sirbenson wrote:Hideki's short putting woes have returned!

He better fix that if he doesn't want to become another Westwood. But if Sergio can do it there's still hope for him.

That should probably do it for Thomas

Wonderful from JT, great stuff.

Amazing birdie from Thomas!

Hideki is 25....he is on another level in comparison to Westwood and Garcia imo

Just get it on the green + 2 putt and it's yours Thomas

Smart play from Thomas

Thats it, great golf and great drama. JT producing the goods when it mattered. Delighted for him, he's played some great golf this year and you have to be a bit special to shoot a 59.

Tough way for Kisner to finish a great championship

Great stuff JT

I'm a doubting Thomas . . . . . .
. . . . . . but he made his own luck today.

Quite exciting final round. Some good holes on the back 9. A bit more wind and firmer conditions would have made it all a bit more interesting though. But all in all OK entertainment.

Yanks now bag the last 3 majors. A bit surprised about that ... expected Hidecki to get it done. Time for Rory to get healthy.

I've not really caught any of it, though did have it on the radio last night. Seems to have had what people usually want. Lots of players in contention, a difficult course where scoring is not easy, and won by a top player. So allround a pretty good major the end the season?

beninho wrote:I've not really caught any of it, though did have it on the radio last night. Seems to have had what people usually want. Lots of players in contention, a difficult course where scoring is not easy, and won by a top player. So allround  a pretty good major the end the season?

It didn't match Spieth's quality over the closing holes at the Open but for enjoyment, it was my favourite closing round of a major this season.

Exciting final round - but still think the players in contention have a great deal to say whether it becomes memorable or not:

Kis and Stroud not too exciting to watch. They seem like they're in pain when playing, on the verge of tears or of breaking down. Molinari too, if you say booh to him he'll faint.  Thomas looks like Zach Johnsons inbred grenouille cousin. Hits it a mile though. Hideki is a robot with shaky putting, but definitely the real deal.

Would have like to have seen Day and Fowler in contention, but they were a bit too far back after R3. Reed too. But hey, you can't always have it all. When is April?

Sounds a great final round. Totally ruined for me by being on red button ... BBC iPlayer was just not reliable enough for me to get into it even though I allegedly have a very fast broadband connection. I'd had enough before it went to BBC2 !

Great last day, took a while to get going but when it did, riveting.

Tough, but not too tough a course IMO. Nice to see a first page of leaderboard of mixed names. Nice coming through the crowd by Thomas, Reed and Molinari. Interesting to watch the final 2 groups handle (or not quite) the situation. Oosthuizen's yo-yoing was a great sidebar picking up and dropping shots. Like the use of shot-tracker, first time I've seen it used quite so much, makes the long shots that much better to follow.

Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Davie wrote:Sounds a great final round. Totally ruined for me by being on red button ... BBC iPlayer was just not reliable enough for me to get into it even though I allegedly have a very fast broadband connection. I'd had enough before it went to BBC2 !

I had it on the iPlayer with no problems at all for hours before I went to bed and watched the last hour on BBC2.

Agree about shot tracker Roller, enjoyed that as well.

Yeah i-player worked fine for me then switched to BBC2 at 10. Could have done without the intro part as it was a waste of 10mins but I guess some folks were just joining at that time.

Allis getting Kisner and Thomas mixed up followed by Maureen saying that Hideki won't know where the cheers for Thomas' chip-in are coming from when he is standing on the same green was both funny and embarrassing but didn't detract from the overall spectacle.

sirbenson wrote:Mark James is so dull, why on earth is Andrew Cotter not working

Yes agree - just a monotone drone. Cotter was doing the athletics.

The shot tracer wasn't exactly accurate. I think it exaggerates movement in the air.

Not much mac. I only thought so once.
And the movement (draw or fade) was rarely more than 20ft. Not much over 2-300 yards considering there must have been some wind.

I heard the commentators comment that they thought it was out/off, but when it cut to where the ball had ended up it was pretty much exactly where the tracker said. There were a few that I thought "oops, that's in the trees/water" etc per the graphic and then they landed on the green, but it worked much better than trying to find a rapidly moving white ball against a white cloud in a sky blue (erm) sky.

Hideki announced late yesterday to the Japanese media that he has been married since January and his wife had a baby last month.

He has kept it a secret all this time for privacy reasons.

Will we see Tiger tee it up in a major next year?

I fear he's done. May hit the ceremonial tee with Gary and Jack???

Roller_Coaster wrote:I heard the commentators comment that they thought it was out/off, but when it cut to where the ball had ended up it was pretty much exactly where the tracker said. There were a few that I thought "oops, that's in the trees/water" etc per the graphic and then they landed on the green, but it worked much better than trying to find a rapidly moving white ball against a white cloud in a sky blue (erm) sky.

I noticed this too. But that was because the commentators were sitting in a bbc studio back home in England and didn't know the course at all. One example stood out when Alliss commented that the player had pulled his tee shot (think it was par 3 13th) when actually he was drawing the ball into a left pin position and it finished right by the hole.

sirbenson wrote:GPB is right Rory always seems to be using injury as an excuse now! He needs a new caddie as simple as that!

Talk about confirmation bias! Do you really think he didn't win because he hasn't got an experienced tour caddie?

Roller_Coaster wrote:I fear he's done. May hit the ceremonial tee with Gary and Jack???

Someone in Kansas is saying, "Hey, I'm next in the queue, perhaps with Crenshaw. Woods can wait, perhaps torture him by bracketing him with Mickelson."

Meanwhile, no update yet from Rory, but Snedeker has withdrawn from yet another tournament, significant because "Wyndham" is one of his major sponsors. Can't see him playing the fist round of the Play-Offs next week, whilst we know Scott won't be there either.

I enjoyed watching the denouement last night... was looking very exciting going into the back 9. I thought we were going to see a play off as there were so many in the mix, but then it all went rather flat after Thomas birdied 17 and his closest challengers stumbled over the line. Not his fault at all, but walking up 18 with a 3 shot lead was a bit of an anti climax when an hour earlier there could have been half a dozen winners.

Still, fair play to JT, when others wobbled he remained solid, rode his luck and sunk the putts. I don't think he was a shock winner, he's looked a major contender all season.

Roller_Coaster wrote:I fear he's done. May hit the ceremonial tee with Gary and Jack???

He is young enough to recover from a rib injury.

I liked the way Fowler and Spieth stuck around to congratulate their buddy. Good sportsmanship and friendship. Does JT's win heap more pressure on Rickie Fowler? I thought he played well but it was too little too late. Another one of his spring break buddies joins Spieth as a major winner.

Final point from me, the pace of play seemed much better on the Sunday. I was starting to feel tired but it was done and dusted before midnight, so about 4hrs 10 mins for the final groups.

Saturday, on the other hand, felt painful. The final group teed off at 2pm (7pm UK time). I was falling asleep on the sofa (it was pretty tedious stuff listening to Mark James) so went to bed at midnight with Kisner still on 16... 5 hours for 16 holes!

Btw - free view channel for BBC red button service is 601. So you can watch it just like real television, and record if you want to. Can only assume dreadful commentary team was due to short notice, and Cotter tied up on athletics. From Laura Davies' performance commenting on Ladies Open last week, she would be a must in any commentary team - excellent.

GPB wrote:Hideki announced late yesterday to the Japanese media that he has been married since January and his wife had a baby last month.

He has kept it a secret all this time for privacy reasons.

So that's where the putting practise went..

puligny wrote:Btw - free view channel for BBC red button service is 601. So you can watch it just like real television, and record if you want to. Can only assume dreadful commentary team was due to short notice, and Cotter tied up on athletics.

I don't buy into all this short notice nonsense. I agree that the lack of notice may have hindered the BBC from getting the finer points arranged, and Cotter was doing the athletics. But I believe the main reason for the atrocious coverage was lack of budget. Everything looked like they were trying to do it on the cheap.

1. Complaints about the poor feed and chopping and changing between shots - "they can only show what the host broadcaster shows". Rubbish. The host broadcaster has cameras all over the course and a director choosing which groups / shots to screen for their market. Other broadcasters have access to multiple feeds. The BBC could have had its own director and chosen to show the feeds it wanted. This is what Sky does, it's what BBC used to do. That's why when you watch the US golf you see a lot of the European players, because the host US broadcaster pays no attention to the Europeans. Instead the BBC chose to cut corners and take the US feed then overlay its own commentary.

2. Only having one person on site - Rishie Persad (?) -  wandering around doing post round interviews was poor. No on course reporters following the key groups was poor, we never knew what clubs the players were using. The key commentators were all back in England and it was obvious they had never seen the course before. Ken on the course is a nice feature, but we got no insight like this at all. Instead we got comments like: "he's missed the green." Well we can see that, but is it a good miss or a bad miss? Has he short sided himself? What's the lie like? Is he below the hole? We lose depth perception on TV so the commentator has to fill us in.

3. The gaffes - Maureen telling us that Hideki would have no idea about Thomas's chip in, when actually he was standing there on the green watching it. Alliss getting excited about Kisner's birdie putt on 17, when Ken has just told us he made a par. There were many more.

Given the "short notice" I actually think it would have been better if the BBC had just screened the full US coverage, with US commentary, features and analysis, instead of trying to overlay some half-arsd waffle. When you put together a team consisting of a lead commentator in his 80's and a supporting trio in their 60's you are not exactly appealing to a wide demographic or doing much to inspire younger people to take an interest in golf.

btw - If you have Sky, red button is on 980.

[quote="sirbenson"]Will we see Tiger tee it up in a major next year?[/quote


I presume he isn't eligible for all of them?

Past champo status runs out after 10 yrs? Except for the Masters. Methinks. He won the US Open in '08 so guess he's also good there?
Or?

Ray, not sure about 1. Don't the yanks just fill in the European players when the Americans go for commercial break? And still use the main US feed. Think it's a step up from just showing water fountains. And isn't it because Sky have their own camera team why they can mix the feed a bit better?

Do sky have a golf camera team,arent all us events based on us tv coverage and euro events from European tour productions ? Sky just report it, and do it well. Shame they are bailing on golf.

I think it depends on the tournament and how much money and resources they pour into it.
I've watched a lot of golf and you often hear the presenters apologising for the fact they get the pictures from the host broadcaster, same in tennis, Olympics etc.

It just isn't practical to have a dozen different TV companies all trying to record the same action on each hole from half a dozen places, there would be no room for spectators. Can you imagine how logistically tough that would be?

The difference is that on some occasions they appear to have more options on direction of the pictures and editing of what we see.
American coverage is usually terrible, but Sky do a good job of making a silk purse out of a pigs ear with the pictures they get, didn't look like the BBC spent enough money to take that option, or it wasn't available.

Clearly the PGA was the cheapest package on offer and it showed. Thank goodness the golf finally came alive on the back 9 because up until that point it was dreadful.

Sky do not have their own camera team for US tournaments. It is the US host broadcaster's team. Likewise European Tour Productions film ET events and US broadcasters take this feed. As super says, you can't have multiple camera teams fighting for the same spots and getting in the way. It's the same approach for other sports too. Take Wimbledon - the BBC cover all the courts, but in the UK the live coverage early on features the Brits, obviously every country will want to show their own players not the Brits.

At a big PGA tournament the host team has a camera tower behind every green, a camera behind every tee (some with shot tracer), and then cameras on the fairways following key groups. That's 40+ cameras. Sky has access to all of these, and has its own director so it can choose what to broadcast. That's why we see more coverage of the European players. The US broadcasters do the same at the Open - they take the feed from BBC / Euro Tour productions cameras and produce their own coverage.

What Sky can't control is what the local cameraman is doing. So if the Sky director wants to show Molinari putting for eagle on the 10th, he will cut to the greenside tower on 10. If that cameraman isn't interested in Molinari so is focusing on a squirrel in a tree or a lady in the crowd with a low cut top they can't do anything about it and that's when you hear the apology from the presenter for the local feed.

For smaller tournaments, Sky don't bother having their own director and just take the US coverage. Usually they stick with the US commentary and then cut to the studio back in the UK for punditry during the US advert breaks.

http://www.golfchannel.com/news/golf-central-blog/police-woods-had-5-drugs-system-when-arrested/?cid=rr_editorial_p1

Impossible to believe that the Tour didn't know he was doing at least some of this stuff. Where's the testing, where's the transparency?

Weird that the Tour goes so far out of its way to condemn Vijay and buries its head in the sand in this case.