"Perhaps the most important round of golf on The Golf Channel all year — this was a major blunder."

The New York Times' Richard Sandomir was not too wild about the logistics of Golf Channel's Friday Super Bowl Tour Championship coverage.

Shortly after 1 p.m. Eastern yesterday, with the second round of the Tour Championship under way, The Golf Channel came on the air with taped coverage of the morning’s rain-delayed resumption of Round 1.

Tiger Woods was midway through shooting a seven-under-par 63 in Round 2 — live, I say, live! — to propel his surge to a three-shot lead.

But The Golf Channel was mired in its Round 1 videotape, although NBC Sports, which will carry Rounds 3 and 4 today and tomorrow, was feeding it live coverage. To anyone expecting live coverage of Round 2 of the final tournament in the FedEx Cup — perhaps the most important round of golf on The Golf Channel all year — this was a major blunder.

And...

The errors continued. While a network spokesman said that the channel had announced it was carrying taped coverage when it came on the air, I saw nothing until 2:11 p.m., when a small-type “Recorded Earlier” graphic appeared for three minutes on the screen. The spokesman insisted that the network had done nothing to mislead viewers because the action was being shown as it had happened. (But, unfortunately, not as it was happening.)

From about 1:13, when I began watching, until 2:11, no one from the The Golf Channel studio told viewers they were watching a Round 1 tape. Similarly, the crawl on the bottom of the screen offered no help.

The Golf Channel compounded its taped-is-better-than-live philosophy when, at 2:28, it decided that it was time to travel into the second round.

But it wasn’t live. No, sir. The Golf Channel cut from its tape of Round 1 (where Woods had just birdied No. 15 and Vijay Singh had teed off on No. 18) to its tape of Round 2, showing Woods on the fourth hole and Phil Mickelson on the fifth. And, yes, a few times, the channel broke out its “Recorded Earlier” graphic, which would have been unnecessary if the coverage were live, which it should have been.

But Sandomir gets to the heart of the matter...

If a logical reason exists for The Golf Channel spending the day in taped coverage when live action was available, it is this: for five hours, it had Woods full-time. It’s not a good reason to look foolish and shameless, but it’s a reason.

Comments

[Joe G]

I agree with Sandomir's point. I think that every live or "recorded live" broadcast from The Golf Channel should start and end by saying "This broadcast is brought to you in association with Tiger Woods, WE JUST LOVE HIM!"

[Tuna]

Hey, Woody gets a piece of Tiger today!

Isn't that what he was looking for?

Kinda pulling for ol' Woody to do well today.

[tvb]

not that big a deal - ABC, ESPN have had similar issues in the past.

[Lip Out]

I think this WAS a major deal. Every major website had news of Tiger's round yesterday. Yet, when I turned on Golf Channel's coverage he was still on the front nine. Why in the world could they not have telecast this round live?

[Sir Humphrey]

The most important tournament of the year, the most important greens of the year, the most important Tv coverage of the year, this new era in golf knowns as the FECES Cup brought to us by commissioner Tim Finchem.

Great job Tim, keep up the hard work!

[Steven T.]

I heard TW's eagle putt on 9 live on XM146 Radio in my car and 2 hours later I saw it on tape delay TV.

[Four-putt]

Heck, Dick Ebersol says he sees nothing wrong with this type of broadcasting.

4p

[JPB]

Yeah, I checked the leaderboard on pgatour.com, turned on the tv, and saw they were showing a tape. I am a golf fan. I look at the tour website. I get the golf channel and watch it, well, not the big break or infomercials but I watch. Something I would think the tour and the golf channel want, golf fans watching. As soon as I saw they were showing a tape the tv was off. No way will I watch that crap. The advantage of highlights is editing. Whether it is done by the network or a dvr or whatever, if you aren't watching live, you have to edit. I refuse to watch that garbage. Tape delay early round coverage??? No.

[Ricky Bobby]

We were in the clubhouse at our course while waiting out our own rain delay. The TV had the tape-delayed second round on, but one of the guys in our group had a blackberry and knew the real deal. We won several bets with other groups by betting Tiger would make his birdie (or eagle)! Ultimately we came clean and didn't collect, but it was a ridiculous situation.

[rbdowntown]

The Golf Channel is famous for insulting viewers with tacky programming seemingly aimed at the retarded and semi-literate ( Big Break, The Approach, The Daly Planet, Win Zone, Fore Inventors Only, endless infomercials hawking Brush Tees and Swing Corsets)...that they would hoodwink the viewers once again should come as no surprise...they do it almost daily. They pretty much have a monopoly on the golf viewer during weekdays so just about anything goes!