Bob Murphy, NBC: "I don't know her that well, but I watched the replay of what she said, and it is really, really nitty-picking to try to knock her out of the seat for something like that. My goodness, Johnny Miller might say three or four as good as that every day. We all try to be funny, and sometimes it doesn't work. That is what this was. To try to make something more out of it is just wrong."
He's right, let's talk more about these three or four good ones Johnny says a day! Does Bob know something about Johnny that we viewers don't know?
Now that the initial reactions are in, there are a couple of pieces worth reading that have taken more into account with regard to Kelly Tilghman'sunfortunate comment and her future with The Golf Channel.
Sure, her comedy-challenged, dunderheaded, racist statement about stopping the world's No. 1 player by lynching him in a back alley was hurtful to African-Americans and offensive to many other hues. Yet without getting too deep into details, rest assured that Tilghman has personally felt the sting of discrimination in her career many times, and knows what it's like to be on the receiving end, too.
So, for those trying to look into her heart to see whether it's filled with sunshine or darkness, those demanding that she be ceremoniously canned for a statement that was blurted out in an unscripted exchange on live TV, take a step back for a moment and walk a mile in her spikes.
Why is Woods the only arbiter here? He hasn't exactly been a paragon of political correctness himself, having been quoted telling racial and lesbian jokes in GQ magazine in 1997. (He later claimed the jokes were off the record; writer Charles Pierce disagreed.)
Something still feels wrong here. Golf Channel's punishment of its anchor ought to reflect the feelings of its viewers and of sports fans everywhere more than what Tiger thinks. That's the way it works in television — the audience is the thing.
Meanwhile, some teachers and players have been critical of stack and tilt. Well-known instructor Jim McLean points to photographs of Nicklaus that he says refute the impression that he didn't shift his weight during his backswing. Six-time major champion Nick Faldo works for The Golf Channel and was critical during the Mercedes telecast.
"I've been surprised at the level of contempt," Plummer said.
Some of the complaints came in this Golf Digest piece. And here is the answer why there has been so much contempt:
But students have been doing well. Weir has been working with Plummer and Bennett for more than a year. Aaron Baddeley has won twice since beginning to work with the twosome. Plummer and Bennett are in demand from professionals and amateurs alike, and believe their critics wouldn't be so harsh if they understood their ideas. Their database includes more than a million swing photos.
"Just to be clear, though," Plummer said, "we're not doing this because Nicklaus and Ben Hogan did it. They're examples of what we're saying."
The paper of record's Richard Sandomirweighs in on theKelly Tilghman episode and lumps her in with Jimmy the Greek and Ben Wright in TV-screw up lore.
This was interesting:
No one knows what triggers sportscasters or public figures to say what they shouldn’t say to large audiences, and one can only speculate as to their intent. Experience seems to shield most of them from making dreadful, career-altering mistakes, but it did not prevent George Allen, the former United States senator from Virginia, from labeling an American of Indian descent, then working for his opponent, a “macaca” during his failed re-election campaign in 2006.
Working live isn’t easy. There is a tendency to make mistakes and strain for creativity when simplicity will do. Tilghman and Faldo were wrapping up Day 2 of the tournament when they were discussing how young golfers could challenge Woods’s primacy, and Faldo said they should “gang up” on him “for a while.”
Faldo’s remark prompted Tilghman to glibly raise the verbal ante to a level that would make anyone shudder and wonder, What would make her say that? or, What else is in her oratorical toolbox? Sadly, her remark made her and Faldo giggle.
Key word here: glibly.
Kelly Tilghman is good at a lot of things. She's a strong reporter, has a great ability to recall past anecdotes and she clearly has a passion for the game. Glib is not one of her strong suits, yet all of today's anchors seem to feel the need to do the Sportscenter thing. (Or perhaps they are told this is how you have to announce in today's world.)
So once again I ask, isn't her lynching comment a product of the type of announcing asked for today, all while trying to provide such a humorous edge over an excessive number of hours?
My Yahoo column on Sony Open hostWaialae's history and current course conditions, is now posted. Also included is some speculation on the recent U.S. Open venue news.
And because great minds whose parents opted for the G-E-O-F-F spelling think alike, Golf World's Geoff Russellwonders the same thing I did about a certain Bedminster course becoming a viable candidate.
For what it's worth, this incident ought to generate a debate. Not about the word lynch, but about the origin of Kelly Tlghman'sjoke gone awry: overexposure.
During the Kapalua event, Tilghman and Nick Faldo are asked to be entertaining four hours a day, over the course of four days. It was inevitable that something stupid would be said. Golf Channel's skimpy production approach and overuse of announcers caught up to them here.
I don't expect them to change their ways, but hopefully it is a reminder to Golf Channel executives that there is a reason other networks have so many announcers on long telecasts to spread out the commentary.
Anyway, other writers had plenty to say.
Craig Dolchsays it's overblown and if Tiger has not problem with it, we should not. Ron Green Jr. says she apologized, end of story.
Steve Elling with help from Doug Ferguson's AP piece fleshes the story out with some interesting background and all of Al Sharpton's quotes from a CNN appearance. Sharpton:
"If I got on this show and said I wanted to put some Jewish American in the gas chamber, I don't care under what context I said it, the entire Jewish community has the right to say I should be put of this show or put off my radio show," Sharpton said Wednesday night on CNN, before Tilghman was suspended. "This is an insult to all blacks. It's not murder in general, it's not assault in general, it's a specific racial term that this woman should be held accountable for."
Tilghman, 38, who ascended through the network ranks to the top of her profession after starting as a low-level lackey in the video archives room, until late Wednesday night was scheduled to anchor all four rounds of the Sony Open, which begins in Honolulu on Thursday. However, 2½ hours after the Sharpton interview aired, she was suspended for by network officials.
Jeff Rudebelieves the punishment doesn't fit the crime" and that we need to keep her comments in context. Exactly. If Bobby Clampett said it, we all know what would have to be done. But Kelly, come on...
I was out trouncing around in cactus and other stuff with big thorns in Cabo all day, so I didn't see Golf Channel's earlier statement that said they would not be suspending Kelly Tilghman for her lynch remark. But apparently Al Sharpton speaking out may have changed their mind?
I warned of this last month and you can already see it playing out: the cynical, secular, communist, pornography-addicted press will be the real guilty party in any positive drug tests in golf. From Ron Sirak's Golf World story on the subject:
"That depends on [the media]," LPGA counsel Jill Pilgrim says, when discussing the public-relations risks. "If we have a 1 percent failure rate, [is the media] going to report that 1 percent or on the 99 percent who are clean?"
DRUG LIST: Toward the end of the PGA Tour's anti-doping program manual distributed to players last month is a section that lists examples of medications that are permitted, such as antibiotics, hemorrhoidals and muscle relaxants.
It was surprising to see vaginal preparations as the final entry.
Turns out it was a reminder that the PGA Tour is not a men's tour. Annika Sorenstam played in the Colonial in 2003, Suzy Whaley played in Hartford late that year, and Michelle Wie has played every year since then.
"In the era of females wanting to perhaps play on the PGA Tour, our policy had to reflect that such products were permissible," tour spokesman Ty Votaw said.
Golf Channel anchor Kelly Tilghman has apologized after saying during Friday's telecast of the PGA Tour's opening event that today's young players should "lynch Tiger Woods in a back alley."
Somewhere, Ben Wright is smiling. He's off the hook!
A spokesman for the network said Tilghman apologized on Sunday's telecast and has reached out to Woods' representatives to express her regrets for the comments, according to New York Newsday.
Geoff Ogilvy'scontention in his chat with Jaime Diaz is that shotmaking is dead in large part not because of grooves or architecture or the ball, but because greens are too soft.
"The truth is that hitting it high and straight, with the equipment we have now and on the turf conditions we play, is the simplest option," he says. "It gives you less to think about, and sometimes on the golf course, thinking about less is good.
"But the big thing is that the reward for hitting the proper shot -- on a regular tour course -- is just not as great anymore. Off the tee you just look down the fairway and hit it, because it really doesn't matter where the ball ends up as long as it's in relatively short grass. Coming into the soft green, when the ball stops easily and it doesn't matter what side you miss it on, all of a sudden the perfectly shaped shot loses its relevance and becomes not worth the effort."
And...
"Especially at Augusta and the British Open, golf courses with really firm greens where it's really bad to miss it on the short side of the pin, that's when the reward for shaping is much greater. When the ball actually does something when it hits the ground -- when it rolls a bit after it lands -- that's when shotmaking matters."
Okay, here's a hypothetical I've been wanting to float for some time.
What if a course, in a quest to present firm greens for a championship, were to cover their greens at night the way a baseball crew covers the infield during a rain delay?
Is this an artificial intrusion, or simply a clumsier method of doing what the Sub-Air systems accomplish at courses with the system installed?
The Tour Championship will still be a dud most years, but at least they're trying to make the "playoffs" more volatile. From John Hawkinsin the new Golf World:
Not that anybody ever understood the FedEx Cup point-distribution system to begin with, but a series of significant changes will be submitted in a proposal to the Players Advisory Committee when it meets next month. In an attempt to make Woods and Mickelson play in all the postseason events, playoff points would increase dramatically, perhaps by as much as 2,000 per spot. For example, the value of a 10th-place finish in Boston would leap from 1,350 to 3,350.
What's strange about this option is that the 2,000-point raise runs consistently down to the player who finishes 70th, meaning a measly 100 points would become 2,100. Nobody ever said the tour doesn't reward mediocrity, but the official purpose of the increase is to generate more volatility in the postseason standings, something that was clearly missing in the 2007 debut.
"As it turned out, the top 22 [regular-season finishers] had a free pass to the Tour Championship," Ogilvie says, referring to the 30-man season finale. "I think the consensus is that we'd like that number to be a lot smaller."
Geoff Shackelford
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning Drive, is co-host of The Ringer's ShackHouse is the author of eleven books.
