"The gloves are well and truly off when it comes to Tiger Woods’ current travails."

That's the perspective Brian Keogh delivers and which I was unable to put into words on the earlier post about Rory's SI piece jabbing at Tiger, who is on the receiving end of criticism from the golf community like never before.

In this sense, McIlroy has been like the child from the Hans Christian Andersen tale The Emperor’s New Clothes . Where others fear to voice what is obvious, McIlroy does not mince his words or hide the fact the man who was once a role model has now been laid bare as a tarnished anti-hero with a balky golf swing.

Frank Deford likens Tiger and interest in watching him play to the Broadway disaster that is Spider-Man.

You know what he reminds me of? The Broadway musical Spider-Man, Turn Off the Dark. It sells out to the curious, even though the critics hate it and it's always a tease, always a work in progress. And there's a dark side that draws us in. Maybe Spidey will find itself. But maybe it'll only be always not quite there.

We watch Tiger Woods with the same almost morbid fascination, afraid to look away because if we do, we'll miss it if he miraculously returns to greatness, as if age doesn't matter with majesty, and what changed his life was all just a bump in the road.

Match Play Ratings Soar: It's The Synergistic Cross-Channel Prioritization!

For Immediate Release...

NEW YORK – March 1, 2011 – NBC Sports and Golf Channel generated significant viewership increases for the combined 28 hours of live coverage (55 hours total coverage) of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship Wednesday through Sunday.  With Tiger Woods eliminated on Wednesday and Phil Mickelson eliminated on Thursday,

...hint, hint, that used to spell doom...

and with England’s Luke Donald defeating Germany’s Martin Kaymer in Sunday’s final,

...two really nice but boring guys...

Golf Channel’s three-day average viewership was up 84 percent from last year while viewership for “Golf Channel on NBC” coverage rose 71 percent.

Golf Channel’s strong viewership for the WGC-Accenture helped propel the network to its second most-watched February ever (15.3 million unique viewers). Through the first eight weeks of the 2011 season, viewership of the PGA TOUR on Golf Channel is up 59 percent over last year.

Get ready, it must be the horrible winter rebranding!

“GOLF CHANNEL ON NBC” VIEWERSHIP:  The weekend coverage on NBC (2-6 p.m. Saturday, 2-7 p.m. Sunday), which has been rebranded as “Golf Channel on NBC,” averaged 2.5 million viewers, a gain of 71 percent from last year’s 1.5 million viewers on CBS, and the most-watched since 2008 when Tiger Woods won the event, defeating Stewart Cink.
 
GOLF CHANNEL VIEWERSHIP: Golf Channel’s early round coverage of the WGC-Accenture started Wednesday with its best day overall since 2009’s President’s Cup coverage and continued on Friday with its most-watched early round without Tiger Woods since THE PLAYERS in May 2008.

Whoa, let's try that again. Most watched since '09 Presidents Cup and most watched minus-Tiger round since '08 Players.

Highlights include:
 
·        Three-day average viewership up 84 percent over 2010 (771,000 vs. 419,000)
·        Wednesday’s Day 1 up 86 percent over 2010 (712,000 vs. 318,000).

Now that's impressive! Thank God we only have match play once a year.

·        Thursday’s Day 2 up 95 percent over 2010 (768,000 vs. 393,000).

That's even more impressive considering you-know-who was eliminated.

·        Friday’s Day 3 up 83 percent over 2010 (890,000 vs. 486,000).

Now this is getting silly. So glad we have put the kibosh on more match play. It's so unfair...and so ratings friendly!

·        Saturday’s earlier-than-scheduled, five-hour coverage of the quarterfinal match that concluded on NBC was up 71% over 2010 (562,000 vs. 328,000).
 
State of the Game Live, a Golf Central special that featured a panel of golf’s most-respected voices from NBC Sports and Golf Channel, including Johnny Miller and Nick Faldo discussing the most pressing issues in the sport, doubled Golf Channel’s year-to-date prime-time average for non-PGA TOUR programming.

Okay so it wasn't entirely an across-the-board ratings slam dunk.

CROSS-CHANNEL PRIORITY: The WGC-Accenture on Golf Channel and NBC was identified by NBCUniversal’s Marketing Council as a cross-channel priority.

So is that when they make sure you show the highlights on the local news and in general, place promotion over actual news as the priority? You know, like when my local NBC station opens with a story about Charlie Sheen's interview on Today...tomorrow?

It received extensive promotion across NBC Universal’s 20 channels and more than 40 websites. The WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship marked the first shared coverage for NBC Sports and Golf Channel since both organizations became members of the NBC Sports Group on Jan. 28 when the Comcast-NBC Universal transaction was completed.

It's not match play, it's the co-branding!

GOLF CHANNEL AND NBC SPORTS CO-BRANDING: All golf coverage on NBC has been re-branded as “Golf Channel on NBC.”

Yes, we noticed. Over and over again.

Be careful Golf Channel On NBC Powered By Jack Donaghy, you keep up these ratings home runs and the Commish is going to be asking you to write a big fat check this fall!

Davis And His Co-Captain Begin Arduous Task Of Selecting Just The Right Golf Bag

Edgar Thompson reports on Davis Love's visit to Palm Beach Gardens and PGA headquarters to kick off his Ryder Cup captaincy. Or, his and hers captaincy.

Love and his wife, Robin, met with PGA officials to begin the exhaustive planning process that will lead all the way up to the 2012 matches at Chicago's Medinah Country Club.

"I'm really excited about this day because this really launches Robin's and my captaincy," Love said.

"We have to start making decisions on what the bags are going to look like."

Just keep an eye out for any extra stitching.

Brandel Expands On His Tiger Critique

I've never thought Brandel Chamblee's critiques were anything but well thought out and carefully considered, so I'm a little surprised he had to pen this defense of his comments during the Golf Channel Powered By Dick Ebersol "State of the Game" criticism of Tiger's swing changes.

As for the negativity, in some cases I’m guilty as charged. I cannot as an analyst find reason to compliment a player who abandons proven methods for more pedestrian ones. What if he is ultimately successful in his endeavors to change his swing and win majors? He would end up right where he started, at the cost of time, which is every athlete’s most valuable commodity. Furthermore, it would have cost him considerable wear on a body that has not aged well. All of this makes me question whether it is one of the most confusing things we have seen in golf.

Clearly he hasn't watched the homeless golfer wrist-slasher of a reality show on his own network!

Rory Riffs On Tiger; Where Was Chubby's Red Pen?

Okay, we're not in Stephen Ames territory quite yet, but you do have to wonder what Rory McIlroy thinks there is to gain from these comments about Tiger in a self-bylined golf.com item that appears in this week's SI Golf Plus special issue.

I wasn't playing against Tiger Woods when he had that aura. I was watching on TV! I remember getting nervous when I first met him. I was 15. There was a presence about him. There still is to some extent, but when you're on the golf course you simply block it out. But Tiger is not playing as well as he was even a couple of years ago, never mind going back to the late 1990s and early 2000s, when he was at his best. I'm not sure we are going to see him dominate again the way he did. He never seemed like he would make a mistake.

Okay, that was edgy but at least that's the...oh there's more.

It's not that he's playing badly. He's simply playing badly by Tiger's standards. He's playing like an ordinary golfer. People expect more of him because of what he has achieved. As much as I would love to have the success that Tiger has had on the golf course, I wouldn't want to live his life. He has made the same mistakes as any footballer, or NBA or NFL player. Tiger is obviously different from the rest of us because he is a bit of a rock star. But he can't really take his kids to the cinema. It's a tough life because of what he has done and what he represents, being the first African-American golfer to break down the barriers.

Why didn't Rory's ten-percenter, Chubby Chandler, turn into Ben Bradlee on this one? Or do they just not ever anticipate having to face Tiger in contention anymore and enjoy beating the lad while he's down?

Or...maybe this was just a ploy to bury the real lede: Rory writing that The Players has lost its luster moving to May!

"I’ve played a lot of great golf courses in a lot of different places and I’ve never played one like this."

That's Howard Ward's reaction to seeing the revitalized Pinehurst No. 2. And that reaction is precisely what had been lost over the decades.

Heritage Classic Status Moves To DEFCON Three

Is this any way to treat an old, loyal friend?

PGA Tour vice president Ty Votaw says it is “imperative” for the tournament to secure a replacement sponsor to keep the tournament at Harbour Town Golf Links for 2012 and beyond.