2013 PGA Championship Final Round Open Comment Thread

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Oak Hill's rough looks to have grown about 3 inches since Thursday and you know history tells us this improves the chances of the Golf Gods saying, "okay you want six inches on one side of a green and a shaved bank on the other, we're going to give you Jonas Blixt!"

Anyway, I'll be watching on various streams and other seemingly bootleg ways of watching the final major.

Furyk leads but a host of players are in this if he comes back. I like my Grey Goose 19th Hole winning score prediction of -8 based on some of the early coverage on TNT, but let's hope we see a repeat of Mickelson with a definitive closing round that gives us a super major winner.

TNT signs off at 2 pm ET and a special presentation of ads interspersed with golf shots starts immediately thereafter on CBS.

Jack Welch Blasts CBS '13 PGA Commercial & Chatter Overkill

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Longtime readers and I have bonded over the years documenting PGA Championship commercial breaks and relentless fall lineup previews, with occasional interruptions of golf scattered here and there.

Under strict doctor's orders I was not allowed to watch today's 2013 telecast from Oak Hill. I suffer from a rare disease known as How I Met Your Mother Syndrome, which involves getting a migraine if I hear more than one How I Met Your Mother in a weekend.

But the PGA Championship obviously remains hard to watch when Mr. Free Market, Mr. Capitalism and former Mr. NBC Jack Welch takes to Twitter to blast CBS and the PGA for the lack of golf shown.

The first Tweet:



And a follow up:



The 3rd round highlights, free of plugs and commercials:

 

Shark: Fox Sports Wants Me, They Really, Really Want Me

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Wasting no time to secure the loyalty of The Villages demo, Fox's David Hill has offered the Great White Shark the U.S. Open lead analyst position for its U.S. Open broadcast team, Norman confirms via email to Tim Rosaforte.

"David Hill has reached out to me, we have spoken and yes, they have offered me the job," Norman confirmed in an email sent from his home in Florida. "I am flattered to have been asked and I look forward to having discussions with my good friend (Hill) in the very near future."

In the U.S. Open, Norman recorded five top 10's including two second-place finishes.

Norman will be 60 when the Fox Sports U.S. Open contract begins in 2015.

ESPN recently highlighted issues with his Shark Shootout's charitable giving. Or lack of such giving.

He is a consultant to Team China's 2016 Olympic hopefuls, and recently removed a Great White Shark mounted to a Medalist Club wall in a spat with the club over changes to his design work. And Tiger's a huge fan.

He has been a passionate advocate for rolling back the Overall Distance Standard in golf, something the USGA has resisted.

"I would rule the golf ball back to 1996 specifications, number one," he declared. "It's a crying shame that so many of the world's great courses have been lengthened by 400-500 yards for one week a year. The cost of that is just ridiculous, especially when you multiply it 30 or 40 times. That money could be better spent elsewhere. Golf is too expensive, and getting more expensive.

2013 PGA Championship Third Round Comment Thread

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A super leaderboard heads into a weekend forecast to be sunny and mostly clear.

TNT kicks off with 11 a.m. ET coverage, followed by CBS at 2 pm ET and all capped off by Golf Channel's Live From immediately following CBS's telecast.

Time Warner customer? Remember, you have options for the CBS portion of the proceedings.

The final pairing of Dufner and Scott go at 2:55 ET.

Jason Dufner On Trying To Shoot 62 In A Major: "It's tough when you're chasing history."

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Lots of fun, frank stuff from PGA Championship second round leader Jason Dufner in his post round scrum posted by GolfChannel.com.

Great to hear him so appreciative of the honor of breaking Oak Hill's course record, previously held by Ben Hogan (Mr. Hogan) and Curtis Strange (Mr. Strange).

And there was this on the putt he left short for 62:



Matthew Rudy has more on Dufner's interest in Hogan and the historic round.

USGA Had Long Planned Contract Announcement During PGA Week

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After Michael Bamberger touted the role USGA President Glen Nager played in the stunning $1.2 billion, 12-year USGA television contract move to Fox Sports, it's almost as if the people who engineered this said, "hey look at us!"

Adam Schupak files a behind-the-scenes take with heavy input from the USGA's Sarah Hirschland on the process followed by herself, Wasserman Media Group and Executive Committee member Gary Stevenson (a former Wasserman executive). While the story lacks any input from the ESPN and NBC side and does not mention Hirschland's potential conflict of interest--her husband works as a producer on mostly second-tier Golf Channel events but is certainly now a prime candidate to move to Fox Sports where they'll be hiring--the Golfweek.com story provides plenty of stellar information to reveal several things:

  • This deal was going to be finalized this week all along based on deadlines previously set. Meaning that barring some strange natural disaster, the USGA planned to upstage the PGA Championship. So my initial assessment of "tacky" was too kind, Joe. Put me down for "bush league" in today's scrubbing.
  • This decision was rushed. Pure and simple, the folks involved had less than 48 hours to deliberate the three final offers? From the close of business Monday until sometime early Wednesday, a small number of people made a decision that will impact the organization for more than a decade.
  • We learned that the Executive Committee was not engaged in the process, had little time to consider the ramifications of cutting the cord with more influential media entities in ESPN and NBC/Golf Channel which are usually the two channels you see on in any golf course or sports bar in America.

  • The decision was almost immediately released which would seem to say the 15-member board apparently could not be trusted to keep a secret. We're talking lawyers, executives and accomplished folks here. Wow.

From Schupak's must read:

The USGA rifled through the offers internally one more time on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the USGA convened a meeting of its board of directors, where Fox was crowned the winner. The winners and losers learned their fates later that day, which precipitated a public announcement on the eve of the PGA Championship. A news release disseminated at 6:34 p.m. Aug. 7 stunned the golf and media industry.

“It was not apparent that Fox was an automatic winner by any stretch,” Hirshland said. “We had three compelling offers on the table. At the end of the day, when all was said and done, from both a qualitative and quantitative perspective, Fox was the leader in the clubhouse.”

So as I start to hear from intelligent, calmer USGA voices with big-picture sensibilities, they are horrified by the long term ramifications of severing ties with such influential platforms in the name of money. No, you can't put a dollar figure on the influence you get in having ESPN or Golf Channel on your side. Still, the ultimate question remains: what was the rush if, as Hirschland claims, “it was not apparent that Fox was an automatic winner by any stretch"?

Most of the Executive Committee and no doubt some past USGA presidents will convene next week at the U.S. Amateur and again early next month at the Walker Cup.

Why wouldn't you want to deliberate (face-to-face) the ramifications of such a huge decision and also take the chance of negative publicity for upstaging a Tee-It-Forward "partner" in the PGA of America?

USGA Prez Liked That FOX Execs Were Not Golf Experts

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The Onionesque revelations have only begun on the USGA's massive sellout to FOX Sports.

golf.com's Michael Bamberger praises the USGA for making a "populist move" by outbidding NBC by about $20 million per year.

Here's the best revelation from Bamberger, who directly quotes USGA President Glen Nager saying something other than what appears in the USGA press release. In other words he spoke to the President and what came out was a little scary.

Glen Nager, the president of the USGA, who worked on the FOX deal with Davis and another USGA executive, Sarah Hirshland, said on Thursday afternoon that golf wants, and needs, to reach those football fans and NASCAR fans and baseball fans and soccer fans. Sean Hannity fans, no doubt, too. Nager liked the fact that the FOX executives were recreational golfers and not golf experts. The USGA was looking for something else.

"We have golfing sophistication," Nager said.

Such sophistication that they rolled out an expensive slow play messaging campaign, now openly mocked by two-time US Open winner Lee Trevino, yet they chose not to address slow play at their most prominent championship by using their very-own and proven-successful time par system (once again). The campaign was undermined immediately to sophisticated golf fans.

What FOX brought, among other things, was a boffo proposal to promote the U.S. Open, the other championships and to help make golf more of the mainstream sporting culture.

Nager also thought highly of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Also interesting that Bamberger names Executive Director Mike Davis as a key member of the FOX deal negotiating team. And that NBC and ESPN don't know mainstream but FOX Sports does.

And then there was Bamberger's analysis of who FOX will put in the booth. For those elated that they won't have Johnny to kick around any more, Nager feels your pain. Seems Johnny fits into the populist concept.

This will not be an easy job to fill. Nager did not rule out the possibility of Miller following the USGA to FOX.

As Bamberger notes, that's not happening after Miller's spot-on reaction to the news. And if you really believe Johnny is that important, why didn't you just re-sign with the NBC/Golf Channel?

Since it became clear Nager was going to be USGA President, I've listened to USGA insiders, some past committee members and fanboy types insist his appointment would be disastrous because he's relatively new to the sport of golf. I disagreed, thinking a fresh perspective would be a positive. But who knew we'd get someone so willing to appeal to the lowest common denominator that he'd be willing to alienate two very powerful media companies and potentially millions of serious golf fans for the almighty dollar?

PGA Day 1 Wrap: "You gotta write about the golfer...who used to be the auto racer Anukjit Hirunratanakorn"

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Looks like a pretty stock PGA Championship opening day: good scoring, brief rain delay, nice mix of names on the leaderboard topped by Adam Scott and Jim Furyk, Tiger said he rushed a short putt after his group was put on the clock (Ron Sirak reports), Phil summoned Butch Harmon after a wild finish (video) (Bob Harig reports), and there was one offbeat tale in 68-shooter Kiradech Aphibarnrat.

Dave Kindred with Aphibarnrat's story.

He is 24 years old. He has been called "Asia's John Daly" in allusion to his laundry-bag physique and extravagant swing. This season he has won on both the European Tour and Asian Tour. He has earned over $1.5 million. When he didn't qualify here, the PGA of America used it Eligibility Code 12 -- "the right to invite additional players" -- to get him in the 156-man field. The PGA Media Guide noted that he'd once been an auto racer. Also, he was "previously known as Anukjit Hirunratanakorn."

Irresistible. You gotta write about the golfer Kiradech Aphibarnrat who used to be the auto racer Anukjit Hirunratanakorn who goes two-under-par on one of the world's great golf courses just a month after shooting an 85 -- yes, an 85 -- in the British Open.

Thief Dresses Up As Typical Club Golfer; Hits Baltusrol Lockers

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Thorough report from CBS2 New York's Tracee Carrasco on a thief who dressed like a golfer (even had a glove!) and robbed Baltusrol's open lockers, then tried to his Canoe Brook where Oscar Cabrera was recognized by employees after a police bulletin went out.

“He would enter the club and look for the best way to get to the locker room,” said Springfield Police Det. James Mirabile.

Police said Cabrera stole the credit cards of three members from open lockers on June 30. And they said he wasn’t working alone; he allegedly had an accomplice named Luis Paz.

Springfield police said the two suspects went to a Target store in the Township of Union, where they used the stolen credit cards to buy $8,000 worth of gift cards.

The video feature:

Is Fox Sports Really Paying $100 Million A Year In USGA Deal?

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Either I missed it in focusing on the classless announcement timing or it was added as a follow up to the original report, but Doug Ferguson is citing sources as saying the USGA-Fox Sports partnership is worth approximately $100 million a year for the 12 years, meaning Fox Sports is going to pay $1.2 billion for the right to lose money on everything but the U.S. Open?

Furthermore, with the many innovations the USGA is promising on the production end, combined with starting a team from scratch, the production costs are going to be higher than had ESPN or NBC/Golf Channel or a combination of the two landed the rights.

Though financial terms weren't disclosed, a person with knowledge of the negotiations said the Fox bid was in the neighborhood of $100 million a year, more than double the previous contract. The person wasn't authorized to release details and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Ed Sherman has a strong roundup and commentary on the USGA's move, and also includes a Twitter comment from Scott Van Pelt of ESPN who is hearing the $100 million too.

Sorry, but both NBC and ESPN deserved better here.

The reality is that this decision wasn’t based on innovation. Here’s what Nager should have said in the release:

“Can you believe Fox is willing to give us $100 friggin’ million dollars per year for essentially one tournament?”

All in all, considering this announcement also was made on the eve of the PGA Championship, it was poor form by USGA.

Van Pelt's Tweet:

 

 

John Hawkins files a nice commentary on the ungentlemanly behavior of the organization that prides itself on the etiquette and dignity of our sport.

Golf swears by its etiquette, but this is a burp at the dinner table among heads of state. And from the bleating Bluecoats, no less, who never met a cause they couldn’t tackle without a ton of help.

Last time I checked, six-time PGA Tour winner Brandt Snedeker wouldn’t swing an axe at someone unless you handed him the hatchet and stuck out your neck. “Don’t know the relationship between @USGA and @ThePGAofAmerica but seems petty to announce new TV deal today USGA… Couldn’t wait??” Sneds tweeted.

Guess not, seeing how Fox won’t have a U.S. Open on its air for almost two years. When you drive 90 miles per hour to get somewhere an hour ahead of schedule, people are sure to ask why you’re in such a rush. That’s when you scratch your head and realize you could have caused a wreck.