What Are We Going To Do About The Post Tee Shot Yelling?

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One of the big takeaways from the 2013 PGA: what are we going to do about the yahoos who yell after a tee shot. I think the Rochester crowd--which was otherwise amazing in their passion, attendance and cordiality--took the post tee shot obnoxious scream to a new level.

Luke Kerr-Dineen reports and posts a GIF of Jim Furyk's reaction to one yell.

Since the start of the tournament fans have been yelling everything from the old standbys to" Chewbacca," "Baba booey" and "mashed potatoes."

Ian Poulter was one of the many who took issue with it on Twitter, writing: "This baba boo sh-- & mash potato crap shouting wouldn't happen at Augusta, The Open, nor would it happen at Wimbledon. Tazer the thrushes." Things even got so bad at that after Furyk hit his drive on 16, he turned around to the crowd, pointed, and looked to tell them something that didn't exactly appear to be a stamp of approval.

Poulter's epic Tweet, in case you missed it: 

So what is golf to do? Ejections? Tazer the thrushes? What? Because this has to be dealt with as it's a turn-off to anyone with a pulse.

USGA: Timing Of Fox Sports TV Deal "was consistent with good organizational practice"

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The USGA appears to be working feverishly while quietly punching back throughout the weekend nights, trying to penetrate the (mostly) negative coverage of their despicable (but completely planned) decision on a new 12-year television contract in the middle of the PGA Championship.

Out of respect for the PGA of America, I'm not going to address some of the big picture issues related to the sport as revealed in this Ron Sirak story until tomorrow.  But for giggle purposes, this corporatespeak from USGA flak Joe Goode is right out of the Bank of America playbook and should brighten your Monday.

(Before you read how the money people have kidnapped and tied up the golf people at Far Hills, I remind you that the USGA is a non-profit organization running a few golf tournaments...err...championships...shaping the rules of a game, and doing some nice turfgrass research when the Executive Committee isn't chopping away at that research budget.)

From Sirak's story:

"The timing of our announcement was consistent with good organizational practice, a commitment to transparency, and involved a national governance organization and several large media companies whose stocks are traded publicly and applicable to disclosure laws and requirements," USGA spokesman Joe Goode said in a statement.

"The USGA and FOX Sports Media Group promptly made public our agreement, just as we made other applicable news throughout the day public," Goode said. "It would not have been proper, nor realistic, to withhold this news from the public in these circumstances."

As we learned in Adam Schupak's story, the USGA structured the timing of their decision to coincide with the PGA, so right off the bat they were going to be un-gentlemanly unless the 15-person committee that voted decided to sit on the news.

So again, this means the USGA Executive Committee could not be trusted to keep a secret.

Your Kneejerk Reactions: 2013 PGA Championship

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It's hard to evaluate a tournament when you are watching an online (picture) feed sent to Apple TV with audio from another online feed listened through a Jambox (thanks Time Warner and CBS!), but it's hard to imagine this one would have been any more scintillating on live television. Brilliant ballstriking will do that, and Jason Dufner thankfully won this event instead of someone losing it because of the complete overreliance on rough as a hazard.

I hope this one is remembered for Dufner's great play and the sheer dreariness of watching a course with more dense rough than short grass. We were reminded yet again that skill is muted way too often when there is that much tall stuff. And in the case of the 5th hole, where tight grass fronted a creek, the contrived nature of it all.

On another note, I felt there was a better effort made on Sunday by CBS to minimize ads and promos, though seeing the Arena Bowl and next week's PGA Tour event get plugs had to be a first in major championship telecast history!

Either way, congrats to Dufner and let the Dufnering begin, again.

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?