This Week In Golf Channel Ratings: 175,000 Average Viewers

Son Of The Bronx posts the Golf Channel ratings for the week of September 16-22, which means the Monday finish of the BMW Championship helped make up for lackluster numbers for the Tour Championship later in the week.

Still, the network averaged 175,000 viewers compard to 97,000 the previous week.

The top 10 was led by the BMW spillover coverage on Monday, followed by Thursday and Friday of the Tour Championship. Nice to see so few people find the ResetCup interesting and the format so un-playoff-like, not that this would prompt the tour to admit the thing isn't finding an audience.

1 PGA TOUR: BONUS  Mon  10:00AM- 2:51PM  0.6  792,000

2 PGA TOUR  Fri  1:00PM- 6:00PM  0.6 734,000

3 PGA TOUR  Thu  1:00PM- 6:00PM  0.5  664,000

4 PGA TOUR  Sat  10:00AM-12:00PM  0.4  507,000

5 PGA TOUR Sun  12:00PM-12:55PM 0.3 483,000

6 GOLF CENTRAL-POST Thu  6:00PM- 6:30PM  0.2  326,000

7 GOLF CENTRAL-POST  Mon 2:51PM- 4:00PM 0.3 304,000

8 GOLF CENTRAL-POST  Fri 6:00PM- 6:30PM  0.2  300

9 PGA TOUR  Thu 6:30PM-11:30PM 0.2  287

10 PGA TOUR  Fri 8:30PM- 1:30AM 0.2  228

And in the go-figure department, Friday's Champions Tour outdrew Sunday's coverage, both tape-delayed.

12 CHAMPIONS TOUR Fri 6:30PM- 8:30PM 0.2 189,000

14 CHAMPIONS TOUR  Sun 7:00PM- 9:45PM 0.1 172,000

"As golf enters its own Moneyball Era, every number counts..."

It's been a longtime coming, but the Moneyball mentality has finally come to golf, reports Tim Rosaforte in this week's Golf World.

Most notably, Brandt Snedeker and Zach Johnson are attributing some of their recent success to more numbers crunching by outside sources, and it's not all ShotLink stats helping the players prepare. Snedeker won't reveal much other than the role Mark Horton has played.

"The lines [between a good and great season] are so thin, so I'm trying to find any edge I can get," Snedeker said. "Mark's done a great job for me of understanding who I am as a golfer. We, as professional golfers, have a tendency of thinking we're strong in particular areas, and that may not be the case at all. He does a great job of identifying what I need to work on, what my strengths are so I play to those, and what my weaknesses are, so I can play away from them."

At East Lake a year ago, Horton worked his computer in the clubhouse, and Snedeker executed a game plan that resulted in a sweep of the final playoff event and the FedEx Cup title for an $11.44 million payday. At the end of the year, Snedeker said Horton was the difference for him in jumping from 38th to ninth on the World Ranking.

Johnson was less secretive about his work with Peter Sanders, whose Shot By Shot website is part of the numbers crunching process.

Sanders, who works out of his house in Connecticut, contends that ShotLink stats are "myopic" and "one-dimensional answers to multi-dimensional questions." The blunt comments point to the theory that identifying tangible areas of improvement that can truly help improve scoring comes from a more focused exploration of the data.

Video: Ouimet And Lowery 50 Years Later

Nice find by the USGA to post this film of Francis Ouimet and caddie Eddie Lowery fifty years after making history at The Country Club, talking about the 1913 U.S. Open.



The anniversary of their win was Saturday and The Country Club celebrated the moment in grand style.

AJGA Averages 4:17 In 2013

Ryan Lavner sums up the AJGA announcement on Morning Drive to tout their 4 hours, 17 minute 2013 pace of play average.

According to AJGA Executive Director Stephen Hamblin, that was six minutes faster than last year and much of the improvement could be attributed to the system of first player holing out heading to the next tee.

At the AJGA level, the tournament committee designates six holes for timing checkpoints, where volunteers are stationed to record both the threesomes’ gap time relative to the group ahead and to the overall time par for the course. In recent years, this system has been duplicated at the college level.

The AJGA said its quickest tournament was the Kansas Junior at Buffalo Dunes, where the average pace of play was 3 hours, 50 minutes. The fastest round of the year was 3 hours, 23 minutes, while the low round of the year played in less than four hours was Wes Artac’s 10-under 62 at the Genesis Shootout.

The interview:

Must See Video: In Play's Francis Ouimet Segment

In case you missed it, here is In Play with Jimmy Roberts' feature hosted by Rich Lerner on the anniversary of Francis Ouimet's historic U.S. Open win.

There's some tremendous historic footage in this, including Ouimet talking years later well as scenes of Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer in their offices reading old newspaper clippings, paying tribute to this monumental event without paying tribute in the usual sitdown interview way. Powerful stuff.

There is also footage from Saturday's The Country Club reenactment of the historic day artfully woven into the feature. The only complaint and it's a big one: it seems they were in a hurry to fit the In Play half-hour format. As with too many of these quality historical pieces by Golf Channel, this should have been longer, with more on Saturday's reenactment and Ouimet's odd relationship with the club.

Update on 2013-09-25 15:28 by Geoff

**GolfChannel.com has posted a bonus segment on the reenactment:

Finchem: "I can't find too much wrong in what we're doing."

Commissioner Vader appeared on Morning Drive for da full hour and if you like an arrogant, dismissive and a steady monotone, this was television gold!

As usual, the Commish put out all of the fires of the current tour, of which there are many created by the thirst to fill every week on the calendar with PGA Tour golf. (Kudos to Williams, Hack and even Finchem fishing buddy Rolfing for picking sensitive topics).

A few quotes to remember from Finchem.

On players skipping playoff events: "I don't see it developing as some kind of trend."

He did concede that the FedExCup points have "too much volatility" but summed up the current state of the tour by saying, "I can't find too much wrong in what we're doing."

Gary Williams left the interview (AFTRA rules forbid listening to Commissionerspeak for an hour straight) and Finchem fishing buddy Mark Rolfing took his place, and the topic of rules came up. Unfortunately, the one really bizarre moment was not part of the Golf Channel uploads posted below.

In a nutshell: when the topic of Tiger's ridiculous final round drop at The Players came up, Finchem revealed his axe to grind with Johnny Miller for basing his analysis on Mark Rolfing's initial reaction and the blimp shot, whereas Finchem took the evidence in and as he said this morning, declared to himself, " no problem here."

How anyone could watch that situation play out and not even concede it looked bad, is pretty disturbing.

Anyway, Finchem's rambling answer on simplifying the rules where he essentially says the PGA Tour has no desire to get into the rules business and that the Rules of Golf, as written, are "not that far off now."

On fan rulings he tries to explain why they aren't the end of the world, but doesn't go so far to say that getting rid of phone-in help would create the perception of cheating or incompetance.

Adam Scott Apologizes To Aussies For New Calendar Year Schedule

This Ben Everill story is just the kind of thing that hurts Viagra sales in greater Ponte Vedra, but mostly it makes me sad that the PGA Tour's "calendar year" schedule welcomed by no one but the four fall events, has this kind of residule effect.

The gist? Adam Scott is essentially apologizing for the PGA Tour taking quality Australian golfers away from visits to their home country events so they can play early fall PGA Tour events.

'Playing the PGA Tour is very tough, it's a fine line week to week and it's players' careers at stake,' Scott said.

'You can easily be off the tour and it would be unfair for these guys to jeopardise their careers for a couple of events at home.

'It is too much to ask.

'I am in a fortunate position where I can play and I am happy about that.'

Senator Introduces Legislation To Deny Tax-Exempt Status To Non-Profits With Revenues Greater Than $10 Million

Rick Cohen of The Hill reports on Senator Tom Coburn's legislation that would deny tax-exempt status for "professional sports leagues with revenues greater than $10 million."

The bill has not been posted but you can read the Senator's talking points here which include a misspelling of Commissioner Finchem's name.

Ryan Ballengee broke down the talking points and noted this:

In his talking points, Coburn also suggests PGA Tour executives and its players — labeled “independent contractors” — make way more through the 501(c)6 structure than other trade organizations. For example, PGA Tour players and sponsors have raked in millions while taxpayers effectively subsidized the tour’s operations. In 2010, the tour paid its (sic) five of its most successful golfers a combined $37.4 million. That same year, sponsors — who pay to have their brands advertised at tournaments and on television broadcasts — received $44 million of the tour’s $1.4 billion revenue (sic). Tim Fincehm, PGA Tour’s commissioner, received a handsome sum of $3.7 million in 2010 from the nonprofit PGA Tour itself and $1.5 million from its related organizations.

Wait until the Senator sees Finchem's 2011 pay and the other executive compensation.

Tour Championship Ratings: 1.6 Overnight, Down 27%

From SportsMediaWatch (thanks reader Irwin):

Final round coverage of The Tour Championship, the final event in the PGA Tour FedEx Cup, earned a 1.6 overnight rating on NBC Sunday afternoon — down 27% from last year (2.2), but up 14% from 2011 (1.4).

The 1.6 overnight is the third-lowest for final round coverage of the event since the FedEx Cup began in 2007.

In addition, the 1.6 is the third-lowest for any FedEx Cup telecast on broadcast this year (eight telecasts). Only Saturday’s third round (1.4) and last week’s Sunday rainout coverage of the BMW Championship (0.9) earned lower overnights.

Speaking of Saturday’s third round, the 1.4 overnight marked a 36% decline from last year (2.2) and a 27% increase from 2011 (1.1).

For some context, the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open, which probably cost the sponsor 1/4th of what the Tour Championship costs Coca Cola, delivered a 1.3 on a Sunday morning in July!

At least they aren't Houston Astro numbers.