Strange Times: NY Times On China's Golf Crackdown

With Tiger Woods slated to announced his big Beijing design job on April 23rd, the recent stories out of China about golf crackdowns figure to make the wording of that announcement extra fun!

Thanks to all who sent Austin Ramzy's NY Times story on the crackdown, which leans quite a bit on the reporting and observations of Dan Washburn. (You can also listen to Dan on this episode of State of the Game.)

Dan Washburn, author of “The Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream,” said the crackdown was not surprising given the game’s reputation in China as a capitalist pastime and the extent of Mr. Xi’s prolonged campaign against corruption, which has toppled senior party and military leaders.

“This is Xi Jinping’s China, and it’s clear he’s intent on making his mark,” Mr. Washburn said. “Everyone’s a potential target in this ongoing crackdown on corruption, and golf is a particularly easy and obvious one.”

Washburn penned this CNN piece during Masters week with more insights into this utterly bizarre situation that has the government shutting down courses and politicians, but also funding golf because of its place in the Olympic Games.

In Guangdong province, the birthplace of golf in modern China, an investigative team has been formed to crack down on officials who took part in any of nine golf-related activities. There's even a public hotline for reporting suspected golf violations.

Over the past decade, however, not much seemed like it could get in the way of golf's meteoric growth in China. While it's been illegal to build new golf courses in China since at least 2004, no other country has built more of them over the past decade -- not even close.

Beijing would say new construction is banned, while at the same time local governments would line their pockets with the proceeds from the boom. There didn't seem to be too many rules in all of this, but one was especially important: When building a golf course in China, don't call it a golf course. One massive project of note was known as "ecological restoration."

Washburn speaking in this embedded clip:

Sportscenter Anchor: "Golf telecasts...woefully behind the times"

SI's Richard Deitsch hosted a panel discussion with various sports-TV types about how to improve their product and ESPN Sportscenter anchor John Buccigross delivers a nice rant about golf on television.

Of course, he's airing a common gripe post-Masters about not getting to see all 18 holes of rounds by mega-stars, which is only slightly awkward since his network holds the rights and the folks at Augusta National work on one-year contracts. Though it's not like many disagree with him, especially since the digital offerings this year left a lot to be desired with the normally criticism-reducing Featured Groups.

Anyway, Buccigross on televised golf:

Golf telecasts are woefully behind the times and in need of a major overhaul. Shot tracer needs to be utilized on nearly every swing and way too much putting is showed. Also, every major should have 18-hole, four-round coverage. I can watch every Patrick Kane shift, every Marshawn Lynch carry or every Mike Trout at-bat in every game they play if I choose. I should be able to watch all of Tiger Woods shots at a major on my big, beautiful TV. If I have to shell out $29.99 to watch it I will pay it. Golf is concerned about growing the game yet they restrict access to their best golf courses and restrict access to its best players on television.

I can't watch Tiger Woods or Rory McIlroy play all 72 holes of a major live here in 2015?

We're only two weeks away from the first Fox Sports golf telecast from Olympic Club and while Fox producer Mark Loomis doesn't reveal much new in this interview with Craig Hill, I continue to think the Fox goal of better placing us in the view of the golfer confronted by the architect's canvas will force all network hands to think twice about camera locations.

A: A lot of times golf is covered from the green back to the tee, because that’s where your biggest cameras are. One of the things we’ve put some energy into is figuring out if we can give you a little better look at what the golfer is seeing. Kind of look from the tee toward the green.

I think we are trying to take advantage of some of the new technology … (such as) drones. Audio has always been a staple for Fox and how can we make the sounds of the golf course better.

You always kind of lose the audio on the green. … How can we get on the green and hear a little bit more about what’s going on?

The main focus is, how can we tell the story about what’s going on on the golf course better? Not just come up with cool tricks.

Q: But there will be cool tricks, right?

A: There is kind of an old saying: “There’s nothing new in television. It’s just people doing the same thing in a different way.” I think the answer to that is that we’ll take some of the technology that people have used over the years, like the tracer.

One of the things we’ve talked about is whenever you see a green on your TV it looks flat, whether it is or isn’t. So, how can we do different things to make the greens come to life so you see them the same way you would if you were standing on them?

If you want to call them cool tricks, that is true, but they are tricks for the sake of making the person at home feel like they are getting a better look at the golf course.

Masters Putts Made: Jordan 410 Feet, Rory 340 Feet

With the soft launch this year of Masters.com's "Track" feature we were treated to a ShotLink-light system that looked great and allowed us to track players when television wasn't showing them. Or, to see what distances they had off of tees, into greens or on the greens.

While the system did not provide ShotLink-type numbers or hole scatter charts, there was this enterprising use of the data on distances by Brian Keogh at the Irish Golf Desk in considering the issues Rory McIlroy faces in adapting to Augusta National's greens.

McIlroy, in contrast, totalled 86 feet, 71 feet, 101 feet and 82 feet of putts. In other words, he holed 340 feet worth of putts compared to 410 feet for Spieth.

It’s not that the Holywood star putted poorly but any means but while he holed just nine putts beyond eight feet for the week, Spieth holed 16. That's got little to do with McIlroy's overly conservative strategy in a week when soft conditions begged for his usual attacking style.

Fox Sports Happy To Reach Non-Millennials, Except On U-Verse

Greg Connors of the Buffalo News looks at Fox Sports' embrace of non-millennials as it begins covering golf on Fox Sports 1.

Because it seems any live event is better than a rerun, even if it's the U.S. Junior Amateur.

From Bill Wanger, executive vice president of research and programming for Fox Sports, on not being ashamed to attract the demographic dead to most over-35-year-olds.

The live events drive the viewership,” Wanger said, “so we’re going to have about 40 hours of coverage on Fox Sports 1 of just the U.S. Open. You’re talking about eight hours on Thursday and Friday, and all sorts of preview shows, so it’s really important to establish a good base for people to come and check out the channel. 

“And particularly golf, which is a unique audience. It’s a little bit older, more upscale, so it’s an opportunity for those folks to be able to see the network.”

Fox Sports acquired digital rights to the USGA events, as well as broadcast rights. Wanger said that in addition to streaming some of the TV broadcasts online, there will be three digital-only feeds available on Fox Sports Go and through USGA.com.

Awful Announcing's Matt Yoder noted this in analyzing the story:

Seeing Fox Sports 1 publicly yearning to attract golf’s older, upscale audience and have them visit the network is a long cry from the days of #The1ForFun.  The arranged marriage between the conservative golf audience and Fox Sports is one that will bear watching in June considering the golf world’s yearly reaction to Chris Berman.

One area of continued concern: the number of homes Fox Sports 1 reaches. As Awful Announcing noted earlier this week, the Fox-AT&T U-Verse standoff hasn't changed, meaning 4.5 million homes that have Fox Sports 1 are likely to see a darts rerun when USGA events are airing.

Fox's VP of Communications Dan Bell confirmed this when I reached out to Fox about the status of AT&T-Fox relations.

His statement:

“AT&T U-verse has determined it will forgo carriage of dozens of live sporting events on FOX Sports 1.  Unfortunately, U-Verse subscribers have already missed several events, and will miss many more including FOX Sports 1’s coverage of eight USGA championships, including rounds 1 and 2 of the US Open.  U-verse subscribers are encouraged to contact AT&T to request all FOX Sports 1 programming.”

As of February 2015, approximately 84.8 million households in the U.S. receive Fox Sports 1, while 94.3 million pay television households have ESPN, where the U.S. Open weekday coverage aired for 28 years.