When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
Great stuff from Emily Scanlon (below) on the agony and ecstasy of watching her grandson Shane Lowry win The Open at Royal Portrush. Nice work by RTE News to track her down. It’s a gem!
Meanwhile, Sean Martin of PGATour.com watched the final round from Esker Hills, Lowry’s home club, and reports on the celebrations at that working class golf clbu.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by RTÉ News (@rtenews) on
Mark Giannotto gets a very long column out of a harmless, and accurate Tweet from Kyle Porter about the jarring nature of the visual eye candy that was Portrush, and most of golf’s best turning up this week at TPC Southwind.
I get the sensitivity in Memphis but his comment was clearly directed at the beauty of Portrush and not a statement about the city, state, children’s hospital or anything else. Few people are looking forward to TPC Southwind after glorious Portrush. Make that, none are.
He at least blames the tour for this scheduling oddity, which will hopefully be remedied by a new date or putting this WGC out to pasture. The latter is an unlikely scenario.
Now it should be noted that Porter’s tweet did get at one notable issue this year. If you ignored that 46 of the world’s top 50 golfers will be here this week, it’s easy to see why a historic event for Memphis is being looked down upon by outsiders.
The PGA Tour deserves some blame for that.
FedEx used its leverage as the title sponsor of the Tour to get a world-class golf tournament in Memphis that still benefits St. Jude, a cause as worthy as any in professional sports. But then the Tour mucked it all up with its new, condensed schedule this season, effectively diminishing an event considered just a notch below a major by putting it immediately after a major.
Since it appears he has not thought this one through very well, and Callaway has the black eye in this according to this website’s poll (thank you as always for voting), I spell out for Golfweek why Xander Schauffele needs to stay quiet going forward regarding his hot driver failing a test last week.
His sponsors, peers and the governing bodies will be grateful.
Big lead, no Tiger making his first run at a major in years and what do you get? A 2.9 for NBC and ratings decline for the 2019 Open Championship.
From SBD’s Austin Karp:
British Open final round dropped around 42% in overnight ratings on NBC. This was coming -- no big names at top of the leaderboard, a big lead for Shane Lowry and a comp to 2018 when Tiger was winning on Sunday. 2019 rating easily lowest for NBC since it reacquired rights in 2016
— Austin Karp (@AustinKarp) July 22, 2019
Bob Harig reports news of a Woods-McIlroy-Day-Matsuyama Skins Game this fall the same week—mlitzvah!—of the new $9.75 million Zozo Championship in Japan.
The event appears to be part of Woods’ deal with GolfTV and probably seals the fate of a repeat of The Match, last fall’s day-after-Thanksgiving-AT&T synergy play.
While the dollar figures or format are not known, it’s great to see the once-successful format back. Harig writes:
How much this version of a skins game will resemble that is unclear, but this event is part of an agreement Woods has to provide content to GolfTV, an entity that does interviews and other features with Woods at international locations that at this time do not include the United States -- although there are negotiations to have the skins event televised in the U.S. market.
Martin Dempster of The Scotsman wonders if Lytham and Muirfield are on the endangered rota list after last week’s success on and off the course at Portrush.
Coupled with the R&A’s increased emphasis on ticket sales and fan energy, Muirfield’s membership matters and the modern gluten-free diet rendering Lytham helpless against today’s triathletes-turned-golfers, and it’s easy to envision a return to Northern Ireland before those two storied venues.
Dempster writes of the numbers:
Even before it produced one of the most popular winners ever, the Portrush event had attracted a sell-out attendance of 237,750 – the second biggest after St Andrews getting 239,000 in 2000. In comparison, the last visit to Muirfield in 2013 was just over 142,000 and, for the one before that in 2002, it was 161,000.
I say yes.
The combination of design quality, intrigue, variety and beauty, with logistical success puts this course above the non-Old Course layouts.
The players seem to agree, as Alistair Tait writes for Golfweek, with endorsements from Fuyrk, Casey, etc..
The Forecaddie tries to figure out how fast they can get back here and what needs to be done.
My wish list would be pretty short: maybe soften the back portion of the new 7th green, restore the burn currently piped under the par-5 12th green, lose a few ferns in the roughs and definitely lose the interior boundary lines at the 1st and 18th holes, along with the silly boundary line behind the fifth green.
You’ll be shocked to learn who won big in my assessment for Golfweek.
A performance and scene that we’ll all remember capped off a magnificent week for Portrush, the R&A and Irish golf. Shane Lowry never displayed more than a brief ounce of feeling the immense pressure that was placed on the golfers who knew Portrush and mean so much to this part of the world. He won by six strokes.
We’ve got full coverage coming at Golfweek, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on the new Champion Golfer of the Year, the broadcasts, the course and anything else related to The Open’s triumphant return to Northern Ireland.
While you were sleeping, there has been some lively debate here at Portrush following Xander Schauffele’s revelation of a failed driver test earlier in the week.
For his part, Schauffele admitted to what happened in post-round questioning and as I write here for Golfweek, merely was upset at the idea that only 30 players are tested.
Most here seem conflicted about the news, particularly when it comes to blame and impression of what is the first known COR test failure at a major championship. Is the player ultimately responsible for making sure his equipment is on the up and up, or the manufacturer? And is the R&A or any other five family member in their right to be testing early in the week at a major?
So here’s a poll, if you don’t mind voting…
Martin Dempster reports for The Scotsman on Kyle Stanley’s tee shot striking the mother of caddie Greg Milne, on the bag for Scotland’s Robert Macintyre, who opened 68-72.
She’s fine, but Macintyre was not pleased at Stanley forgetting to yell FORE! and leaving the task to others.
“It hit Greg’s mum. So I told him how it was. I said I wasn’t happy – and he didn’t really like my response. He’s the only one I’ve seen do that. It was straight into the crowd. It was into the crowd from the word go. And we’re expecting him to shout fore. She’s all right, I think, but it’s not what you want. “
Players on the PGA Tour have a habit of not shouting ‘Fore’ but MacIntyre did not mince his words as he confronted Stanley. “Aye, there were harsh words,” added the left-hander, who was pleased to make the cut on his Open debut. “It wasn’t too pleasant. But you’ve got to tell him it’s not right. He didn’t take it well at all.
“Shout ‘Fore’. That ball is going straight into the crowd, you know from the word go it’s going into the crowd. Just shout. We shouted, me and Beef [partner Andrew Johnston], as it was coming down.
After Tiger’s 78-70 here at Royal Portrush, the inclination is to fret about what may be ailing Tiger Woods.
To put it another way, what ails him now is a far cry from anything we’ve seen in the past. Some rest and rejuvenation are in order.
Tiger playing late enough for the east and west coast to enjoy him certainly helped, but overall interest appears solid for the 2019 Open at Royal Portrush. So far at least.
For Immediate Release:
BEST OVERNIGHT RATING IN FOUR YEARS FOR
THURSDAY’S OPENING ROUND OF THE 148TH OPEN
Opening Round Earns Highest One-Day Streaming Total for NBC Sports
at The Open, 55.1 Million Minutes (+48% YoY) Across All Platforms
PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland, (July 19, 2019) – Thursday’s opening round coverage of The 148THOpen on GOLF Channel was the highest-rated opening round at The Open since 2015. Coverage averaged a .84 Overnight rating for the eight-hour telecast (8A-4P ET), up 6% vs. 2018, and it becomes the highest-rated opening round at The Open on GOLF Channel (2016-’19).
Opening round coverage peaked with a 1.0 rating from 11:15-11:45 a.m. ET. Early coverage of the opening round (1:30-8A ET) earned a .33 Overnight rating, +22% year-over-year (.27), and also becomes the best Overnight for early opening round coverage of The Open on GOLF Channel (2016-’19).
Golf Central Live From The Open (4-5P ET, .41) becomes the highest Overnight rating for any Thursday hour of Golf Central Live From (other than Thursday at the 2019 Masters) since Thursday at The Open in 2018 at Carnoustie. Thursday Total Day (6A-3A ET, .47) is GOLF Channel’s highest Total Day Overnight rating since Friday of The Open in 2018 at Carnoustie (7/20/18, 6A-3A, .51).
Opening round coverage also earned the highest one-day streaming total on record for NBC Sports at The Open (2016-’19). Thursday’s coverage saw 55.1 million minutes streamed across all platforms (+48% vs. 2018), including marquee groups, complementary feeds and on www.TheOpen.com (U.S.)
Golf’s original championship made its highly-anticipated return to Northern Ireland for the first time in 68 years on Thursday at Royal Portrush Golf Club. Live second round coverage continues Friday on GOLF Channel until 4 p.m. ET. Early coverage of the third and final rounds will begin on GOLF Channel on Saturday-Sunday, before shifting to NBC for the majority of play, tracking those at the top of the leaderboard as they attempt to earn the distinction of “Champion Golfer of the Year”.
Blunt assessment of Tiger Woods by Tiger Woods. From Dan Kilbridge’s Golfweek story on an opening 76 in The Open:
“I’m just not moving as well as I’d like,” Woods said. “Unfortunately, you’ve got to be able to move and, especially under these conditions, shape the golf ball. And I didn’t do it. I didn’t shape the golf ball at all. Everything was left-to-right. And I wasn’t hitting it very solidly.”
So much for the draw he had on Sunday. And this…
“Playing at this elite level is a completely different deal,” Woods said. “You’ve got to be spot on. These guys are too good, there are too many guys that are playing well and I’m just not one of them.”
Here are the basics of Rory McIlroy’s opening 8, which so far is one of many balls to have landed OB at Royal Portrush’s 1st, along with video.
I wrote about the internal OB here for Golfweek here if you’re looking for some explanation as to why there is a boundary line left of the first and 18th holes where there is no boundary.
Bob Harig and Michael Collins looked at the OB yesterday:
And in case you don’t believe that members play it this way, a screen capture of a first hole flyover:
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
