AVIDGOLFER

CBS And TNT Had Some Good And Strange TV Moments Covering PGA Championship

Rick Arnett /

CBS and TNT had some terrific TV broadcasting moments during the 2018 PGA Championship.  They also suffered some brain farts. It was a riveting watch down the stretch has Tiger Woods and the humongous galleries nipped at eventual winner Brooks Koepka.

I’m gonna say the plusses outweighed the negative, but there was plenty of both to debate.

The first head-scratcher was TNT failing to show or mention one stinkin’ shot of Tony Finau’s shocking front-nine on Friday as he shot a 32 with a triple and no pars.

The first was finally a broadcast granted my wish to show nearly every full shot on the TopTracer technology rather than the dumb ball against a frameless sky giveup.

Golfweek’s media critic Martin Kaufman gives his take on the broadcasts.

The PGA Championship kind of felt like old times, even if, in this instance, Woods had to settle for second.

“There’s always something special when Tiger is in the mix,” Sean McManus, chairman of CBS Sports, told me immediately after the tournament. “What he did today was almost historic. It was terrific and it was spellbinding. The combination of what he did with what Brooks Koepka did and the way he hung in there made for unbelievable drama.”

Lead analyst Nick Faldo often seems to wing it when he and anchor Jim Nantz open the show, but he had a pretty good line about Koepka at the top of Sunday’s coverage.

“He’s like a cruise liner,” Faldo said. “He’s on a path and he creates a wave, and everyone is stuck in the wave behind him.”

Great competition can mask the occasional flaws, such as Verne Lundquist referring to Matt Wallace as “Mike” – a particularly egregious mistake given that Lundquist had time to prepare because Wallace’s ace on Saturday was shown on replay. Lundquist also referred to the tournament leader as “Brooks Kupka.” I have a huge soft spot for “Uncle Verne” because of so many wonderful fall Saturdays spent listening to him call SEC football, but it’s hard to overlook those sorts of mistakes.

Gary McCord called Brooks “Bruce” a couple of times.

The biggest gripe I hear each year with regard to the PGA Championship is the heavy load of commercials relative to the other majors. It’s a legitimate gripe, but it’s also an issue that falls largely at the doorstep of the rightsholder, in this case the PGA of America. Bigger rights fees translate into more commercials.

From 3-4 p.m. ET, right after the leaders teed off, there were, by my count, 9 minutes, 30 seconds of commercials. The next hour, there were 12:15 of commercials, and 14 minutes from 5-6 p.m. I actually thought those numbers would be higher, but it’s still more commercial inventory than any viewer would like to see during a major championship. Hopefully, in the next round of TV contract negotiations, the PGA will reconsider that approach.

 

Brooks Koepka CBS PGA Championship Tiger Woods TNT TopTracer TV coverage Vern Lundquist