Truly The Last Masters Question
I've been out and about at some golf facilities the last few days and heard near unanimous frustration at how boring the Masters has become.
We've considered the architectural and setup influences, but after reading Stu Schneider's TV Rewind column in this week's Golf World (column not posted), it seems that we should not discount just how much CBS's presentation has played into the change in perception.
The Frank Chirkinian presentation style that many of us enjoyed showed more shots and imany more of them live than we see with Lance Barrow's production approach. Schneider points out how long it took for CBS to show several shots, including Ogilvy's eagle on 13 and most amazingly, a Zach Johnson eagle birdie on 3 followed by a Vaughn Taylor missing an eagle putt on 2, even though they were paired together.
Is this playing a role in uh, "rebranding" the Masters as more of a U.S. Open style event?
Friday, April 13, 2007 at 08:55 AM
Reader Comments (11)
In any case, there wasn't a lesser number of roar-worthy shots Sunday than a "normal" Masters Sunday (Goosen stiffing one from the trees on 7, Donald pitching in for Eagle on 8, Sabbatini holing a 60-footer with ten feet of break for Eagle on 8, Harrington and Woods making Eagles on 13 in successive groups...), so absolutely, the lack of excitement could well have something to do with the production.
4p
I thought the setup was fair (fair being everyone played the same course and Seve was not given any strokes; if the course was "tricked up" it was tricked up to favor whoever holed critical putts, nothing new there), and I was glued to the broadcast until Tiger was unable to hole his second shot at 18 -had he done that it would have rivalled Sarazen's famous albatross.
The verbage of the reporters was not a factor for me since I was in a group and there was too much peripheral noise to here their comments, and even without the magnificent Bobby Clampett around I consider the reporting inconsequential.
So if it was "boring", maybe in comparison to some of the previous Masters, but not in comparison to "Dancing With The Stars" or end of season games between the Knicks and Celtics.
Last week was an orange level for terrorism with little to no activity suspected. This week it's red due to Don Imus's poor choice of words.
I did pick up 50-Cent's latest album, and I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night, I guess my words on the "to painful to watch scale" were really offensive compared to the music being played over the radio. If this society was as sensitive as you about the things that are truely offensive it would be a great place to live, unfortunately the only people who complain are the ones that feel directly affected. Why is that?
One thing I remember from Masters past was watching a golfer prepare to chip or putt out when suddenly you could hear a great roar from another part of the course. Usually they cut to a replay with the words 'You just heard the yells, here is what happened...".
There were not a lot of roars this year.
But to Geoff's point - the presentation was uneven (I watched Harbor Town yesterday - same thing).
Which is a shame because this Masters was a watershed event - someone actually outplayed Tiger in the final round of a major (at least, a major where Tiger was in contention, in fact, held the lead!). Up until now no one has done that.
The final round, by itself, probably suffered from the fact it was preceded by 3 terribly boring days including the <unnamed> Death March on Saturday. If the earlier rounds had been exciting, well, this Masters would have probably been given a pass. As it was, Sunday could not save the week.