Pebble Pro-Am, West Coast Swing Have Their Swagger Back?
Amazing what a little tinkering with formats and emphasizing course design can do!
Not long ago the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am was known for six hour rounds, has-been pros in the field and never-was "celebrities" getting too much air time. With the world's top-3 playing this year and plenty of celebrity intrigue to offset the corporate crowd--Golfweek posted the full field list here--Der Bingle's baby is back.
But as Ron Kroichick noted for MorningRead.com, the AT&T matters again as as stalwart event thanks largely to some key changes in format and rota.
Or put another way: Pebble matters again.
AT&T officials couldn’t do much about the weather, but in 2010 they shrewdly swapped Poppy Hills (unpopular among Tour pros) for Monterey Peninsula Country Club’s Shore Course. They also trimmed the field from 180 pros and amateurs to 156 of each, and made a conscious effort to land better amateur golfers.
While athletes were always part of the event, their rise in celebrity status and the inclusion of more pro jocks seems to have given the event a boost. Let's face it, for a lot of PGA Tour golfers the chance to hang out with a world class athlete for three rounds is more interesting than getting paired with a corporate dude.
Unless said corporate dude has a jet and a third home on the Peninsula with a separate guest entrance.
Randall Mell at GolfChannel.com notes the improved golf professional component in saying Pebble has its swagger back.
Maybe it’s fitting Doral doesn’t host a PGA Tour event anymore. The old adage that the year in golf doesn’t begin until Doral wouldn’t hold up any longer. Today’s stars aren’t using the West Coast swing to get warm in a run up to the Masters. They hit the year hot with Johnson, Rahm and Jason Day among the big names getting on the board with victories in January.
The intensity only builds this week with Spieth looking to rebound from a missed cut in Phoenix last week. He is defending the title he won last year. It also builds with McIlroy making his first PGA Tour start of the year after coming off second- and third-place finishes on the European Tour last month.
Over at CBSSports.com, Kyle Porter notes the seemingly improved week-to-week quality of the tour. While I'll remind him of this column in mid to late May, the point should be made that the fall wraparound schedule has not harmed the West Coast Swing as folks like me feared. Perhaps it's the mediocre quality of those events and lack of eyeballs trained on them, but the West Coast still feels like the tour's bread-and-butter season for big venues, big fields and lots of eyeballs. As it and the Florida season should be given a quick study of history.
Also not to be discounted: the subtle but important inclusion of stars who don't play 25 events the previous year now being forced to play events haven't been to in at least four years. That subtle PGA Tour rule could, for instance, explain Rory McIlroy's appearance this week. Or, at the very least, helped get him to Pebble Beach when making out a schedule in search of adding an event due to the rule.
Tuesday, February 6, 2018 at 10:17 PM
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"PGA Phoenix Open Up Big on CBS
For the second straight week, PGA ratings soared to multi-year highs on CBS.
Final round coverage of the PGA Phoenix Open earned a 2.5 rating and 4.1 million viewers on CBS Sunday, up 32% in ratings and 30% in viewership from lasts year (1.9, 3.1M) and up 19% and 23% respectively from 2015 (2.1, 3.3M).
Gary Woodland’s win delivered the tournament’s largest audience in five years (2013: 4.3M).
Outside of Super Bowl programming, Sunday’s telecast was the highest rated and most-watched sporting event of the weekend. In adults 18-49, it ranked third behind ABC’s two NBA games.
On Saturday, third round action scored a 2.1 and 3.3 million — up 40% in ratings and 46% in viewership from last year (1.5, 2.3M) and up 50% and 59% respectively from 2015 (1.4, 2.1M). It was the most-watched third round of the tournament since it returned to broadcast television in 2011.
The multi-year highs at the Phoenix Open followed similar results at Torrey Pines the previous week. That tournament hit a ten-year high on Saturday and a five-year high on Sunday, with both rounds up more than 30%. Tiger Woods’ presence was the explanation for that strong performance, but given Woods’ absence at Phoenix, perhaps other factors are at play"
source: Sports Media Watch and Nielsen, Inc.
Not to say I told you so, but...
FUNNY!!
Anyone notice what Romo wrote as his occupation on his bio card? "Chairman of CBS" bwahahaha smartass