State Of The Game Podcast 63: Iain Carter & The 2015 Majors

Looking at the major winners over the last decade, there have been some great years though on closer inspection, each has its events that look less-than-satisfying in hindsight.

As we discuss with Iain Carter, author of The Majors, the BBC golf correspondent picked a very good year to write a book about the men's Grand Slam events. Because history will look very kindly on the year. Even with Augusta being way too green, Chambers Bay too brown, St. Andrews' greens were too fast and Whisting Straits apparently defenseless (though who knows how anyone breaks par there!), the players picked up the slack for the governing bodies and delivered four very memorable weeks.

Carter joins us to discuss the season, his book and the upcoming year.  Happy listening via your free podcast app subscriptions (hopefully auto downloading), at iTunes, on the show page or as an MP3 download.

Or below:

Golf's Affinity For Youth At The Expense Of Achievement

I get it: golf is not cool. Never really has been. Usually the winners of majors have a few wrinkles and look silly in a flat-brimmed hat. Like, OMG, ick.

When winners of major golf tournaments are young and the new thing, they're understandably adored. In the cases of Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth and Jason Day's, they absolutely should be cause for excitement.

This doesn't make it right to ignore or whitewash history.

Doug Ferguson did the best job of celebrating the breakthrough year for several young players in 2015, most obviously Jordan Spieth. And Ferguson managed to NOT make the point of a generational shift at the expense of people who have built impressive careers. Ones that many of today's next all-time greats would love to have when they in their forties. Ferguson's best point about the short memories in golf was actually made by Rory McIlroy.

Woods had a revolving door of rivals for more than a decade. He was No. 1 even when the math said otherwise.

Now there is a chance for a lasting rivalry, or rivalries. There already is talk of a modern "Big Three," though it's still too early for that.

"We live in such a world that everything is so reactionary, and everything happens so quickly," McIlroy said at the start of the PGA. "A year ago after I won this tournament, it was the Rory era. And then Jordan wins the Masters and it's the Jordan era. Eras last about six months these days instead of 20 years."

Because of his recent play, the incredible playing legacy of Tiger Woods is now under threat given that he was winning handily not that long ago. But it's not just Tiger who is taking a hit because of his recent struggles: the way he beat players so handily (versus today's tightly-bunched leaderboards) has folks as venerated as Dan Jenkins and as not venerated as Shane Ryan suggested Tiger beat a bunch of "nobodies."

The eagerness to declare the new Big Three and to downplay the achievements of Woods is rooted in the desire to make golf appealing to a new generation of fan, one that finds the game about as appealing as previous 18-34 year old demographics. Not very interested.

There are obvious financial motives for hyping the young talent at the expense of those falling outside the coveted demo. Marketers want to reach 18-34 year old's, so we see hype for these youth saviors of the game threaten to spin out of control and undermine the very reasons to be excited about the latest Big Three. Also clouding judgements: Tiger's character and attitude toward media compared to the latest wave. Traces of old-fashioned entitlement and general ignorance of history could also be part of the equation.

The rush to anoint is dangerous and a little embarrassing when you consider Rory's point. Remember back in May when Rickie Fowler joined a mythical "big three" after winning The Players? Or when Jason Dufner and Keegan Bradley were the next greats after their 2011 and 2013 PGA Championship wins? Where are they now in the discussion?

The short attention span reaction would be less bothersome if there wasn't re-writing of history threatening to take place. We have a sport with tremendous history which, because of its slowness and cost, will always skew older no matter how hard people try. We can't allow Tiger's legacy and the great achievements of those prior to 2010 be tainted. Nor should we stand for the suggestion that no one prior to the current generation was capable of strength, athleticism or eye-opening skill.

On Sunday night after the PGA, Golf Channel's Live From gang addressed the overall sense that a course built for this new generation of player was already beginning to have a hard time asking interesting questions of players due to 380-yard drives. They insisted this was an exciting form of play thanks to great athleticism and club optimization. Pro-bifurcationist Brandel Chamblee, who respects and understands the game's history, even got caught up in the moment, insisting this was "the evolution of the athlete" and projected a sense that we were watching a vastly superior collection of golfers, the likes of which we'd never seen before. John Strege documented at GolfDigest.com.

“You go back to when they started measuring clubhead speed out here and it wasn’t that long ago, in 2007. In every single spot, they’re faster. They’re faster. They’re faster. The [equipment] limits were set along that time, so it is the athlete that is better. This is the only sport I know where when they light it up we all have a knee-jerk reaction to respond and say, ‘well, the equipment, the equipment.’ At some point you do have to celebrate the athlete. I don’t think anybody watches Usain Bolt break the tape and go, ‘it’s the shoes.’

“Yeah, I get it. They’ve got longer drivers, they’ve got bigger heads. But these guys don’t look anything like the previous generation, and they didn’t look anything like the previous generation to that. It is a beautiful landscape out here. They’re fit and they can flat swing it hard.”

Yes, they swing hard and don't look like any previous generation. They're taller, leaner, smarter, better scripted and just darn special. But don't tell us this makes them superior golfers historically or that previous generations with access to today's stuff would not be able to do similar things armed with the same arsenals of equipment and outside assistance.

There is no reason to downgrade the accomplishments of previous generations in the rush to anoint the latest the absolute greatest. Especially to feed an imaginary beast that is coveted demo.

You Can Break Rocks But You Can’t Steal Omega Clocks!

There are a few ways to view this Fox6 News report out of Sheboygan.

You can throw your hands up, you can beat the clock, you can move a mountain, you can break rocks, you can be a master, but you better not steal fake Omega clocks!

Because the news of 24-year-old Hugo Nguyen making it a half-mile with one of the large Omega clocks on site at Whistling Straits has only two explanations.

Either he was so enamored with the Guantanamo-ready hooks of will-i-am's caterwauling that he just had to have one of the oversized clocks as a way to remember the worst ad in television history.

Or...

Nguyen planned to hold the clock hostage while threatening to smash it into smithereens and perhaps take out other members of the oversized Omega clock community if the ad was not immediately pulled from the airways.

We may never know. But what we do know is Nguyen faces up to six years of prison time should he be convicted.

Free Hugo now!

When Did World No. 1 Become So Meaningful?

To everyone! Players, fans, media and non-fans.

An algorithm told us last weekend what we've known since the Masters: Jordan Spieth is the best player in the world. Rory McIlroy is not less of a golfer or person because he "lost" the ranking, is he?

Spieth took a miniscule lead over McIlroy, one that could be lost easily. An algorithmic back-and-forth could take place over the next few weeks and I fear we'll be dragged into it, hearing the ranking scenarios alongside the FedExCup scenarios. Neither of which is even slighly compelling compared to what we just witnessed in the four majors this year.

Yet this attaining algorithmic confirmation was treated as a crowning achievement last Sunday, even at the expense of talking about Jason Day's record win. While I can see pride for the player and maybe some large bonuses kicking in to sweeten the moment, why does this matter so much?

Wouldn't Spieth rather have won the PGA Sunday than climb to No. 1? He even he hinted on Sunday the best player in the world right now is Day.

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, it's been a very, very good year. There's nothing -- obviously this is as easy a loss as I've ever had because I felt that I not only couldn't do much about it, as the round went on, I also accomplished one of my life-long goals and in the sport of golf. That will never be taken away from me now. I'll always be a No. 1 player in the world. That's what, when I look back on this year, the consistency that we have had this year and especially being able to step it up in the biggest stages, that's a huge confidence builder and that's what's allowed us as a team to become the best, the No. 1 ranked, I should say, and I believe right now the best in the world. Second best behind Jason Day, of course, given this week.

And Spieth was sincere in how monumental this was on his career goal list.

Check out his Sportscenter appearance by phone where he acknowledged knowing the various scenarios by which he might overtake the top spot last week at Whistling Straits.

So I ask, what is the cause of this fascination with the No. 1 spot when it's just a mysterious algorithm belatedly telling us what we already knew?

FiveThirtyEight: Where Jordan Spieth's 2015 Ranks

On the heels of an assessment by his colleague last week that included all of the 2015 season, Neil Paine of FiveThirtyEight tries to quantify where Jordan Spieth's Win-Win-T4-2 season in the 2015 majors places it amongst the great ones.

Using a metric called z-scores that measure show many standard deviations a player’s score was from the mean the place it fourth behind three Tiger Woods years.

Here's the piece with a searchable list by name of other players in the discussion.

If numbers aren't your thing to put the season into perspective, consider all the scar tissue cases in majors that Karen Crouse of the New York Times compiles in pointing out how hard it is to win a major these days. And then you have Spieth coming along going Win-Win-T4-2. Oops.

Video: Jason Day's Mom Speaks! Yells At The TV Too Much!

Fun stuff from Jason Day's mom Dening who does not want her son's financial help and has a hard time watching her son playing because she starts yelling (well, swearing) at the TV too much.

Kyle Porter with a text version here.

And Golf Channel posted this Fox Australia interview with her.

What To Make Of Whistling Straits After The 2015 PGA?

Many are grappling with what to make of Whistling Straits. Shoot, I struggled with my item for Golf World because so much took place to sort out in all of 200 words.

Because my sense is that most people are a bit conflicted about the place, as am I. After all…

Great winner. We got the best champion for the time and course who was clearly the favorite coming in based on recent play and his previous showing at Whistling Straits. As a fan, that’s very rewarding.

The best were still the best. Many of the players who have been on their game (and those almost on their game) continued their (incredible) play of late. The course, warts and all, rewarded those who were playing at the most elite level coming into the event.

Scoring skill rewarded. The winner broke the scoring record to par, became the second player to reach -20 in a major at the very extreme Whistling Straits.

However…

Too much power emphasis? The winner was able to overpower the course and may not have had to make a few of the risk-reward decisions that a major winner should have to play for various reasons (distance, soft conditions).

Golf hates the "birdiefest". The winner broke the scoring record and that always bothers people, even though we are supposed to reward and celebrate the lowest score possible.

Drama, almost. Sunday’s final round lacked a sense that true major championship drama lurked, even though the course did offer many places to trip up (ask Dustin Johnson on the second tee).

How do we resolve what took place and how the course is perceived?

The course was impeccably conditioned. The immaculate condition meant fairways cut as low as possible while still dense and lush. There was none of the fairway height nonsense we’ve seen at Augusta or at Merion to slow down the ball and lessen the roll of grooves. Also, the greens were perfect, as evidenced by some of the eye-opening stats for player putting inside 10 feet.  Moral of the story: you give top players such excellent playing surfaces and it doesn’t matter what Pete Dye puts in front of them. They will score.

The softness of the modern ball. I think anyone who has played the recent iterations of Titleists, Project A’s Callaway Chrome Softs, etc… knows that today’s missiles are, as the advertising says, even softer and longer. You give today’s players just a little more control on or around extreme greens, and over 72 holes this cuts a few more shots off their scores.

The setup contained very few tricks. The bunkers might have been a tad fluffier than they are for everyday play, but other than one or two hole locations where I saw players unable to read a putt or balls took a big dive at the hole, the pin placements appeared equitable. After the first three majors, where hole locations are intensely difficult due to green speed (Augusta), just difficult (U.S. Open) or hidden to protect the Old Course (The Open), we saw last week what happens when you don’t trick up a course via extreme cup cutting. Kerry Haigh’s had a few ho-hum setups of late, but he and his team nailed it this year.

The course is not particularly strategic. The test at Whistling Straits is largely physical. Decisions are usually between drivers and three woods. The sixth became drivable because of the wind, the 14th never did because of the wind direction. There is little in the way of ground game options to make players question themselves. Some of this was due to soft ground, most relates to Dye’s penal approach.

The time of year. We forget that players have been going at it all year and they’re in peak physical condition. Their routines are honed, the weather is warm and overall, all systems are firing. This means more distance and a little more mental acuity.

Add it all up and the great scoring should be celebrated as a combination of the time of year, excellent maintenance, gimmick-free setup and talent of today’s top players and their “teams.” If you're a fan of the course, don’t let the scoring lessen your view of Whistling Straits. Not a fan? It's still hard to begrudge a place that produced another compelling championship.

Classic TV's 2015 PGA Championship Shot Tracking

As always Classic Sports TV tracks all of the shots show during CBS's final round of the PGA Championship.

At Whistling Straits CBS averaged 1.05 strokes per minute, a slight decrease--SITTING IN THE HALL OF FAME, AND THE WORLD IS GOING TO KNOW YOUR NAME--over 2014's 1.16 rate.

Oh and the Brooks Koepka, Tony Finau conspiracy theorists will be pleased to have evidence backing their social media complaints.

Jordan Spieth Wins The Majors Made Cut Title...By 19

Jim McCabe is the first to post the 2015 majors scoreboard consisting of those who made the cut in all four championships.

Only 18 did it this year and Spieth's 54-under total no only prevailed by 19 over Jason Day, but beat Tiger's total of -53 from 2000.

The full list is here.

PGA Championship Second Highest Golf Telecast Of '15

They didn't move mountains, break rocks or find themselves sit in the Hall of Fame, but considering the sense eventual winner Jason Day was in control, the excitement factor was tempered for some.

Then there was the competent CBS telecast that was constantly interrupted by a squealing (Palisades High grad!) singer, so that the PGA was only down 15% in the Central Time Zone means the audience held steady from last year. (Airing an hour earlier in the only time prime time zone that matters sheds some eyeballs.)

From Paulsen's report:

Final round coverage of the PGA Championship drew a 5.1 overnight rating on CBS Sunday, down 15% from last year (6.0) but up 16% from 2013 (4.4). Despite the double-digit drop, the 5.1 is the second-highest for final round coverage of the event since Tiger Woods finished second in 2009 (7.5).

Excluding The Masters, it is also the highest overnight rating for a golf telecast this year — topping the the final round of the U.S. Open on FOX (4.8). This is the second straight year that the PGA Championship has been the top non-Masters draw.

The U.S. Open final round aired in East Coast and Central prime time windows with a an equally compelling leaderboard, so that's not a great visual for the USGA and Fox, but perhaps also a compliment to CBS's underrated promotional strength.

TNT also had a good week:

In other action Sunday, TNT drew a 1.6 overnight for its early morning coverage — up 45% from last year (1.1), up a tick from 2013 (1.5) and the network’s highest final round overnight since 2010.

Update on Monday, August 17, 2015 at 07:57 PM by Geoff

**Golf Channel's final numbers are not in yet, but PGA Championship Week viewership on Golf Channel on target may beat ’13 and ’14 to be "most-watched ever" even with a wipeout of Saturday morning's Live From coverage. Overnights for Sunday's Live From (.13) are up 18% and the best Sunday overnight ratings in past five years.

More from TNT:

Turner Sports’ comprehensive multimedia coverage of the 2015 PGA Championship grossed 11.4 million exposures – an increase of 35% over 2014 – across its daily TNT average audiences and PGA.com mobile, online and TV Everywhere platforms.  This year’s PGA Championship delivered double-digit growth across all platforms including TNT recording a 28% increase in total viewership and PGA.com’s suite of digital products registering significant gains in live video consumption, along with social impressions across Turner Sports’ PGA.com Facebook and Twitter accounts rising 45% over last year.

TNT’s live PGA Championship coverage (Thursday/Friday, 2-8 p.m. ET; Saturday/Sunday, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.) averaged 1,637,000 total viewers and a 1.2 U.S. HH rating, up 28% and 20% over last year’s telecast windows. This year marks the network’s most-viewed PGA Championship coverage since 2010.  TNT’s four-day coverage also generated double-digit increases across key demographics including a 29% gain in Men 18-49 and 26% in People 18-49.
 
Sunday’s final round action on TNT delivered an average of 1,794,000 total viewers and a 1.3 U.S. HH rating, up 53% and 41% over 2014 and the network’s highest-rated and most-viewed Sunday coverage since 2010. TNT’s final round telecast – peaking with an average of 2.3 million total viewers from 1:30-1:45 p.m. – also posted considerable increases across core demos (+53% in People 18-49; +46% in Men 18-49).
 
The highest-rated metered markets for TNT’s PGA Championship coverage (Thursday-Sunday) — West Palm Beach (2.8), Milwaukee (2.7), Fort Myers (2.3), Columbus, Ohio (2.2) and Orlando/San Diego/Oklahoma City/Jacksonville/Memphis (2.1). The highest-rated metered markets for Sunday’s final round coverage – Milwaukee (4.0), Columbus (3.0), Memphis/San Diego (2.9), New Orleans (2.7) and Cleveland/Orlando (2.6).

Finally: Jason Day Wins A Major (In Record Style)

The act of prognosticating majors is a silly game many of us partake in because they never play out how we hope. Many of us picked Jason Day as the obvious favorite, with Jordan Spieth likely to be right there. And for a change, a golf tournament played out kind of like we expected and hoped.

Day's win is especially enjoyable because he's had so many close calls, works hard, loves what he does and has been on the cusp. That doesn't always translate to major success but what fun to see things play out before our eyes as the paper evidence hinted.

Doug Ferguson gets at the emotional weight lifted for Day in his AP story:

Worried that this year might turn out to be a major failure, Day never gave Jordan Spieth or anyone else a chance Sunday. He delivered a record-setting performance at Whistling Straits that brought him a major championship he started to wonder might never happen.

Day was in tears before he even tapped in for par and a 5-under 67 for a three-shot victory. He sobbed on the shoulder of Colin Swatton, his caddie and longtime coach who rescued Day as a 12-year-old struggling to overcome the death of his father.

And then came high praise from Spieth in the scoring trailer when golf's new No. 1 player told him, "There's nothing I could do."

Ian O'Connor at ESPN.com on how Sunday was the culmination of a life lived overcoming a lot.

Day wanted to tell you that he was 12 when his old man died of stomach cancer, and that his mother needed to take out a second mortgage on the house and borrow money from his aunt and uncle to put him in a golf academy seven hours away. He wanted to tell you that he was getting into fights, and getting drunk at home before he was even a teenager. He wanted to tell you that his mother used a knife to cut the lawn because she couldn't afford to fix the mower, and that she'd heat up three or four kettles so her son could take a shower in a home that didn't have a hot water tank.

"That's why a lot of emotion came out on 18," Day said.

Rex Hoggard at GolfChannel.com notes the irony of Day winning at Whistling Straits, where his run of near majors began.

Jason Day came full circle on Sunday after having started what some were beginning to see as a misguided major quest at Whistling Straits when he tied for 10th at the 2010 PGA.

Five years after that first brush with Grand Slam greatness the affable Australian laid a Heisman on the field with a near-flawless round and then both hands on the Wanamaker Trophy, the 27-pound chalice that had started to feel like the weight of the world on Day’s broad shoulders.

Jim McCabe at Golfweek.com notes how confident and aggressive Day was Sunday.

“Jason played like a champion,” Spieth said, shaking his head at the winner’s consistent play with a hard driver off the tee. “I wouldn’t say I was surprised, but I was amazed he kept hitting the driver.”

As one of the most aggressive players on the PGA Tour, Day started the day two in front of Spieth and kept the engines on. He birdied four of the first seven holes but still led by only three.

Cameron Morfit at golf.com has some fun inside the ropes details, including this about the incredible 11th hole drive:

He uncorked a massive drive on the par-5 11th hole that wound up 382 yards down the fairway, and when Spieth walked up and saw it he turned around and said, “Holy s---!” Day simply smiled and playfully flexed his biceps.

“I knew I was going to be playing uphill from there,” Spieth said.

Col Swatton has been on the bag for Day a long time and has endured no shortage of hours on the range, so the "blubbering mess" he displayed was real, notes Stephen Hennessey at GolfDigest.com.

On a lighter note, there was some confusion over son Dash's gender, at least from NBC Sports personality Josh Elliott.

Here was wee Dash running out to greet dad. From The Big Lead.

'15 PGA Poll: Who Do You Most Blame For The Telecast?

I cover television here because it has such a powerful role in shaping perceptions of our most historic championships.

The Masters exemplifies this best and I have little doubt that ESPN's strong Open Championship reviews impacted the sense viewers had a satisfying experience while the U.S. Open and PGA telecasts were impression-damaging in different ways.

But I'd argue that as weak as Fox's U.S. Open debut was, the network at least showed golf uninterrupted for the last ninety minutes of the U.S. Open and left the viewer feeling like the entire affair was about the championship.

The PGA, on the other hand, negotiated no noticeable governor on commercial and promotion time when extending with CBS for 9 years in 2011. This lack of any effort to treat the event different than other majors annually harms the reputation of the championship and reinforces its status as the fourth of four.

Couple the disjointed telecast structure with the last two years of will.i.am screaching "sitting in the Hall of Fame" and the reactions are like this one from a reader:

Thanks for commenting on the commercial breaks for the PGA championship. It is just about unwatchable. We are all die hard golf fans, like you, but how many times do we have to watch the same commercial over and over again. Hit three shots, another commercial package. I'm a 57 year old professional, which is the demographic they are looking for, but they're losing me. The PGA and CBS are a sell out.

Luke Kerr-Dineen has this roundup of Saturday Tweets confirming the vitriol toward the broadcast's emphasis on commercials over golf.

Therefore I'm curious who, after watching this disjointed mess, you hold most accountable.

Who do you most blame for the PGA Championship being so hard to watch?

PGA of America

CBS

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will.i.am

 

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