Olde Homestead Golf Club's Blog

Interesting ARTICLE HERE from the NY Times…

I’ll just throw my $.02 in here, since you knew it was coming anyway. Golf telecasts are BORING. Total snooze fests, most of them. They’re also predictable. When it’s halfway through the telecast and they suddenly pan to a guy that hasn’t been on television once in the first 90 minutes of coverage, that player is on the green. And you know what’s coming next – he drains a 40 footer for birdie.

They show too much putting in televised golf. People want to see excitement, long tee balls and approach shots. Oh, and one more thing… probably the best thing they could do overall. Unless it’s a major tournament, or maybe a fairly prestigious non-major event like The Players Championship or Ryder Cup, they’d be well served to knock an hour off of the coverage. Two hours is plenty for a single telecast. Most people are not going to set aside 6+ hours of their weekend to watch 3 hours of guys making 3 footers to save par and endless Cialis commercials. Condense the coverage, and spice up the telecasts.

They’ve got some great technology there at their disposal. That aim point for putting and that ball tracer for tee shots – that’s neat stuff. Use it.

Will any of these ideas increase viewership more than having Tiger or Phil in the final group on Sunday? Probably not. But it’s asking an awful lot of even the most avid of golf fans to take in 6 hours of televised golf on the weekend. Not gonna happen.