Fan Fanatic Sports Staff
I just wanted to get this out there this morning because this has been eating away at me for two days now.
A couple days back I wrote a Masters prediction with the hope of following some of the golfers I listed on TV. With all of the hype to the 2009 Masters Tournament, you would think a golf fan would be able to watch most of it on TV live. I understand that ESPN wouldn't dedicate 10 hours of programming to the Tournament, but doesn't golf have its own channel, The Golf Channel, to show early portions of the first couple of rounds of tournaments. They do it all the time.
At first I was thinking that it had to be a money thing, but it's not. The Chairman of the Masters, Hootie Johnson, pictured above, wants the tournament to stay with tradition and not be seen on live TV. I understand that back when the the first Masters took place there was no such thing as a TV, well there has been for a long time now. This year actually is the most live coverage there has ever been for this event, and it's pathetic. The fans could only have watched riveting live golf between 4:00pm and 7:30pm on both Thursday and Friday. Oh yeah, that's after 75% of the golfers were done for the day. This is an increase in coverage from a few years back when they refused to let the first two rounds be televised at all.
The tourney brass has thrown the fans a bone though, the ability to watch holes 11, 12, 15, and 16 on the internet. WOW four holes, thanks Chief. Speaking of the internet, pgatour.com has a great tool on its site called "Shot Tracker". Shot Tracker allows you to track any golfer's shots, distances to the hole, what the type of lie the golfer has, and other cool features in case you can't watch on TV. Yet again, Johnson has dropped the ball and does not allow pgatour.com to use this feature, or even there own leaderboard. When clicking on leaderboard on there site it instantly brings you directly to the Masters site, talk about controlling everything. This is one of the four Majors in golf and it seems as if the brain trust of The Masters, Hootie Johnson, doesn't want you to see it because of tradition.
I just wanted to get this out there this morning because this has been eating away at me for two days now.
A couple days back I wrote a Masters prediction with the hope of following some of the golfers I listed on TV. With all of the hype to the 2009 Masters Tournament, you would think a golf fan would be able to watch most of it on TV live. I understand that ESPN wouldn't dedicate 10 hours of programming to the Tournament, but doesn't golf have its own channel, The Golf Channel, to show early portions of the first couple of rounds of tournaments. They do it all the time.
At first I was thinking that it had to be a money thing, but it's not. The Chairman of the Masters, Hootie Johnson, pictured above, wants the tournament to stay with tradition and not be seen on live TV. I understand that back when the the first Masters took place there was no such thing as a TV, well there has been for a long time now. This year actually is the most live coverage there has ever been for this event, and it's pathetic. The fans could only have watched riveting live golf between 4:00pm and 7:30pm on both Thursday and Friday. Oh yeah, that's after 75% of the golfers were done for the day. This is an increase in coverage from a few years back when they refused to let the first two rounds be televised at all.
The tourney brass has thrown the fans a bone though, the ability to watch holes 11, 12, 15, and 16 on the internet. WOW four holes, thanks Chief. Speaking of the internet, pgatour.com has a great tool on its site called "Shot Tracker". Shot Tracker allows you to track any golfer's shots, distances to the hole, what the type of lie the golfer has, and other cool features in case you can't watch on TV. Yet again, Johnson has dropped the ball and does not allow pgatour.com to use this feature, or even there own leaderboard. When clicking on leaderboard on there site it instantly brings you directly to the Masters site, talk about controlling everything. This is one of the four Majors in golf and it seems as if the brain trust of The Masters, Hootie Johnson, doesn't want you to see it because of tradition.
Great point Matt. While I was lucky enough to watch a decent amount of the internet coverage on Thursday and Friday, it gets boring just watching those few holes. I'd like some more variety. If it was up to Woody Johnson, the likes of Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh would still not be allowed to play in Augusta. Tradition is nice to a point, but this is taking it too far
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