Tuesday Tidbits

Just a few short items for you today, as I'm on the clock.  Employee No. 2 and I will be heading West for a few days, so I'll check in when possible or breaking news requires...

NBSeeYa - The NBC team is receiving mixed reviews of their Open coverage.  There was a rant in yesterday's NY Post about the commentators talking over player-caddie consultations, specifically citing Phil and Bones on the 8th tee on Sunday.  While I don't specifically remember that moment, I don't doubt that it's true....

The writer also had what seemed to me an odd complaint, that the hole and course commentators always seem to address their comments to Johnny, as opposed to the viewer.  That's not in my top ten complaints, but did he expect Roger to address him by name?

John Strege gives them mostly praise, though I could have done without this image:

Although much can be rationalized when you realize that they had more than two hours to kill before the last group teed off, and that ignores the entire three hours on Golf Channel.  His one gripe is that he'd have liked more Protracer, and who wouldn't?  No question it's hard to follow white golf balls against a typically grey Scottish sky, but it's also about the variability of ball flights used by the players....

The previously unknown to me Ken Fang (is that a great name, or what?) is more ene-handed in dling out pros and cons, and my takeaway is that he likes the pot bunker cams....  they were awfully good, especially on No. 8.

One of the letdowns was obviously the LinksTrax, a great idea unveiled the wrong week, when the course was incredibly soft.... Let's hope for a dry 2017 summer in Southport:

LinksTrax was a fun new innovation showing where balls landed and how far away they were from the hole, but it was not used enough. Again, hopefully this will be rectified at Royal Birkdale.

Could you imagine this at Hoylake in '06?  Yuuuge, I say.....

Mr. Fang is also not a fan of the Yanni, on which we agree.

Martin Kauffman agrees on NBC's call that I noted yesterday:

NBC smartly kept the focus on the course and, specifically, the final group. It made the rare decision to assign two reporters to the final group – Roger Maltbie following Mickelson and David Feherty tracking Stenson. The network has done this earlier in the season and I’ve criticized it because it struck me as a waste of assets to assign two on-course reporters to the same group. But it was absolutely the correct decision Sunday. There was only one group that mattered. It had the added benefit of getting more airtime for Feherty, who sometimes seems like an afterthought in NBC’s coverage.

That has been a rather odd aspect of NBC broadcasts, the reason for which is obvious.  But on Saturday they moved Feherty to the final group during the round, and would have been prepared to reverse that if anyone in the chase pack had made a move.   

Martin's primary criticism is this, echoing that Post item referenced above:

What could NBC have done been better? The network still does a poor job of capturing on-course audio. Mickelson and caddie Jim Mackay are as chatty as any pair on Tour, and yet I’m hard pressed to remember any of their on-course comments during the tournament. Sometimes that just reflects a lack of discipline from the announcers. On the par-3 14th Sunday, we could hear Mickelson and Mackay discussing the tee shot, but Miller insisted on talking over their conversation. We didn’t learn anything from Miller, but we might have learned something from Mickelson and Mackay.

Yeah, Johnny is a whole 'nother can of worms.  I think he's generally been good for the game and NBC, and far more insightful and bearable than Sir Nick's blabbering nonsense, though your mileage may vary...  But he might well have reached his Sell-By date.... discuss among yourselves.

You Know Jack - Nicklaus on Henrik v. Phil:

I was fortunate to watch every second of today’s final round of the Open Championship, and I thought it was fantastic. Phil Mickelson played one of the best rounds I have ever seen played in the Open and Henrik Stenson just played better—he played one of the greatest rounds I have ever seen. Phil certainly has nothing to be ashamed of because he played wonderfully. Henrik played well from beginning to end. He drove the ball well; his iron game was great; his short game was wonderful; and his putting was great. Henrik was simply terrific. To win your first major championship is something special in and of itself, but to do it in the fashion Henrik did it in, makes for something very special and incredibly memorable. I'm proud of and happy for Henrik. Some in the media have already tried to compare today’s final round to 1977 at Turnberry, with Tom Watson and me in what they called the “duel in the sun.” I thought we played great and had a wonderful match. On that day, Tom got me, 65-66. Our final round was really good, but theirs was even better. What a great match today.

I don't necessarily believe that to be true, but it's what a gracious man says....and Jack is a gracious man.

Well, He's Got That Going For Him.... -  Not the Dalai Lama, in this case, but how's this for faint praise?

Rory McIlroy, fourth in the World Ranking, outplayed the top three in the British open, which “proved here at the very least that he is no Ringo in golf’s Fab Four.

Yeah, I'm sure that this won't bother him at all:

But it is equally relevant that McIlroy was 16 strokes off the winner and 13 off the

runner up. McIlroy at his best is the player surging over the horizon; at Troon, he was a 27-year-old who gave his own sport a kick in the teeth with his comments about Olympic golf and then broke a three-wood in the third round when his game did not meet expectations. 

For all of his claims that he is very happy with his game, and for all of the encouraging signs, perhaps those snapshots tell a fuller truth about the stress of grinding back to the top.

Left unsaid was how soft Troon was, conditions under which he was able to win at Hoylake.  Not a good week, either on the course or in front of a microphone.

Strange Way Of Showing It - Old buddy Tim Rosaforte is a nice guy, though I'm not sure what he sought to accomplish with this thumbsucker on Spieth's Olympic decision:

Why was it so hard? Because he is a huge believer in Olympic golf and in his country, and because he has played sports all his life and loves the Olympics and had been talking up how much he wanted to go. Before his career is over, he hopes to compete in four or five Olympic games.

So he could understand the skepticism about his decision. Spieth pushed back on suggestions that it was about the Zika virus, saying it was more “health concerns.” He implied there were more serious considerations -- probably involving security issues -- that he couldn’t talk about. 

Spieth also considered the importance of golf being in the Olympics for the first time since 1904. And what athletes from other sports said about the Olympic experience. “I certainly was not trying to wait until the last minute,” Spieth said. “I couldn’t make a decision and then I had to by the last deadline.” In the end, he went with his gut.

I don't criticize him for going or not going, but since he's not going, is it too much to ask that he shuts up about what a gut-wrenching decision it was.... Sophie's Choice it wasn't.

One last quickie on the Olympics, actually a question from this weeks Tour Confidential panel to which we linked yesterday:

5.) The chief of the Rio Games, Carlos Nuzman, came right out and said it: Golfers have withdrawn from the Games in droves not because of Zika but “because there is no prize money.” Is Nuzman right?

Do we think Carlos has any familiarity with Yiddish?  Probably not, so let's help him out:

The International Olympic Committee is a crime syndicate masquerading as a sports organization, so I'm terribly interested in their view of golfers' monetary ethics.....  

Mind you, I do acknowledge that golfers have brought this on themselves... For instance, earlier this year we had the above-referenced Jordan Spieth jetting to a third-rate event in Singapore for a rather sizable appearance fee,and that is absolutely fair game.  But not from anyone associated with the Olympics....perhaps from FIFA.