Midweek Musings - Changed Golf Edition

What if they change golf and we don't like the new edition?  More amusingly, what if we all like it better than the prior version.... Nah, TV ratings for the trad product can't get much worse, can they?

Golf Digest has some squirreliness with their headers, promising this on their homepage:

The high-energy debut of TGL indoor golf was described in a Golf Digest article as filled with hype, energy, and a constant stream of pop music

But when one clicks through the actual header seems more tethered to reality:

TGL indoor golf debuts with smoke, music and a buzz-killing rout

The magnitude of said buzz is quite arguable, as is the cause of death....  as always, my dafault assumption is Professor Plum in the library...

Of course they lede with quite the fine dis, so enjoy:

Opening night of TGL was a blowout. On the scoreboard. To the eardrums. It was golf but louder than that other tour that claimed to be louder.

Yeah, well tat other league says a lot of things....

“This is golf. But it’s not traditional golf,” said Tiger Woods, one of the co-founders of TMRW Sports that created the new simulator-based stadium golf concept that premiered Tuesday night

on ESPN and other media outlets around the world. “It’s hard to believe this dream came to reality, and we’re going to take golf into the next stratosphere.”

That sounded like more than a slight exaggeration, but it seemed appropriate on a night when a lot of hype and energy and a constant stream of driving pop music beats filled SoFi Center. If you actually wanted to hear the sound of a club contacting a golf ball, you were in the wrong place.

The first match in TGL history—which began 15 minutes late after a delay and rather drawn-out player introductions—saw a dominating effort by the trio of Shane Lowry, Wyndham Clark and Ludvig Aberg representing The Bay Golf Club. Aberg won the first hole with a 10-foot birdie putt and his team never looked back with a stunningly easy 9-2 victory over New York Golf Club’s Rickie Fowler, Matt Fitzpatrick and Xander Schauffele.

As you may have heard, the concept of fact-checking is under further review, so take this with a grain of salt:

One observer called it “carnival golf,” but it wasn’t that. With the music unceasing, it felt like a rock concert with the stage act swinging golf clubs in what Fowler later called "a glorified man cave." The golf looked real enough, and the players were genuinely engaged in the outcome. They cheered each shot hit into the giant screen. Whether in attendance at the arena or watching on television, fans were fed a full slate of statistics like ball speed and launch angle, plenty of things to sate the techie appetite.

Perhaps "carnival golf" feels a bit harsh, but isn't "rock concert" a distinction without a difference?

So, the question I keep asking is, "What about all this is going to compel me to tune in next week?"  I know that a certain guy will be playing, but apparently we're supposed to be fascinated by the, checking notes, hammer?

What is ‘the Hammer’ in TGL? An explanation of the innovative rule

Innovative?  Yeah, we'll be the judge of that....

What is TGL’s Hammer and how does it work?

Physically, the Hammer is a yellow-orange piece of cloth shaped like a Thor-like hammer. But

here we’re most concerned with what it represents and how it’s used.

The team in possession of the Hammer is permitted to throw it down on any hole. When it’s thrown and accepted, the point total of the hole increases by one. While holes normally count for 1 point, the Hammer increases the points to 2.

If the Hammer is thrown before the start of the hole, the opposing team must accept it. However, if it’s thrown on any other shot, the opposing team has the option to reject it, but if they do they also forfeit the hole.

You can imagine a situation in which a team knew they would lose the hole, so by rejecting the Hammer they limit their opponents to 1 point instead of 2.

Either way, once it is thrown, possession of the Hammer automatically switches to the other team.

So, if I have this right, all of our hopes and dreams for the future of golf are dependent upon an orange cloth?

To my ear it sounds like a press, but whatever.

How did it work on the ground?

How the Hammer was used in TGL debut

The official first use of the Hammer occurred on the 3rd hole of the debut match between the Bay Golf Club and the New York Golf Club.

The Bay Golf Club began the match with the Hammer after winning on a coin toss, and when TBGC player Wyndham Clark had a seven-footer for birdie on Hole No. 3, he threw down the Hammer hoping to earn his team an extra point. And he did. Clark drained the birdie improving his team’s lead from 1-0 to 3-0.

When the teams reached the 7th hole, NYGC, now losing 6-0, still had possession of the Hammer. TBGC’s Shane Lowry set up to hit his tee shot, but before he could, NYGC’s Xander Schauffele threw the Hammer at his feet. You can see the moment below.

Lowry accepted the Hammer challenge, but both teams finished with a par, so no points were awarded, and the score remained 6-0.

That was the last time the Hammer was used on the first night of TGL’s existence. In the end, TBGC was able to maintain their large lead and finish of NYGC by a final score of 9-2.

My God, this changes everything!  Or not.

James Colgan is hyperbolic as well:

The TGL’s first broadcast gave us a genius innovation … AND a sugar high

Or at least his header writer is, as this sounds more judicious:

THE BIG NEWS

In the end, I thought the much-ballyhooed launch of the TGL on ESPN was … fine. The telecast ran for a shade more than two technically sound hours, featured an utter blowout, and did not leave a bitter taste in the mouth of most who tuned in. For a sports league in Season 1, Episode 1 — a league that was perfectly transparent about the fact that its broadcasts will only improve from here — fine feels like a … fine place to be.

Sounds like an awfully low bar to me, especially considering the obvious hook of the technology and the equally inevitable fatigue to be anticipated.  The question needs to be asked repeatedly, what compels you to watch again?

Colgan at least tries to be more than a mere cheerleader:

But then the action began with Shane Lowry’s opening tee shot, and the broadcast shot out of a cannon. The biggest lesson of the TGL’s opening broadcast — and perhaps the entire opening day

— is that the league’s shot clock is a revelation. Gone is the boredom of incessant pre-shot tinkering and the inherent sleepiness of golf on television. If nothing else, the TGL moves, and that alone gives the format a real chance to survive.

The telecast was structured into three stanzas. The opening five holes, then a commercial break; the middle five holes, then a commercial break; then a brief “intermission” hosted by Van Pelt, another commercial break, and the final five holes. Sure, the speed ebbed a bit as the competition progressed, and the intrigue of the activities in the field of play dissipated as The Bay opened up a blowout lead over NYGC. But there was enough there to keep your attention until the match had been decided, which was around hole 8.

The biggest question after week 1 is the TGL’s ongoing balance between flash and substance. Tuesday’s broadcast felt a bit like a hefty bowl of powdered sugar for dinner. I briefly felt the dopamine hit, I certainly rode an energy high, but by the end I felt a little empty. Is the competition supposed to be serious, funny, or some combination of the two? I’m not upset that I watched, but I still can’t answer that question. I suspect the TGL is still feeling out that comfort zone itself.

I didn't mostly even notice the shot clock, which isn't to say that the quicker pacing isn't their biggest asset.  As critical as I've been of the made-for-TV money grabs, this indoor version thereof solves many of the pacing issues...

But that last 'graph hits at what I think is the crux of their issue, which is that the "dopamine hit" of the technology will inevitably fade, so what keeps us interested?  Yeah, the broadcasters will benefit from a learning curve, but is this competition, entertainment or some awkward combination of the two?

Here's his long-winded take on what worked:

GOLD STARS

The Shot Clock: The clock had been deployed for roughly 15 seconds before most golf fans started rethinking the PGA Tour’s approach to enforcing pace-of-play rules. It’s an awesome innovation, and it is the innovation that gives the TGL hope of surviving even as the concept grows less novel with time.

The Camera Setup: There are some 70 cameras bugged throughout SoFi Center like Secret Service Agents — lead producer Jeff Neubarth specifically designed the league’s camera outfit to be invisible from other TV cameras, and therefore invisible to folks at home. It felt like each camera angle was used in some way throughout the action, and spare for a few wildly oversaturated bunker-cam shots, it all whipped around pretty seamlessly. In a nod to the production team’s efforts, shots did not feel overly choreographed or boring to watch after the ball struck the simulator screen.

Virtual golf holes: I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I really enjoyed the freakiness of some of the TGL’s virtual designs. The visual extremes play extra-well on TV. If I had a critique of the competition, it was that we needed more tricked-out holes. What a world.

The Microphones: No reasonable viewer expected ESPN host Matt Barrie to have communication with a group of golfers 85 yards away down to an exact science tonight, but the back-and-forthing will be important to the long-term entertainment value of the TGL’s telecasts. The functionality worked, providing a few personality slivers from golf’s stars without being overwrought. Xander Schauffele performed particularly well.

SVP: Van Pelt, ESPN’s voice for the PGA Championship and Masters, offered some considerable credibility to the TGL right off the bat. His pre-and-postgame interviews (the latter part of his midnight SportsCenter with SVP) were incisive and effortless. The players clearly have a rapport with him, and his decades of golf experience make him uniquely apt to thread the needle between golf’s traditional dialect and its new simulator slang. Even his touch of self-deprecation about the (slightly horrifying) caricature crafted by the TGL’s marketing team was deft. I was a fan of his inclusion all the way around.

Well, I agree with some of that....  I thought the audio was more of a hot mess than James seems to, and can't actually remember anything Xander might have said.  I will note that Ludvig Aberg's facial reactions might just save the endeavor, as they were far more evocative and enjoyable than anything that came through the audio.

I thought they didn't use the virtual golf holes to any great effect, and I was really hoping for something more there, perhaps even having them take on some of the great holes in our game.

The flip side:

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT

The live discussion: It was hard to parse through the noise on Tuesday night. What was player conversation? What was broadcaster banter? What was part of an interview with guests Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy? What was music blaring over the SoFi Center? To me, it felt like there was so much to say that it was hard to hear anything at all. Some personality shined through here, but the forthcoming weeks figure to feature a lot more.

The “Intermission”: The TGL’s decision to include a lengthy “intermission” segment with SVP — sort of like a halftime report — was a real rally-killer. The sequence of commercial-intermission-commercial lasted exactly 10 minutes just after the match had been decided, and when the competition returned again, the energy felt like it’d been sucked out. Maybe this will be better when the matches are closer, but I think it might be better to reimagine this format altogether.

DJ Khaled: Please, no more.

Live Interviews: Tiger and Rory are both big gets for any live golf telecast because their depth of experience and golf intellect are unparalleled. The problem with Tuesday’s interviews was that neither golfer had much more experience with the TGL than anyone watching at home and the broadcast got caught asking them questions even as the action sped on. Their presence was hardly a bad idea, but with all the other noise happening at the same time, I don’t think viewers came away with much.

Not only did Tiger and Rory have nothing to add about the technology, but they're not exactly riveting presences on their own account.   Where's Charles Barkley when a lonely nation turns its eyes to him?

This is an interesting take, though:

THE NUMBERS

There is no “normal” for a product like the TGL, but I’d guess anything in the neighborhood of 700,000 average viewers would be acceptable for week 1 on ESPN.

The network’s weekly average has hovered in the neighborhood for months, and the TGL was buffeted by a Duke basketball lead-in on Tuesday night. The TGL’s hopes of ascribing to ESPN primetime averages (closer to 2 million, but aided by the NFL and NBA) remain a longshot, but beating LIV while staying safely clear of the PGA Tour seems reasonable.

On the one hand, it strikes me as perhaps a surprisingly reasonable target for viewership given the numbers that watch actual golf.  That said, can a puny 700,000 pairs of eyeballs pay off their investment?   It seems the kind of numbers you get for repeats of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or, yanno, LIV.

How do I feel on the morning after?  I think it was an interesting diversion, showing off unbelievable technology.  But, now that I've seen the technology, do I need to tune in further?

We know that the big cat will play next week, and of course we'll see a surge in viewership for that.  We should note that, in prior appearances in such exhibitions, Tiger has not had much of value coming though his microphone.

The bigger problem is that this doesn't have much to hook us in other respects.  Obviously their trying to one-up LIV with a team concept, but except for Keegan and Boston, the teams are such an artificial construct as to be laughable.  And, Ludvig's mugging aside, the guys are a mixed bag in front of a camera, and that may be overly generous.

So, where does this go?  Can anyone see us caring about the competitive aspects of this league?  Is anyone depressed this morning because New York got routed last night?  Ironically, I react to these "teams" in much the same way that I react to the LIV teams, with scorn and ridicule.  Which can't be a good answer for anyone that put $1.5 billion in PGA Tour Enterprises?

There are some other aspects to note.  First, while you see their logical strategy of avoiding the NFL and other major sports competition (hence the Monday and Tuesday prime-time broadcasts), the sports calendar gets increasingly cluttered as basketball and hockey move towards their playoffs and spring training is just around the corner.  The question to me is whether there is appetite and capacity to watch more sports, and I think that's a far tougher environment than they want to acknowledge.

The second pointy to make is that the TGL requires the players (six per week) to be in South Florida, and obviously those there last night aren't headed to Oahu this week.  The marker I'd like to leave you with is that this venture competes for players with the Tour's traditional sponsors, which is entirely on-brand for the Tour.  Once the ink on those sponsorship contracts dries, the sponsor is on its own.

That's it on this subject, I'll just exit on this ominous header:

Riviera CC included in mandatory evacuation from fast-moving Los Angeles fire

Fingers crossed.  That will likely be it for this week.  Employee No. 2 is headed out here later in the week, so the blogging schedule is completely TBD.