When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
2021 PGA: Final Round Averages 6.5 Million, Peaks At 13 Million
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Good news for the PGA: the final round rating on CBS drew something in the neighborhood of the thrilling 2018 finish featuring Tiger Woods.
Bad news? competition from the NBA and a Lebron-led Lakers, graduation season, etc…probably ate into the numbers and is a reminder that the PGA’s August date featured no major sports competition.
Austin Karp notes that the 3.9 rating was the fourth-best Sunday audience over the last decade.
The Quadrilateral: Major(s) News And Notes, May 13, 2021
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A lot of The Quad goes back behind the paywall next week and I know you won’t want to miss my thrilling PGA missives. Info on the newsletter is here, and the subscribe button is here. A year is cheaper than a dozen “longer and straighter” golf balls.
How Have Fan-Free Events Impacted Performance And Results?
/Fans or no fans? Impact on play or not? And what about the kids?
The obvious question after Collin Morikawa held off players like Matthew Wolff and Scottie Scheffler at the 2020 PGA: has it been easier adjustment in the pandemic era without loud, biased-to-veterans crowds or the inevitable adjustment to playing before large crowds?
And how to prove or disprove it?
Thankfully, that’s what someone like Justin Ray likes to answer. I finally got around to this and as always, enjoyed his approach and use of the data to answer an interesting question.
While plenty of younger players have found the winner’s circle since the season resumed after the pandemic hiatus, there hasn’t been a rush of new faces lifting trophies. The average age for PGA TOUR winners since last year’s Charles Schwab Challenge is 32.1 – right around average for recent seasons. It’s actually a slightly older median than the 2018-19 season (31.8), as well as every season from 2013-14 through 2016-17.
How about making the cut? From the beginning of the 2017-18 season through the 2020 Arnold Palmer Invitational, players age 24 or younger made the cut 53.6% of the time. In the mostly ‘fan-less’ tournaments since, that number has actually decreased, to 50.9%. That may be partly an effect of the Herculean fields that populated the TOUR shortly after the pandemic hiatus ended – an abbreviated season meant condensed schedules for the world’s best players.
The Modest Beginnings Of Golf's 2020 Major Champions
/Nothing against elite country clubs or clubby junior golf circuits, but 2020’s three major championships were each won by sons of less conventional
Collin Morikawa, the PGA Championship winner at Harding Park, got his start at southern California’s Chevy Chase Country Club, which is not to be confused with Riviera.
Bryson DeChambeau, the U.S. Open champion at Winged Foot, refined his game at Madera’s Dragonfly.
And the 2020 Masters winner got his start at Weed Hill driving range, the family operation of golf architect Bobby Weed.
From Adam Schupak’s Golfweek story:
Johnson cut his teeth digging up the sod at the driving range that gave Weed his start in the golf business, Weed Hill. Johnson’s father, the head professional at Mid Carolina Club, would take him there as a young boy. Growing up in Colombia, just over an hour from Augusta National, the Masters was the biggest week of the year and Johnson recalled how every putting contest with brother A.J. was to win the Green Jacket. Here is a where a dream that would one day become fulfilled was born.
“They had lights on the range, and most nights I would shut the lights off when I was leaving,” Johnson said.
And there is this nice recognition of the Weed family:
Weed has built courses around the world, but none is as near and dear to his heart as the driving range he built in his hometown of Irmo, South Carolina.
It was 40 years ago and Weed, a high-school junior, talked his father into letting him convert some bean fields the family owned into Weed Hill Driving Range, where a bucket of balls cost 75 cents and Grandma called the shots until he got home from school.
“I remember getting off the bus and running up the hill and I’d go in there and ask, ‘Grandma, how’s everything going?’ ‘Oh, Bobby,’ she’d say, ‘these people have been out there tearing up your grass,’ ” Weed recalled.
“She would hand wash every ball,” he added. “She’d treat them like they were eggs in a basket.”
Azinger, Brandel See Romo-Like Qualities To Phil's PGA Booth Audition
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During a media call to promote the upcoming playoffs, Paul Azinger and Brandel Chamblee swooned over Phil Mickelson’s brief CBS/PGA Championship stint.
From Alan Bastable at Golf.com:
“I listen to every word that’s said on air and check it and cross-check it, and I find myself pulling for the commentators as much as I do the players,” Chamblee said. “I want them to tell me something I don’t know. I want them to tell me something nobody else has thought of, and it’s hard to do that because the whole world is kicking and scratching for the same information and they all have the same information, and I thought Phil did that.”
And while Phil has no plans to retire to the booth anytime soon, the two NBC stars are anxious to see where his TV career goes.
“I thought it was hilarious; some of the most compelling golf I watched was watching Mickelson in the booth,” Azinger said. “I loved it. “
Don’t love it too much, gents. He’s a free agent.
Collin Morikawa Isn't Sure Where The Infamous PGA-Winning Driver Will End Up
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AP’s Doug Ferguson looks back at Collin Morikawa’s 2020 PGA Championship win at Harding Park and tries to pin down the winner on where various historic artifacts are headed. The caddy gets the loathsome Giants-themed bag. How about the shoes and the world famous driver? Morikawa isn’t sure.
“The driver, who knows when TaylorMade is going to come out with a new one and I’ve got to switch,” Morikawa said. “I’ll probably just mark it with a little ‘PGA Championship,’ maybe a Sharpie on the head to remember it.”
And then?
“Probably just stick in my other bags at home when I start collecting them and they start piling up,” he said. “I really don’t know.”
There will be plenty of prominent places happy to display that one when it loses it’s place in the rotation.
Brooks On His Pre-Final Round Peers Put Down: "If you’re going to do that then you’ve got to back it up and last week I didn’t back it up."
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I thought there were too many great stories and fascinating possibilities to dwell on the Brooks-being-Brooks comments prior to the 2020 final round, but with other players chiming in and Koepka’s final round collapse, he felt the need to speak.
Golfweek’s Eamon Lynch followed up with Koepka Wednesday. You’d think he was an epidemiologist with vaccine news given the space given to the put down of his peers’ major totals. Nonetheless I think Brooks has dug another hole, this time with top 100 peg board owners.
Koepka: Obviously, a lot came from it. I don’t mind the pressure of that stuff. I put more pressure on myself than anything external. At the same time, I didn’t back it up. That’s my own problem. Part of being someone who talks openly and truthfully is that sometimes I come off cocky or arrogant, and it can backfire if you’re not going to play good. That’s exactly what happened.
Lynch: Were you shocked at how poorly you played?
Koepka: Yeah. I got stunned at the bogey at 2 and other ones at 7, 8 and 9. By that point, I was already out of it. I was just trying to cheer Paul [Casey] on because he had a chance to win and my shot was long gone.
Lynch: Based on the social media conversation, half of golf fans seem to appreciate you as a competitive beast and the other half dislike you as a mouthy jerk. Are you okay with that?
Koepka: I think there are layers to that question. I’m not the typical golf guy. I don’t know how else to put that. We didn’t belong to fancy country clubs. I’m not someone who can’t wait to go play those exclusive courses around the country. It doesn’t ‘ooh’ and awe me like it does other people …
Final Thoughts On Harding Park's Successful Week, Now About Those Bunkers...
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The TPCesque marble tee signs are aging gracefully
After Torrey Pines next year and Bethpage’s Ryder Cup in 2025, the major event schedule mostly returns to country clubs or high end resorts (I’m not sure how we’ll characterize Frisco’s PGA Championship course under construction, but it will be open to the public).
As Garrett Morrison wrote in lamenting the winding down of muni major sites, San Francisco hasn’t quite gotten what it hoped for with the $23 million renovation PGA Tour Design Services 2003 effort and the grifting that could have funded refurbishments on all of the city courses.
Still, there is no price to put on the images that came out of San Francisco on east coast prime time and the perfect conclusion to Harding’s resurrection. The course will have just that much more cache when it becomes the regular site of a Steph Curry-hosted fall Tour event and while it’s not a major, the schedule is booked well down the road with no obvious opening until 2031 or so.
While the front nine can get redundant or downright goofy at the 8th, as I noted here with the ShotLink evidence on my side, the back nine presents a pretty stout set of holes and grand conclusion. While the 16th may not be a future template hole, the scatter charts demonstrate a huge variety of ways it was attacked over four days. Not many holes, including Riviera’s vaunted 10th, can make that claim in the era of protein shake six packs and packages of bacon for breakfast.
There is one issue that needs to be resolved for both functional and spiritual reasons: the bunker sand.
Leave the blinding stuff to Augusta National or places adjacent to white sand beaches. It works in those places.
At an old San Francisco muni with ancient Monterey Cypress, Harding just needs some old fashioned beige pits with steep faces and thick lips. Good news, they have the example they need on property in the form of The Fleming Course.
The par-3 course used to house TV, the range and the fifth tee, also has much better looking bunkers than “TPC” Harding Park. They also looked to have actual sand in them, unlike on the big course. No one enjoys having the flange of wedges hit pricey liners installed to keep the white stuff clean. Tiger Woods was 0 for 7 until getting up and down 2 of 4 times Sunday. Tiger Woods is no junior varsity bunker player.
So Harding Park, I know another pricey redo to give the bunkers worthy character is not in the budget, nor should it be. But lose the country club sand and we look forward to seeing you ever September starting next year.
A few photos:
TPC Harding Park’s 11th hole (left) and the Fleming Course’s more befitting bunkers next to it featuring beige sand, raised faces and thick lips
The Fleming Course
A Fleming Course hazard with character.
Morikawa's 16th Hole Tee Shot Highlights Reminds Us Why We Love Risk-Reward Moments And Need More Of Them
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Collin Morikawa’s second round par on Harding Park’s 16th
Words I never thought I’d type: the 16th at Harding Park for one of the more fascinating studies in day-to-day variety outside something we’d see at The Old Course. The credit goes to the PGA of America’s Kerry Haigh, Mother Nature and the players.
With regulatory malfeasance all but rendering the risk-reward par-5 extinct, the short par-4 is all we strategy-lovers have as evidence of what we’re missing. Haigh's decision to move the tees up twice, working in conjunction with the conditions and player comfort levels as they got to know the 16th, led to a fascinating four-day dispersion of plays. None moreso than Morikawa’s, whose final round eagle will go down as one of the great shots in modern major history.
As I wrote here for The Athletic, the shot got even better when we learned after the round that (A) he originally had no intention of driving the green at any point (B) he caved and drove it Friday and (C) he had to get up and down off the fringe for par in round two.
Morikawa’s memory of going for it was not a positive one. Yet in the final round moment with a chance to win a major, the carrot dangled before Morikawa was just too appealing. To witness a player succumbing to temptation and pulling off the shot, just makes his decision even more bold. That may be why his caddie double-checked about the final round play:
Memories of that shaky play might be why caddie J.J. Jakovac double-checked when Morikawa came to the 70th hole on Sunday tied for the lead. He had two options: Lay back, or try and squeeze his tee shot 278 yards to the front edge of a green framed by bunkers, rough and overhanging Monterey Cypress.
“I just had to be fully committed,” Morikawa said, “and J.J. asked me, you know, ‘Are you sure? Is this what you want to do?’ I’m like, ‘Yes, this is driver. This is perfect.’”
The tee shot stopped 7 feet 1 inches short of the hole and was the grandest of six final round eagles.
The moment reinforced the beauty of drivable par-4s and the joys of watching a player face a high-risk situation with options.
Runner-up Paul Casey:
“Brilliant shot,” he said. “I love the fact we’ve got drivable par-4s. You know I’m a big fan of the shorter hole. I love the fact that we’re given an opportunity, and then a guy like Collin steps up and shows you what’s possible on a drivable par-4. Nothing I can do except tip my hat. It was a phenomenal shot.”
With distances growing and course architecture not able to keep up, the 16th at Harding episode serves as a reminder of what we’re missing by not retaining a better balance between skill, equipment and architecture. There is nothing more rewarding than relating to the difficulty of the decision and watching a player overcome the mental and physical hurdles in a high-pressure situation. Too bad it doesn’t happen more often.
**One other point about the hole realized since posting this: a cut shot was required to work around the Cypress and to get the ideal bounce toward the flagstick. With Lake Merced on the left, the dreaded double-crosser was still possible for even the world’s best. The danger left, while only visited by a few players, added to the drama and will be why Morikawa’s peers will revere his clutch play.
Check out the 2020 dispersion of plays depending on yardage, weather and maybe player comfort levels as they got used to the unusual dogleg right short par-4. From the PGA Tour’s always magnificent ShotLink with help from volunteers.
Round 1 where no one went for the green:
ound 2 when the tees and flagstick were moved up:
Round 3, when the tees went back but some players still chose to go for the green:
Round 4 with the tees up:
Cumulative for the 2020 PGA shows a great dispersion of shots, suggesting the hole provide a rare risk-reward situation:
Morikawa’s tee shot:
2020 PGA Ratings Roundup: CBS Up With Final Round Peaking At 6.8 Million Viewers; ESPN Draws Best Cable Numbers In Decade
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The 2020 PGA Championship started a new 11-year deal for CBS and ESPN with a west coast date but without fans in the COVID-19 era. The lack of buzz did not hurt the numbers, however.
According to Showbuzzdaily, the final round on CBS drew a 3.27 average Nielsen rating, and peaked at 6.873 million during the back nine. That’s up from last year’s first-ever May playing but down significantly from the most recent August playing in 2018 when Brooks Koepka dueled with Tiger Woods and Adam Scott, among others.
ESPN’s week was also a big success, with early Sunday coverage up over 60% from last year, a significantly younger audience, and the most-watched cable portion of the PGA Championship in 10 years. From the ESPN press release:
Sunday’s final round coverage, which aired from noon until 3 p.m. ET, averaged 1,965,000 viewers, up 60 percent over TNT’s final-round telecast from 2019 and the most-viewed final round on cable since 2010. Sunday’s telecast peaked at 2.4 million viewers and was above 2 million from 1:15 – 3 p.m.
Across all four rounds, ESPN averaged 1,659,000 viewers and 399,000 viewers in the ages 18-49 demographic, up 35 percent and 54 percent, respectively, from TNT’s coverage last year. In addition to being the most-viewed PGA Championship on cable since 2010, ESPN’s average of ages 18-49 viewers was up 40 percent over the past five years.
Younger viewers helped drive the increases – viewership among adults ages 18-34 was up 76 percent from 2019 and this was the most-viewed version of the championship on cable in the demographic since 2009.
On the PGA downside, only one of Golf Channel’s “Live From” shows appeared in the cable top 150 last week. Saturday’s post-round show drew a .02 and an average of 111,000 viewers, not quite enough to catch an ESPN middle-of-the-night Korean Baseball Organization game between the Lotte Giants vs. Doosan Bears.
Also, only one LPGA broadcast from last week registered a top 150 rating, Thursday’s opening round of the Marathon Classic, which lagged behind even the U.S. Women’s Amateur. Why the LPGA insisted on playing Thursday to Sunday against a men’s major, when fans were not welcome and scheduling should be more flexible, is a mystery only Commissioner Mike Whan can answer.
The numbers from ShowBuzzDaily:
Things NOT Overheard At The 2020 PGA Championship
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Everything about the 2020 PGA Championship week was a success, from compliance with COVID-19 guidelines to the quality of play. But with only essential personnel, coaches and media on site—no ten-percenters though—the energy was quite different. So were the things you did not get to overhear.
—I miss having my agent here to watch me warm up and blocking everyone from learning my secrets.
—Baba booey.
—The Wannamaker Trophy’s lid is clipped on tight, ready to go for the ceremony!
—Sure wish we could wear shorts during the competition days.
—Where is my agent to cut these post-round interview sessions short?
—Mashed potatoes.
—Every course should have bunkers like this.
—Do you have some sunscreen I can borrow?
—Phil needs to drink more coffee.
—Hey kids, sorry I can’t sign now, I’ll getcha after the round.
—My agent will help with that.
—It’s just not a PGA without hearing the same Omega ad played over and over again.
—That was really smart of Brooks Koepka to belittle the competition, he’s got ‘em right where he wants ‘em.
—My agent makes one helluva breakfast omelet AND does the best laundry pickup.
—I think they’re about to post the Weather Warning sign.
—Where’s Steiny?
—I really miss TNT.
—Playing without fans is one thing, but playing a major without my agent here really drives home the seriousness of this pandemic.
CBS Shows Major High Of 1.69 Shots Per Minute
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It’s a major tradition unlike any other: the Classic Sports TV breakdown of shots shown.
And breaking news: CBS blew away last year’s PGA performance to show more shots than ever previously documented for any major.
Check out the breakdown here, but this is noteworthy:
This resulted in an average of 1.69 strokes per minute which is by far the highest I have ever recorded for any golf major since starting this tracking in 2014. The previous high was 1.41 for the 2017 Masters. For comparison, the 2019 PGA had only 1.14 shots per minute.
With no paying spectators in attendance, CBS focused on golf rather than fan reactions. With so many players in contention, CBS moved around constantly and showed between 48 and 57 strokes for seven different players. Eleven players received coverage for at least 10 shots.
I have seen quite a bit of grumbling that Morikawa did not get more coverage and an on-course reporter.
I’m sorry people, but there was a 7-way tie with an hour to go and he’s 23, largely unproven. What is a producer to do but try and show as many as possible in a race like that and hope you get lucky backing the right horse.
Dolch To PGA Tour's Thomas: "We can hear you."
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Longtime golf writer Craig Dolch makes a strong and civilized case for Justin Thomas to consider after some less-than-great language overheard during last week’s PGA Championship.
There’s a huge difference between trash talking, like West Palm Beach native Brooks Koepka did before the final round – when he pointed out he was the only player on the leaderboard with more than one major – and talking trash like Thomas did at least twice during his final round.
Every year the PGA Tour receives complaints from the FCC from viewers after hearing expletives during a golf telecast. Tiger Woods memorably dropped the f-bomb during a Saturday morning telecast in 2000, when he knocked his tee shot at Pebble Beach’s 18th hole into the Pacific Ocean while completing a rain-delayed second round.
Spit happens on a golf course. But there’s an easy cure.
As Dolch notes, PGA Tour fines don’t mean much and have long been an unsuccessful deterrent to swearing. And it’s a double-edged sword, as we love to see passionate players get in their strange little zones on the course. Yet in the open microphone era of fan-free COVID-19, they also have to be aware that more can be heard than ever before.
Since pace of play has improved without fans and backstopping seems to have finally become less of a thing, maybe it’s time for the Commissioner to send a friendly reminder for players to try their best to choose their words more carefully.
Six Takeaways From Collin Morikawa's 2020 PGA Championship Win
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I covered plenty on winner Collin Morikawa, the 16th shot for the ages, Phil’s audition(?) on CBS, Tiger’s short game letting him down, the incredible leaderboard logjam, the curious “who is longest” debate this weekend and more for The Athletic.
You can check it out here and as always, thanks for support my work here, there and wherever it appears!
