Photo: Scott Halleran/Getty Images
August 10, 2007
Eleven years after Tiger Woods began remodeling golf's universe to look like his living room, you still hear people griping about how he gets too much airtime on the network golf telecasts. Nobody complains about an overdose of Natalie Gulbis, the Bizhub SwingVision or the commercial that runs a half-dozen times during a three-hour stretch of PGA Tour coverage.
"That's not your job, David! That's Sean's job!" Clearly, Sean prepared for his role as derelict greenskeeper by not washing his hair for a week and dyeing his teeth yellow, and though I've grown a bit tired of the ad, I don't suppose the company that paid for the spot gives a flip what I think of their greasy tractor boy because plenty of others will find it amusing.
That same premise, however oddly, can be applied to the too-much-Tiger trauma. For every equal-time caretaker who wants to see Stewart Cink play his second shot at the 15th, there are 20 front-runners who tuned in primarily to see Woods. The networks instinctively play to the majority, even if it amounts to bottom-feeding, knowing that the guy who has gotten sick of Tiger can't help but watch, anyway.
The only reasonable point of contention is when Woods isn't in contention, at which point the fellas in the TV truck are merely earning their salary. T-Dub has been driving television ratings a lot longer than he's been driving a Buick. Those network hotshots don't park their Porsches in private spots because they're oblivious to the call of the masses. Analyzing viewer tendencies -- that's not your job. That's Sean's job, as in Sean McManus, president of CBS Sports.
Columns by The Angry Golfer -- a.k.a. Golf World columnist John Hawkins -- appear exclusively on GolfDigest.com. We're pretty sure he's angry about that, too.
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