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Obama to serve as honorary chairman of Presidents Cup

Fri, 24 May 2013 17:19:00 GMT

President Barack Obama's affinity for golf has been well documented, so it was no surprise Friday that he accepted the PGA Tour's invitation to serve as honorary chairman of the Presidents Cup at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, in October.

Obama served in a similar capacity at the 2009 Presidents Cup at Harding Park in San Francisco, though he did not attend.

"We are truly honored that President Obama has once again accepted our invitation to be Honorary Chairman of The Presidents Cup in October," PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem said in a news release. "In 2009, he was gracious enough to continue the long-standing tradition of world leaders' support of the event, which dates back to the first Presidents Cup in 1994. His involvement again this year serves to only further enhance the stature of The Presidents Cup and the game of golf as a whole."

Presidents Gerald Ford (1994), George H.W. Bush ('96), Bill Clinton (2000) and George W. Bush ('05) also have served as honorary chairmen.

Related: Pictures of Obama playing golf

CBS White House correspondent Mark Knoller, who tracks such minutiae, reported that Obama played golf on 113 occasions in his first term as president.

(Getty Images photo)

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You should have seen Phil Mickelson

Sun, 05 May 2013 20:22:00 GMT

By John Strege

Golf was not meant to be a contact sport, though Phil Mickelson has turned it into one through the years. He beaned a woman at the Wells Fargo Championship on Saturday. As compensation, she received a signed glove from the stash of them he must keep on hand for such occasions.

Mickelson was asked the last time he hit a spectator. "Oh, yesterday," he said, jokingly. "I don't know. It happens a lot."

Even had he been exaggerating the frequency with which he fells spectators, it is a fact that he tends to hit to all fields. It is this confounding inconsistency, and the incomparable brilliance with which he often responds, that makes watching him so compelling, though you are advised to do so at your own risk. And bring a hard hat. Or stay home and watch it on television.

Alas, the latter was not an option, not for those who prefer their sports be televised live. The likelihood is that this was an inconvenience only to hard-core golf fans. Still, in the modern era of television, when even a wide array of college baseball games are aired live, it seems a reasonable expectation that the final round of a PGA Tour event with an impressive international leader board could be viewed live.

A nasty weather forecast in the Charlotte, N.C., area caused tee times to be moved up in advance of the worst of the weather in an effort to complete the tournament without it spilling into Monday. The tournament, as a result, ended more than an hour before the delayed telecast began on CBS.

We reached out to a CBS representative for an explanation. "We have the rights to the final round," she wrote in an email. "Our broadcast window is from 3:00-6:00 pm ET. Due to affiliate and/or other programming commitments, we can not move the broadcast window when tee times are moved up."

What then would compel anyone to watch had they already known that an obscure tour rookie, Derek Ernst, had won in his ninth career start? They might logically conclude that they hadn't missed anything.

This brings us back to Mickelson, who over the course of four days gave us his career in microcosm, a mix of bewildering misfires from which he magically recovered to bring him to the brink of his 42nd PGA Tour victory, a spectacle worth viewing, live.

"I would say there's no way anybody can play four rounds and hit it as poorly as he has and win a golf tournament, with the exception of him," Golf Channel's Brandel Chamblee said. "Nobody can hit the ball that bad. It's not that the ones he hits good are close. It baffles."

Mickelson led most of the round, and at times was one ahead of Rory McIlroy and Lee Westwood, before bogeys at 16 and 17 derailed his bid. While much of this was going on, Golf Channel (an NBC property, incidentally) was showing a telecast of the European Tour's Volvo China Open. Delayed.

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Video: Adam Scott reveals he's in a relationship

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 19:16:00 GMT

By Alex Myers

Adam Scott isn't married and the biggest hug he got on Augusta National's 10th green after winning the Masters on Sunday came from his caddie, Steve Williams. But apparently, that doesn't mean he's available, either. Sorry, ladies.

In a Wednesday interview on "CBS This Morning" Scott was asked about the female attention he's been receiving since his breakthrough win. His response when asked about his situation? "I'm not single at all. I'm very much in a relationship, and am very happy at the moment."

Check it out below at about the 3:45 mark:

When pressed to give a name of his significant other, Scott said, "Marie." So who is this "Marie," you ask? The answer appears to be Marie Kojzar, a 31-year-old Swedish architect.

According to this 2008 profile in "The Australian," the two actually began dating back in 2001, but broke up in 2008 -- an event that Scott says "definitely had an effect on my golf."

Here is a link to Kojzar's profile on her company's website, which includes a photo of the blonde. As far as a picture of her with Adam Scott, the only one we could find is this one (left) following Scott's win at the 2003 Scandinavian Masters.

Of course, Scott has had more publicized relationships with actress Kate Hudson and tennis player Ana Ivanovic in recent years. Scott met Kojzar while she was working as an au pair for Thomas Bjorn.

Hmm. A blonde Swedish nanny working for a professional golfer? We've heard that before somewhere. . .

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Golf World Monday: CBS eyes a late finish

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 14:30:00 GMT

From the Jan. 28 issue of Golf World Monday:

By Geoff Shackelford

Tiger Woods started his final round on Sunday as the sun was setting at Torrey Pines. Photo: Stan Badz/Getty Images

As a 74-time winner on the PGA Tour, not much can phase Tiger Woods at this point. And with a six-stroke lead, he probably won't be bothered by having to wait around San Diego all morning to capture his 75th PGA Tour win and seventh Farmers Insurance Open. The reason for today's 11:10 a.m. Pacific Standard Time re-start to the final round? CBS plans to air the tournament completion in the late afternoon hours with a 5:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time finish, knocking out any hope for 16 Farmers cut-makers who had hopes of making it to Phoenix for the Waste Management Open's Monday qualifier.

Related: How Tiger's swing has changed

The move is super for golf fans because it means bonus coverage by both Golf Channel and CBS. The late start also lets the tour and networks find out just how many office workers will watch their online streaming coverage which will undoubtedly be watched in workplaces around the country, all in hopes of seeing yet another Tiger Woods victory at Torrey Pines.

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SwingSmart provides swing data instantly

John Strege — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 15:28:00 GMT

By John Strege A move is afoot to provide recreational golfers with some of the same tools available to professional golfers in their efforts to improve their games. For instance, those who want to...

Media: 'No one hits that shot. No one'

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 23:09:00 GMT

(Photo by Getty Images)

A Masters deflated by the early foibles of Fred Couples and Rory McIlroy was re-inflated by Phil Mickelson's magic show on the back nine on Saturday. Magic, of course, is illusion. Did we just see what we saw?

Mickelson's flop shot from behind the green at 15 was fraught with disaster in the hands of lesser men -- from a thin lie, to a fast green sloping away from him, with water on the other side. No one else would have considered attempting it.

"He has to think that's not the option," CBS' Nick Faldo said, "but saying that, that means Phil will go for it."

Indeed, Phil the Thrill had his 64-degree wedge in hand, laid it wide open and hit a shot that might come to define this Masters, should he win on Sunday.

"No one hits that shot. No one," CBS' David Feherty said. "If this doesn't make every hair on your body stand up you need therapy. Nobody but Mickelson even thinks about trying a shot like that."

Let's go to the replay, via Twitter:

-- Graeme McDowell: "That shot Mickelson just hit was a joke. I can't tell you how good that was. #flopperfection"

-- Steve Elkington: "Phil hits a mind blowing flop @ 15..... Touch of a pick pocket."

-- Paul Goydos: "Phil!! WOW!!"

Mickelson, in his post-round interview with Bill Macatee, acknowledged, "there was risk in that one."

No kidding.

What about Tiger?

So much for those complaints that the networks show too much Tiger to the exclusion of everyone else. Woods' round was over before Saturday's telecast on CBS began. He was still shown, but only a brief highlight/lowlight package of his indifferent round of 72.

The most provocative explanation for Woods' struggles came from Golf Channel's Brandel Chamblee: "The genius of Tiger Woods has been coached out of him."

Aaron Oberholser hit on a similar theme, on Twitter: "Tiger has forgotten more about this game than [Sean] Foley knows. Just play man. Just play," he wrote.

Media: Score one for Twitter over TV on Luke scorecard issue

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 22:22:00 GMT

(Photo by Getty Images)

The immediacy of television is dependent on the cooperation of those at the controls, and they weren't particularly cooperative in the case of the Luke Donald scorecard issue on Thursday afternoon.

Twitter was abuzz over the possibility that Donald had signed an incorrect scorecard in the first round of the Masters, yet the CBS crew working the telecast on ESPN ignored any mention of it for more than an hour.

The first mention I saw came at 4:45 p.m. EDT. At 5:46 p.m., more than an hour later, Donald's wife, Diane, posted this on Twitter: "Just got off the phone with Luke, NOT disqualified. Thank goodness."

A moment later, Jim Nantz mentioned it for the first time, noting that Donald "possibly signed an incorrect scorecard. It's under review. That's all we can pass on at this point. For world number one."

Another 15 minutes passed before Nantz informed the television audience what Diane Donald had already informed her Twitter followers, that Donald "has not been disqualified."

Nantz then explained that when Donald's scorecard was transmitted to scoring it seemed to have shown he'd made a birdie on the fifth hole, when he had made a bogey. This would account for why the Masters.com scorecard showed him shooting a one-over par 73, when in fact he had shot a three-over par 75.

Donald, in fact, signed for the 75, not the 73.

Other than that, the first day of the Masters came off without a hitch. Or, as Golf Digest's Dan Jenkins, aka the Ancient Twitterer, noted on Twitter, "All in all, it shaped up as a good first day for people who never enter my mind."

Meltdown of the day

Henrik Stenson, leading at the time, wound up and slammed his club into the turf to the left of the 18th fairway after hitting a poor shot from the pine needles. We could not actually see the club hit the ground, but the thump came in loud and clear.

"He's not a happy camper. You can't do that at Augusta, dear boy," Nick Faldo said.

Stenson wound up making an eight there, which, "equalled the highest score in the history of the tournament at the 18th hole," Nantz informed us. It was the seventh snowman recorded there.

Tim Finchem gets four-year contract extension

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:35:00 GMT

When I see the name "Tim Finchem" appear on my cell phone, I stop what I'm doing to take the call. He is, after all, the commissioner of the PGA Tour, and he doesn't call me all that often. A couple weeks before this particular phone call, when he announced the new nine-year TV deal with CBS and NBC, I asked Tim what it might mean for his future, knowing that his contract expired in June 2012. He said he'd get back to me. And he did.

"If I am feeling good, if the players are comfortable with the idea and if the board is willing, I will stay on," Finchem, who turns 65 in April, told me that day last September. Well, apparently Tim feels good and the players are comfortable with the idea because today the PGA Tour Policy Board announced a four-year extension of Finchem's contract through June 2016.

Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images

"Under Tim's leadership, and that of his executive team, the PGA Tour has achieved many very significant accomplishments," Victor Ganzi, chairman of the Policy Board, said in a release announcing Finchem's contract extension. "Tim has positioned the tour for continued growth in areas such as prize money, charity, sponsor value and growing the game around the world, and we are fortunate that he has agreed to continue as commissioner another four years."

Finchem's TV Deal Ensures Tour's Future -- And Likely His As Well

Ron Sirak — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 04:00:00 GMT

Tim Finchem's TV Deal Ensures PGA Tour's Future -- and Likely His As Well

With new TV deal, PGA Tour ensures solid footing

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 17:29:00 GMT

NORTON, MASS. -- The key elements of the nine-year contract extension between the PGA Tour and CBS and NBC for network TV rights were the length of the deal and the flexibility to expand digital products. And the crucial component the tour brought to the bargaining table was the stability of its sponsorship base through the depths of the recession. The innovative nature of the deal gives the tour and all its TV partners the opportunity to explore new forms of media together.

The deal, announced Thursday at the Deutsche Bank Championship by commissioner Tim Finchem and via conference call with CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus and NBC Sports Group Chairman Mark Lazarus, runs through the 2021 season. The tour's 15-year deal with Golf Channel also expires after the 2021 season. Now that NBC and Golf Channel are both owned by Comcast, there will be increased cross-programming and simultaneous programming involving those two operations.

"Over the last five years, the quality of our television partners, CBS, NBC and the Golf Channel, and their performance both in the quality of the product and their performance in the marketplace has been a home run for our players, our tournaments, our sponsors and our charities," Finchem said. "So we are absolutely delighted to announce these new long-term agreements with two terrific broadcast partners in CBS and NBC, which secure our television rights for the next decade. Our partnership with all our broadcast partners will provide continuity for our fans throughout the regular season and Playoffs."