The Loop

Here's how many golf shots CBS showed during Sunday's Masters telecast (Hint: It was a LOT)

April 13, 2017
The Masters - Final Round

David Cannon

Masters TV ratings were down significantly this year, but CBS drew rave reviews for its coverage of the year's first major. And the reason for that has nothing to do with Jim Nantz's silky smooth voice. Well, maybe it has a little to do with that, but more likely, it's because the network showed more golf shots.

According to classictvsports.com, CBS showed 1.41 shots per minute. That number might not sound like a lot, but it is compared to another major championships.

Classictvsports.com has been tracking this since the beginning of 2014 and the 1.41 figure is the highest in that time period. The next highest came at last year's Masters when CBS showed 1.33 shots per minute. The next highest for any other major since 2014 was the 1.23 shots per minute showed by ESPN during its final year of broadcasting the British Open in 2015.

And since the Masters has fewer commercial breaks than any other golf tournament, that high shots per minute added up to a high number of overall shots shown -- 430, in fact, from 2:00 PM on Sunday to 7:05 when the final putt in regulation was holed. (Classic TV Sports didn't count playoff shots to make the comparison more fair.)

The website also tracks how many shots of each individual player that networks show. Not surprisingly, viewers saw all but two of winner Sergio Garcia's shots (CBS opted not to show two of Garcia's tap-ins). Garcia's playing partner, Justin Rose, had 66 of his 69 shots shown.

And what was probably done to appease Augusta National's love of the amateur story, CBS showed 10 shots of low-am finisher Stewart Hagestad (T-36) and seven shots of Curtis Luck (T-46). On the flip side, Kevin Chappell (T-7) was the highest finisher who was never shown on Sunday when CBS aired shots from 27 different golfers.

Don't feel too bad, Kevin. Masters legend Jeff Knox wasn't shown either.