ON his last hole in the U.S. Open on Saturday, Tiger Woods needed to make a 15-footer to stay at 2-over par, 10 behind the leader. He started the putt slightly wide of the hole and it stayed there. He seemed neither surprised nor particularly steamed.
But on NBC, Peter Jacobsen became upset, slightly outraged. He suggested that Woods had been robbed, blaming the miss on, well, listen: “It’s gotta be getting tracked up; it’s gotta be [someone else’s] footprints. It’s gotta be bumpy out there.”
Tiger Woods’ TV coverage continues to be satire-proof, a farce ball with a center wound up in Silly String. If Woods is playing, even when far back in a major, no one else matters. No one except that bleep whose footprint caused Tiger to miss that putt!
Genuine TV coverage of golf’s U.S. majors — coverage that shows as many among the leaders as possible — is not available once Woods’ round begins and until after it’s finished. Only when Woods isn’t playing do TV golf crews remind us that they’re pretty good at covering golf.
Woods doesn’t make excuses for himself. He doesn’t have to; the men and women on TV do it for him. And for golfers and across-the-board sports fans — those who know that even the best can’t win ’em all — that becomes insulting.
Half of the field was disadvantaged by a starting time that caused them to play in the rain. Still, 24 of the 60 players who made the cut, including Woods, were from that group.
Yet, when NBC’s Roger Maltbie spoke with Woods, 11 shots back after his Saturday round, he didn’t ask him if he’s a victim of bad luck. He pandered to him, sought his favor by flat-out telling him: “There’s no doubt you got the wrong side of the draw.”
Come on, man, in good conditions — and by Woods’ admission — we’d just watched him miss par-3s the leaders had nailed.
Minutes later, NBC’s Jimmy Roberts spoke with Steve Stricker, part of that disadvantaged draw. He’d just shot 66 to get back in it. And then Mark Rolfing chatted with bad-draw victim Lee Westwood, who shot 66 and was five strokes ahead of Woods and in the hunt. There was no pitying or consoling either for being on the “wrong side of the draw.”
At one point on Saturday, after Woods just missed a long birdie putt, NBC chose to show his reaction on tape. Get this: As the ball slid past, Woods grimaced as he turned his head. Imagine that. How special.
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The local news media did well shaming the USGA into revising its tough-luck, you-lose $100 Open ticket policy.
Makes ya’ wonder whether such a united front could have prevented the Jets, Giants and NFL from throwing out tens of thousands of second- and third-generation customers because they wouldn’t or couldn’t come up with tens of thousands of dollars in PSL extortion payments, money to pay the teams’ mortgage on a new stadium that no one asked for.
While we’re at it, congratulations to the Mets for all those up-close empty seats, first base around to third, on Father’s Day.
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As a Yankees public relations man, then executive producer of WPIX’s Yankee telecasts, Marty Appel holds an audience with his inside looks. Next month, his book on Thurman Munson, “Munson: Life and Death of a Yankee Captain,” will be released by Doubleday/Random House.
Among Appel’s more memorable Munson episodes: “One I hate: trying to persuade him to come out for a portrait with his Yankee catching predecessors, Bill Dickey, Yogi Berra and Elston Howard. He was watching ‘The Three Stooges’ and didn’t want to. Eventually he did; it took me several pleading trips to the clubhouse. When I went to his funeral, I saw the picture hanging in his home. I could only shake my head.”
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Fox’s Tim McCarver had a sweet ninth inning on Saturday. With two out and none on in the top of the ninth, Rays leading the Mets, 2-1, McCarver said Ben Zobrist should be thinking one thing: home run. And then he hit one.
With two out in the bottom of the ninth, David Wright swung and missed at a drop in the dirt for strike two. McCarver said J.P. Howell might consider throwing that same pitch on the next pitch. He did. Strike three.
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NBC’s Open coverage yesterday owed us more than a couple of full-field update graphics. . . . NBC referred to in-the-hunt Ross Fisher as “the young Englishman.” So ya’ figure 23, 24. But yesterday he removed his cap to reveal graying hair. He’s nearly 29. . . . One day golf commentators will explain why pros would use balls that “find the bunker,” “find the rough” and “find the water.” And who is this guy, Knicely Dunn?