See how good TV can be? All you need is a camera, a microphone and access. Oh, and the active curiosity to find out why.
The colossal Dustin Johnson mess at the close of regulation in the PGA Championship yesterday was fully covered by CBS, starting with a shot of a PGA official having a chat with Johnson as he was about to leave the 18th green and Nick Faldo’s, “What are they discussing?”
Then Jim Nantz suggested it was about whether Johnson realized that his approach to 18 was from out of one of the many little bunkers dotting the Whistling Straits course, some of them so scruffy as to be confused with straw-lined dirt.
Then CBS was all over the story. When Peter Kostis interviewed PGA rules official Mark Wilson, who said that such bunkers were at the top of the “Be Forewarned List” distributed to the players before the event began, you knew that what seemed terribly unfair was, nonetheless, the painfully correct ruling.
There was an emergency story to cover and CBS came through, beginning, middle and end.
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What CBS’s Kostis said to a national audience Thursday is worth repeating because it so fully captures the TV version of Tiger Woods the past 15 years. It captures a medium that so completely and blindly pandered to one player that televised golf became Dr. Frankenstein, soon to be stalked by his own, monstrous creation.
Kostis, calling the first round of the PGA Championship on TNT, noted that Woods had started with a couple of birdies and a par, then said, “Perhaps we’re seeing the beginning of all the chaos in golf being eliminated and order being restored, if Tiger can keep this up.”
Later, just to ensure that he wasn’t misunderstood, Kostis repeated those nauseating, revolting words.
Chaos? What chaos? Someone else winning is chaos? Order being restored? Who, other than Woods, was out of order? No one else counts? No one else is entitled to win or deserves to win?
Odd that a player who was supposed to represent golf’s inclusiveness, in TV’s hands, has excluded everyone else.
And to think that Kostis, also a swing coach, was once one of those given the brush by Team Tiger for some perceived slight.
Television’s treatment of Woods was disgusting and dishonest and a matter of wishful thinking from the start. That’s not Woods’ fault; he and his machine just exploited it for every dime it was worth. Even with his phony image declassified, he can do nothing so ugly to change TV’s self-destructive, Woods-or-nothing habit.
Television conditioned America to believe that if Woods isn’t in it, it’s not worth your time.
And at a time when TV should desperately be trying to reverse field to create interest in other players, it keeps digging deeper. Two first-round, front-nine birdies are all it takes for a fellow to twice tell a national audience that all is well because golf is Woods and Woods is golf — and nothing and no one else matters.
Amazin’ out-‘Cast’ wants out? What a shame
Luis Castillo wants out? Play him or trade him? That’s a shame. He is, after all, overpaid and under-enthused, thus highly representative of many 21st century Mets.
Last year, after he dropped that two-out, ninth-inning pop against the Yankees — he chose to try to one-hand it — he looked into all the TV cameras and said how deeply sorry he is.
You almost felt bad for him. But not for long.
The next such pop hit toward him, he one-handed. Hey, remember that time Castillo ran out that short fly ball? Neither do I.
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During an ESPN 1050 interview with Woody Johnson last week, Michael Kay stroked the Jets owner as a shrewd businessman. Perhaps that’s true, but who knows? After all, Johnson has had the good fortune to have inherited one.
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CBS’s David Feherty on Saturday after Matt Kuchar saved par despite a bad shot: “That’s like being dealt three sevens in blackjack.” … CBS and TNT gave us four days of spectacular overhead shots from the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits. TV generally can’t convey a course’s severity; this time it could.
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Doesn’t much matter if “Hard Knocks” with the Jets is any good, HBO can leave in F-words, and that always makes good TV.
No faking reality of wrestling
Although Linda McMahon’s Senate campaign ads dismiss critics as not understanding that pro wrestling is make-believe, the raunch, the drugs and the deaths have been real, and for more than 20 years. Former WWE regular Lance Cade, real name Lance McNaught, died Friday. He made it all the way to 29. Next!
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Friday, as the umps examined tape to confirm Mike Hessman‘s home run, Gary Cohen, Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez said the video clearly showed it was a home run. Darling added that the home run replay rule hasn’t been a problem because the evidence is so obvious. The umps then ruled that Hessman had not homered.
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Best weekend “Golf-lish,” as noted by reader Pete DiBiase, was spoken by TNT’s Ernie Johnson who said that the 17th “has been difficult, surrendering few birdies.” Hey, it takes “a courageous shot” to make a hole surrender.
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Among the 817 Yankees announcer combos YES has used this season, the one that may be gentlest on the central nervous system was heard over the weekend: Ken Singleton with John Flaherty. Together they seem relaxed; they don’t force themselves on us and they don’t conduct forced Q&A sessions.
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Baseball in the Age of Bud: First MLB changed the Mets’ “Lunch Box Day” for kids from 1 p.m to 8 p.m. last night on behalf of ESPN money, then it rained on the game, which couldn’t be delayed because of ESPN money.
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Re: Francisco Rodriguez, reader Jim DeAcutis asks if a perp-walk counts as a walk-off.