Always has been bad, getting worse. The problem as I see is the commentators are self-serving. They see themselves as the stars. NBC team has power personalities such as Jim Nantz, Gary McCord, Peter Kostis, Ian Baker-Finch, Nick Faldo, David Feherty. They all want to be in the limelight by yapping or hosting special segments.
This morning on the Senior’s British Open:
Billy Mayfair 3-putting 18 green - 2 minutes
- including 35 sec for 1 foot putt and 25 seconds to shake hands, walk off
Langer’s Group 5 minutes, 4 putts
2 minute:
- long shot of green. Unknown players preparing to putt.
- commentators not talking about the play.
- Langer stalks hole from all sides. We don’t know what ball is his
- finally moves behind ball. Takes 40 seconds to remark, practice strokes, wipe putter, etc and finally strike putt.
- Lips out
- 30 seconds to replay and show Langer talking to his caddy
1 minute, 30 seconds:
- unknown player (commentators are off in another world)
- close up of player. It’s Tom Lehman.
- he also lips out
- 2nd putt goes in
- 30 second close up of Lehman looking at the ground
1 minute, 30 seconds
- Langer’s 2nd putt. Lining up, marking, re-marking, etc.
- players walking off green
throughout all this the commentators:
- rarely talk about what’s happening on the green…
- no updates from the rest of the tournament
- talk about: Langer’s record. Player’s conditioning and practice regimen. How Nicklaus did it.
- defending criticism about Golf not being a sport
- about their own job. Whether or not it’s a cush job. Travelling, who gets the sleeper seat.
I agree that television golf is awful. Television golf also has the ability to make itself even worse than awful when it preempts Meet The Press on Sunday morning.
I’ve always enjoyed watching golf on television. So I disagree that it is inherently awful. But, then, I play golf regularly, have watched it on television since I was a kid, and attend tournaments yearly. So maybe my perspective is different.
My main complaint these days with televised golf is that they show too many putts, and not enough of the shots that got the competitor there. It’s much too scattergun at times.
One of the things that is immensely fascinating is watching the ball tracker app they often use. It shows something I always thought was true, but wasn’t always accepted: the rate of curvature of a shot changes as the shot goes downrange.
And watching super-slo-mo of the club striking the ball is just amazing.
The worst job in the world is editing video for the Golf Channel. In that job you have to look at all the footage so much worse than awful that it can’t be shown.
While I agree with this, the part where the camera stays with the ball I could never understand. I would rather see the golfer’s full swing and the full arc of the shot (the tracker at work) and then see the ball find it’s final resting place in the context of the entire fairway. I could never see the point of zooming-in on the ball mid-flight and following it.
But, yes, I agree with the OP - however, what else is there for the commentators to discuss?
Golf itself it terrible. It is terrible ethically and it is terrible as a spectator sport. Perhaps it is not terrible to play - I don’t know. I’ve played three or four rounds in my life and I consider that punishment enough.
I don’t see how anyone can make the dullest, most asinine sport in the world - a sport that makes baseball appear action packed and exciting - seem the least bit interesting or entertaining.
They ought best to just focus on the trees and water and such and talk about that. At least then they’d get a half-assed nature documentary out of it.
TLDR: Of course it is awful. How could it possibly not be?
Maybe they could give updates on other sporting events that were currently happening, or commentary about whatever was being discussed on Meet The Press.
Perhaps you should stick to football. Paint your face and drink beer and scream at the TV and watch that 11 minutes of action in a two and a half hour game.
I respect the skill involved in golf, especially given how badly I suck at it. But I just never did really get into it as a spectator sport and watching it on TV is even more ridiculous, save the occasional moment of high drama like the final round of a major. I did catch Sergio Garcia’s victory at the Master’s and I actually stopped what I was doing for a moment to see it happen. But I just don’t see how someone says “Jim Nantz whispering all afternoon - cool!”
Oi, why is it that this always comes up as a mis-understanding of what I’m posting? :smack:
The “ball-tracker” app I’m referring to is the one that draws a line showing the flight of the ball as it sails off into the distance. Shots of the ball sailing through the air are not what I’m talking about; that’s not an app, that was just good eyesight on the part of cameramen.
