It was a great Open Championship that ended with Padraig Harrington besting Sergio Garcia in four extra holes. The golf course won today, as did the game itself when it demonstrated, as it has so many times before, that course management is as important as striking the ball. There was no better example than Andres Romero, the Argentine who looked for all the world as the winner with just two holes to go, before deciding that a good lash at the ball with a 2-iron from a horrible lie under excruciating pressure was a better alternative than taking his medicine, pitching out to the fairway, and hoping to make par, or bogey at worst. He must have missed the endless van de Velde videos.
Still, it was all great stuff...except for the U.S. television coverage. Golf is not the most exciting game to watch on the tube, no matter how much those of us who play the game appreciate the artistry of those who do it for a living. Golf is played on a large natural canvas that even a 60-inch high def screen has trouble capturing. But the answer is not to pump up the volume on the personalities and ignore the play. Tiger Woods started at a deficit today, yet as it became clear to everyone that he was slipping farther away and that this would not be his day, ABC's producers burdened us with meaningless Tiger shots time and again. Meanwhile, it was clear to everyone on the course, and those of us watching the scoreboard on TV, that the veteran Harrington, four strokes clear of Woods, was inching up the leader board and was way more important to the drama. ABC's Tiger worship reached its crescendo when he was midway through the back nine and eight strokes behind the leader (Romero, who was in the gorse) with eight excellent players to climb over, and one of the ABC announcers started playing what-if to make us idiots think Tiger was still in it. Yikes!
I have a suggestion for ABC. Paul Azinger has little to do in the anchor's booth, stuck uncomfortably between the savvy and clever Nick Faldo and the smarmy and aimless air-filler Mike Tirico, who is still trying to figure out the nuances of the game. Our advice is to send Azinger to the producer's tent and have him direct coverage out on the course. He would have smelled on the front nine that Tiger was dead and Harrington had game. More Harrington would have given us all a greater appreciation of just what it takes to win a major (not lose one). There was plenty of drama at the end of today's tournament, but ABC robbed it of much of the build-up.
It's getting to the point that we almost wish Tiger would miss a cut every now and then in a major. Every interview with him post loss follows the same pattern of inane questions and patient responses. Next year, we might just head to Europe in July so that we can watch the BBC coverage. It has to be better, although we invite our British readers to report on the Beeb's own handling of Tigermania in the comments area below.