"Tiger's doesn't move the needle, he is the needle"
John Hawkins of Golf Channel made that line famous--and today proved it. If it was Brandt Snedeker and Eric Compton battling head to head at the lead of the Farmers Insurance Open in a Monday finish I would bet a month's pay CBS would have been more than happy to farm out the final round coverage to Golf Channel today. But because it was Tiger--even in a total blowout--CBS had to have at least some coverage.
And to do so threw a giant monkey wrench in some players' plans. All of the non-exempt guys (like Brad Fritsch) had a tough decision to make. In order to get into a broadcast window that most (but not all) local affiliates would work with, CBS had the PGA Tour push back today's resumption of play to 11:10 local time. That meant no Monday qualifying at Scottsdale for the non-exempt guys who made the cut at San Diego. (Fortunately for Fritsch, his T9 finish at the Farmers gets him into the field for Waste Management. Tag Ridings at T15 was no so fortunate.) I guess they can spend the next week telling their families how "awesome" it was to be an also-ran in Tiger's 75th career Tour victory.
We were apparently among the lucky ones here in Northeast Wisconsin to get the CBS coverage today. Based on several Twitter postings, a number of markets didn't carry a minute of Tiger today. Judge Judy was the most popular "alternative" programming on those channels. I'd be willing to bet another week's pay that if Oprah was still on our CBS affiliate, us diehards would have been sitting through a lengthy discussion on Gwyneth Paltrow's parenting techniques hoping they would break in at some point with some golf.
Those who got bupkus in terms of network coverage today really didn't miss much. Tiger was wild off the tee again--push-slicing one into the broadcast compound on one hole (from where he still made par) and he found the iceplant on another hole with a pull-hook--that ended up with David Faherty going knee deep into the cabbage in an effort find the wayward shot (which resulted in a bogey).
Granted, he had a big lead heading into the day, nobody put up a real challenge, it was cool and windy--but it was not exactly vintage Tiger golf. Or should we say vintage pre-divorce-knee-injuries-other-distractions Tiger--no matter how hard CBS and the Golf Channel try to convince us it is.
Tiger is still better than 99.8% of the guys on the Tour when he is healthy and interested. But he will never be that guy who blew away the field in every major and never lost a 54-hole lead and made every clutch putt he ever looked at from the age of 16. So let's enjoy the days when he is on his game and accept the days (like in Abu Dhabi) when he just doesn't have it--rather than turning every round into an instant referendum on whether Tiger is going to break Jack's record in the next year.
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