The PGA Tour season has finally come to an end last weekend with the best golfer from Norway, Victor Hovland winning the Mayakoba Golf Classic with a fine birdie putt at the 72nd hole for his 2nd victory and at only 23. He is one of golf's brilliant young guns, and you'll know I've been touting him for a few years.
The European Tour wraps up this week in Dubai with the season finale of the Race To Dubai and the LPGA plays the US Open this week before their season finale in a fortnight,
My question is, did the whole return to golf with no spectators and players in the "bubble" work for you.?
I've been broadcasting and writing about golf for nearly 40 years now, been playing it since I was a boy and like many of you had my doubts about whether or not we should even consider playing while we were locked down around the world, losing loved ones, losing jobs, life savings and more, to one of the most destructive pandemics ever, and still are for that matter, with a vaccine on the horizon finally giving us light at the end of this tunnel.
After a 3 month hiatus the PGA Tour returned on June 11 with the Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth and has played 25 weeks since with only 19 positive tests for COVID, all of whom have recovered.
Dustin Johnson won the Masters and the Fed Ex Cup without so much as a "oh yeah baby !!"
Colin Morikawa quietly won the PGA Championship at Harding Park.
The Bryson DeChambeau shemozzle came and went (for now) after he bludgeoned Winged Foot to win the US Open.
My old colleague John Shannon who turned to broadcasting after years of producing Hockey Night in Canada knows as much about attending live sports events as anyone.
I think he addressed my feelings well.
Spectator less events became just games, not events without the roar of the crowd.
Some sports were worse than others, despite great, innovative TV productions piping fake crowd noise into our living rooms, and close up camera work cutting out vast empty stadiums as much as possible.
Basketball was awful from Disney World looking like a school gym, and compounded by the whole Black Lives Matter tragedy. Baseball had crickets at the park and commentators in studios at home, but with it's slow pace and time for replay's and discussion it was plausible, the NHL in mid summer was a disaster.
Golf however probably worked best of the bunch, By it's nature it is quietly boring to watch anyway for most sports fans, it kept paying all the usual broadcast crews and they could cover all the shots with endless replay's and analysis. Yes there were no roars on the back nine at Augusta but in fact millions finally saw how hilly Augusta is without the "patrons".
There was a stunning lack of drama from the winners for sure, you could here them say "Yes !!" in front of nobody, as if it meant a lot to just them and their families/sponsors, but nobody else.
I thought it would be an F on the report card, but all in all considering COVID is raging again all around them, and we could have easily done without it, in the spirit of Christmas I'm going to give it a C-.
Nobody got hurt because of it, TV, sponsors and the players were happy, it provided an entertainment for golf fans at home, especially when Tiger came out of semi retirement for an appearance, but it was just another game without the fans, not an event or a spectacle... or was it ??
Bryan Angus
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