7 Things I’d Change About Golf TV Coverage

Golf’s growth in modern times has been driven in large part through television. It is the way that many people get introduced to, and drawn into, the game. Arnold Palmer was golf’s first star of the television age. The main tours need television viewers to sustain their economic model.

On the whole, the coverage of golf on television is good. But how can the broadcasters further improve their product?

More drama, less storytelling

The adage when writing fiction – and here I'm going to shamelessly work in a plug for my golf novel Crime Wave At Tangents – is ‘show, don’t tell’. This adage is applied by television directors to show players starting and ending their round as a way of informing the viewer who is now on the course and how some of the players have scored today.

I do not mind the former – although one member of the Golf Monthly staff does have a real bugbear about this – but the latter? Do we need to see someone who is well down the leaderboard and is making a nothing-in-particular score for their round tap in a putt on 18 and then shake hands with people?

Cannot a commentator simply tell us that so-and-so has finished their round in 73 shots and currently lies tied in 46th, while we are being shown something more interesting or relevant?

Show the contours of the green

Most of the putting action is shown from a high camera looking down on the green. This artificially flattens out the green in terms of the viewers’ perspective, thereby reducing viewers’ understanding of the challenge in making particular putts.

I forget now the course, but the commentators had been saying how contoured a particular green was. Then, late on, we had a shot from ground level of the green, and boy was that green contoured and far more so than I had envisaged from what the commentators had been saying – enormous falls and rises. Here the ‘show, don’t tell’ principle could have come in handy earlier in the broadcast.

Avoid blocked views

Some more hand-held cameras – yes, I know producers have budgets and have to husband their resources – would help with this one, too. It does irritate when watching a putt when the view of the actual hole is blocked by a caddie or another player.

Show the unexpected plot developments

I sometimes watch golf inattentively as I have it on in the background whole doing other tasks. I’ll look up and think ‘how come that player's playing from there?” Thinking I must have missed their previous shot, I rewind... and it is not me who has missed the shot.

I know only a percentage of shots can be shown, but it’s annoying when the broadcast is following one of the main actors in the drama and you find them playing from somewhere where you don't expect their ball to have gone and you do not know how it got there.

Are they playing from short of the green because they got on the green but the ball spun back off the green? Or did they chunk a shot and come up short? Or did they get a weird bounce, misjudge the wind, simply choose the wrong club, or…?

LIV shotgun starts don’t make great viewing

LIV Golf holds limited appeal for me. There's no history to their tournaments, and I don’t really care that much who wins. But I have watched it nevertheless.

Some of LIV Golf’s ‘innovations’ helped to disguise the league’s initial weaknesses. That their tournaments were originally played over three rounds mirrored that of the senior tours, as the initial player recruitment was aimed at golfers in their late 40s no longer competitive over four rounds on the main tours.

The team format disguised that, especially in LIV's early days, some players had little or no chance of winning. How to make their round relevant? Pop them into a team format.

But shotgun starts? This not only limits the amount of action you can see, as the whole field is out on the course simultaneously, but it can make for some confusing viewing during the first two rounds – what hole exactly was is that that player has just made birdie on, is it a hole most of the field would expect to birdie today? Or has he, in effect gained a shot on the majority of the field?

LIV Golf seems to have recognised the weakness with the shotgun format because, in the final round, the top-six on the leaderboard start on the first tee, with the top 3 starting after everyone else.

Player recognition

Name a team sport with players in the same team strip, which wants mass market appeal and to entice the casual sports television watcher but which does not have names or numbers on player shirts? That’s right, golf. Name another? You’ll struggle.

The USA team at the 2010 Ryder Cup did have their names on the back of their waterproof jackets, but this was blamed in some quarters for the jackets leaking water and Water(proof)gate perhaps put paid to this sensible idea for future Ryder Cups.

When Golf Monthly put a poll on social media during the last Ryder Cup asking if names on shirts might be helpful... well the answers came back as a firm 'no'. In fact absolutely granite rock hard 'no' – 87.2% said no.

Pink gins were being spilled in clubhouses throughout the world at the very notion and Major Tufton Bufton needed reviving by the smelling salts the lady captain had (and he would have been had ladies not been barred from the bar at that time of day). The twitterati took to their keyboards to state in the replies that lunatics had taken over the offices of Golf Monthly.

The golf community being reactionary over what golfers should wear – who’d have thunk it?

If only Golf Monthly had argued something sensible to grow the game’s popularity and make it more inclusive, such as making all golfers in shorts wear long socks with them.

Show more shots

Yes, it’s that simple. Why we are watching is, to see people actually, you know, play golf. Not to admire scenic views of the same bridge, players walking down fairways, someone walking their dog along a nearby beach. Some scene setting can be useful, but don’t forget why people have tuned into your broadcast.