“Professional Golf's Best Season is Right Now” plus 2 more

Professional Golf's Best Season is Right Now
Golf-Woods ready for Arizona's desert winds after Dubai struggle
NBCU: Golf, NBC On-Air Teams Are Viewer-Friendly Merger

Professional Golf's Best Season is Right Now

Posted: 22 Feb 2011 11:50 AM PST

US golfers Phil Mickelson (2nd L) and Tiger Wo...

Image by AFP/Getty Images via @daylife

This week's Accenture Match Play Championship in Marana, Ariz., kicks off what to my mind is the beginning of the best part of the PGA Tour season: the late-winter, early spring run-up to the Masters Tournament.

It's the only time in the calendar that golf has the stage virtually to itself. There is no NFL. It's spring training and early-season time in baseball. The NBA and the NHL are stuck in their annual mid-season doldrums.

Golf hits three high points in the summer with the US Open, the British Open and "Glory's Last Shot" (a.k.a. the PGA Championship). But summer is a lazy season of vacations and wandering minds. In the fall, the PGA Tour has tried to drum-up interest in the FedExCup, but it's still a bit difficult to follow and has the (serious) problem of competing with football. Late fall and early winter are what's called golf's "silly season."

But right now is golf's serious season. It helps that most of the East Coast this time of year is cold and miserable. Northeastern golfers—with the exception of those lucky enough to make a Florida or Arizona trip—haven't hit a ball in four months and are in the throes of severe cabin fever. On TV, those lush fairways and short sleeved shirts speak of a swings soon to come.

The Match Play, which starts Wednesday, has become a great tournament, one of the few times outside of the Ryder and President's Cups that we get to see the world's best matched-up, mano a mano. Then the Tour starts its Florida swing, beginning with the Honda Classic on the PGA National Resort & Spa Champion course in Palm Beach Gardens (3/3-3/6). The Honda is usually played without Phil and Tiger, but it's started to attract big talent (world number one Lee Westwood is playing this year, along with Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell). The course is one of the hardest in the world, thanks in large part to the famous "Bear Trap" (holes 15-17).

Tiger and Phil will almost certainly play the World Golf Championship-Cadillac Classic at the TPC Blue Monster at Doral the following week in Miami (3/10-3/13). Two weeks later after that is the Arnold Palmer Invitational at his Bay Hill course (3/24-3/27), one of the best non-major events in golf (Tiger will be there, too). The following week's Shell Houston Open (3/31-4/3), the tournament right before the Masters, is worth watching to see who is hot going into year's first major.

There are a lot of intriguing questions in golf right now. First and foremost is the state of Tiger Woods. He is a top seed in the Match Play, but does anyone think he is really one of the top four golfers in the world right now? I'd put him closer to number 30. The golf world awaits his breakthrough. A win—just one, anywhere—would be huge news.

And what about Phil? He's been able to ride under the radar for a year or so, thanks to Tiger's troubles. But can he fully take advantage of Woods' absence as a top player? He hasn't so far this season. But the gut feeling is that he is priming his game for the Masters, where he is the defending champion.

And what about golf's young guns—McIlroy, Rickie Fowler, Dustin Johnson? They were supposed to dominate this year. Thus far, they haven't. Maybe they'll bloom under the Florida sun.

And the last big question: the PGA Tour will soon start negotiations for new TV contracts. What happens during these next two months will play a big role in those talks.

But all questions and concerns take a back seat from April 7-April 10, during the Masters, which is the best golf tournament in the world. Sure the tournament takes itself awfully seriously. But it almost always delivers. The Masters is must-see live TV in DVR world. And it's the high point in what's become golf's best season.

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Golf-Woods ready for Arizona's desert winds after Dubai struggle

Posted: 22 Feb 2011 01:02 PM PST

By Mark Lamport-Stokes

MARANA, Arizona, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Tiger Woods returns to the Arizona desert this week for the first time in two years with renewed confidence in his revamped swing after being blown off course at the Dubai Desert Classic just two weeks ago.

Woods gave fans a glimpse of his imperious best with a six-under-par 66 in the second round of the European Tour event in Dubai to soar into contention but his new swing failed to hold up over the weekend in strong desert winds.

The former number world one ended up seven strokes behind triumphant Spaniard Alvaro Quiros and the American has since worked hard to get his game back on track for this week's WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship.

"Game is progressing, no doubt," world number three Woods told reporters on Tuesday before setting off for a practice round at Dove Mountain's Ritz-Carlton Golf Club.

"Had to work on a few things that we found were not right in Dubai, which was good. And it feels like we're heading in the right direction. Just have to work on it and solidify it."

Woods, who did not compete in last year's Match Play Championship because he was trying to repair his deteriorating marriage, said he had been "exposed" by the winds in Dubai.

"I was limited in the shot selections," the 14-times major champion added. "When the wind didn't blow, I went low.

"Sean (Foley) and I worked on that in the last week and that was good. We finally put it together."

In partnership with Canadian coach Foley, Woods has been working since August on the fourth swing change of his career.

MOVEMENT PATTERNS

"Now I just need to keep working on it and keep heading down this path," Woods said. "I know what it takes to get it done, but incorporating new movement patterns takes time.

"As more time goes on, the more balls I hit, hundreds of thousands of balls, millions of balls later, those movement patterns become natural."

Woods, a three-times winner of the Match Play Championship, has always enjoyed the challenge of the one-on-one format but he also knows that good golf is no guarantee of victory.

"I have seen guys, when we played at La Costa and had bad weather, win matches with 79s," he said, referring to the event's inaugural venue in Carlsbad, California.

"There have been matches out here … when it was calm and the guys were six or seven under par and they are going home.

"It's just one of those things. If you are hot, this is the event to play because you only have to beat one guy at a time."

Woods won the last of his three Match Play crowns in 2008 when he crushed fellow American Stewart Cink by a record 8&7 margin at Dove Mountain's Gallery Golf Club.

This week, he will launch his title bid against 65th-ranked Thomas Bjorn of Denmark in Wednesday's opening round.

"I'm looking forward to it," Woods said. "He won a tournament, what, three weeks ago? He is obviously playing better."

Bjorn won the Qatar Masters earlier this month.

(Editing by Steve Ginsburg; To comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)

NBCU: Golf, NBC On-Air Teams Are Viewer-Friendly Merger

Posted: 22 Feb 2011 12:44 PM PST

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 2/22/2011 2:38:15 PM

NBC and Golf Channel analysts and commentators got together for their first joint conference call with reporters Tuesday as the broadcaster and its new cable net sibling prepared for their first joint, co-branded coverage for the newly-merged Comcast/NBCU, which NBC says will be a viewer-friendly merger.

The WGC-Accenture Match Play championship this week will be the first joint effort under the new Golf Channel On NBC brand (akin to the ESPN on ABC sports branding).

The respective on-air teams will repeat the exercise on air this Friday (8:30 p.m.) for a special/panel session, State of the Game, moderated by NBC on-air Golf host Dan Hicks and airing on the Golf Channel.

NBC Commentator Dan Hicks said the ability for the two teams to "mix and interchange" will be to the viewers' advantage. "I think by having this kind of dynamic, the viewer at home "is really the beneficiary of this merger."

Hicks said he was not exactly sure how the two teams would be melded, though there was the suggestion each could do cameos on the other's air. Brandel Chamblee and Sir Nick Faldo are on Golf Channel, while Hicks, Robert Maltbieand Johnny Miller are in the tower and on the course for NBC.

Chamblee said that one thing Golf Channel will be able to do is provide some of the stories behind the golfers they will be watching on the weekend. Golf Channel has the first two days of the event, NBC the final two.

"There are so many great stories that pop up in golf that you really don't have the time to expound on them in live coverage to the extent that you want to."

He said he expects that branding to drive viewers to the Golf Channel to get the in-depth details on players they don't know a whole lot about. That could be particularly the case with the WGC event, since it features a number of international players that aren't as widely known in the states and is match play, so it will be two players going head to head--starting with 64--for the chance to move on, or a sort of "February Madness."

The analysts suggested Tiger might not yet be ready to break back into the winners' circle, though it would be better for ratings and the game if he did. In response to a question from B&C/Multi, Faldo said he thought Tiger's game was "good enough to get to Sunday, but not good enough to finish it off at the moment."

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Tuesday, February 22, 2011