Thoughts from the Match Play
Accenture Match Play
March Madness PGA style showed up this week and, as usual, did not disappoint for great play and some exciting finishes. Kudos to David Toms for a tremendous week – not many players knock off Phil Mickelson and Adam Scott before the semi-finals, then raise their level of play even higher for a semi-final win against Ian Poulter and a dominating performance against Chris DiMarco. As always, plenty of interesting activity on the media side of the golf business:
Faldo continues to
be pure genius during intros
Nick’s first comment on Day 1 is that controlling spin in match play is extra important because one hole can get lost by a high spinner that comes back off the front of the green while a low-spin stays pin high and leaves an easier putt. This comment is probably even more accurate with wet conditions. As if on cue, on the 18th hole of the Darren Clarke match McDowell hits a beauty from the rough that stops pin high and Darren hits an approach shot that spins back to the front and he’s headed home. In a normal tournament, he’s missed a birdie opportunity – at La Costa, he doesn’t play the next day. Also worth noting – a lot of the high-spin players lost early, a lot of the low-spin players made it through to later rounds. Faldo set that up as a point of emphasis for viewers to watch through out the week.
Azinger’s constant
rooting for Tiger prevents him from seeing the whole story.
Nick O’Hern was 2 up on Tiger as they played the 17th Their tee shots left Tiger with a big advantage – O’Hern had 205 to the green from the rough with a tree right in front of him while Tiger was 35 yards closer and in the fairway. O’Hern proceeds to hit one of the clutch shots of the week – a running mid-iron under the tree that ended up 25 feet away. That put the pressure squarely back on Tiger, who now knows he needs to make birdie to extend the match. Not shy about his outright rooting interest, Azinger pleads for Tiger to find a way to stay in the match (and in ABC’s weekend telecast plans) – “come on, Tiger, hit a good shot” before he flames a hard 8-iron into the bunker to seal his fate. What Paul’s rooting prevented was (1) an analysis of how O’Hern’s shot forced Tiger to go for more than he might; and (2) how Tiger’s new swing may be coming together, but he doesn’t yet trust it under pressure to back off a club and hit a no-spin shot to a back right pin – instead he tried to go one club less and hit it harder to get it back to the pin. It shouldn’t be too surprising when he comes out of it a bit and leaves it in the front part of the trap. To Judy Rankin’s credit, she called it a “horrid shot” in the air, the only one willing to say so.
Hey Zinger – even if it’s OK to root for a particular player (separate topic for a separate post), don’t let it get in the way of telling the fans the story that’s unfolding. The hole before Paul found it amazing that Tiger can hit a big slice tee ball 311 in the air – hey, Paul, doesn’t matter if it’s in the rough. Tiger’s swing has the perfect “launch angle” with the driver, but we all know it’s not a perfect swing if the result is in the rough; talk about alignment, setup, swing plane, anything to explain to viewers me why it’s not going in the fairway (because it used to). Paul Azinger may be more interested in being Ryder Cup captain and Tiger’s buddy then he is in educating viewers on why Tiger’s not getting it done.
Funny how nothing
is an upset in an 18-hole match until Tiger loses.
All week long, we hear about the gap between #1 and #64 being very small over the course of an 18-hole match. Yet suddenly when Tiger loses it’s the only story. Post-match interviews were particularly humorous – Judy Rankin’s gem of a question for Tiger was (in essence) “I would’ve thought hitting it 35 yards past him all day would be intimidating” (uh, no) and was topped only by Jim Gray’s beauty to Nick O’Hern “how do you prepare yourself to play against a guy who is so good in this format?” (shouldn’t you be at an NBA game somewhere Jim?) Neither question comes anywhere close to analyzing why some of this stuff happens – maybe there’s something more to it than just making a few putts.
Give Vijay some
respect – at give Tiger less.
As always, ESPN’s SportsCenter found an interesting way to tell the tale of Day 2. Tiger and Vijay both lost – Vijay to Jay Haas, Tiger to Nick O’Hern. Vijay’s the world # 1 with 9 victories last year and 1 in 2005 – Tiger’s first victory in a couple of years was the Buick in San Diego. ESPN told these as two very different outcomes – arguing that Tiger missed every putt he looked at to lose the match and ignoring O’Hern’s steady play, while Haas just parred Vijay to death. The problem with this analysis is that the putts they show Tiger mention were not always in the 3-5 foot range – they’re now showing missed 15-25 footers (which often don’t even burn the edge) and saying Tiger’s not making anything. The truth is: (1) no one was making everything on those saturated greens this week (except maybe David Toms); (2) O’Hern didn’t make all of his from that range either. Rather than put up a graphic on Tiger’s missed putts from each distance range, put up a comparison that shows Tiger and O’Hern’s putting stats to let viewers see for themselves if that was really the difference.
Most importantly, treat Vijay like the # 1 player - both he and Tiger got outplayed on day 2, but the story ESPN would have you believe is that Vijay got outplayed by Jay but that Tiger outplayed Nick O'Hern but lost it on the greens.
Good to see
ESPN/ABC get the final they deserve.
For almost 9 years ESPN has sold the world on Eldrick as the second coming, frequently in the face of irrefutable evidence that all the players are getting longer, stronger, and mentally tougher. Justice is served when Tiger, Vijay, and Phil go out before the weekend, leaving us to watch some great matches with some players that are not household names. The best Accenture Final to date is still the Jeff Maggert-Andrew Magee match that went extra holes. Is it Maggert or Magee’s fault that they didn’t get the email telling them to lose early so Tiger could get through to the finals? At some point they’ll realize that selling the Match Play like CBS sells the NCAA hoops tourney is the better way to market the event (i.e. “what’s gonna happen next?” with shots of hole outs from bunkers and fairways, as opposed to the current “who can beat Tiger?” Once that question’s answered, who’s going to stick around?)
Apparently Tiger’s
the only one with a match play record.
Throughout the first two rounds, graphics of Tiger’s match play record as a junior, an amateur, and a professional are posted with oohs and aahs. Impressive as it is, it might make some sense to rethink the graphic: (1) the people Tiger beat as an amateur aren’t in the same class as any of the guys he’s playing now in Ryder Cup or the Match Play; (2) a few other guys – like David Toms, now 18-5 – have pretty good singles records as well. Put some more context around the amateur records or put some comparisons to other top professionals to help improve the usefulness of the graphic to casual viewers. Once you realize David Toms’ record, it helps put Tiger’s singles record in perspective.
(More later - the Toms-DiMarco match is still on Tivo - yet to be viewed)
