The golf TV viewing experience is terrible. It has basically taken the worst things about watching other sports and mixed them all together in a never ending four-day extravaganza. If you were to list what people hate most about watching basketball, baseball and whatnot and create a composite event, it would look exactly like golf on television.
It’s important to note that this is only about the watchability of golf. Tennis isn’t my cup of tea, but I can see why someone would tune in to see it. The same is true about darts, billiards and countless other niche sports. There is a huge difference between not being entertained by something and that thing being bad to watch.
And the golf TV viewing experience makes it bad to watch. Let’s delve into what makes it so awful.
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It’s long like baseball
People complain that baseball games are long. On average, each MLB contest lasts slightly over three hours. Golf blows that out of the water. A golfing event runs 6-10 hours a day for four days. What’s worse is the fact that about 80 percent of the field has no shot of winning. The golf TV viewing experience is obscenely long and mostly filler.
You can’t see the action like hockey
One of the biggest knocks about watching hockey on television is that you can’t always see what’s happening. The puck disappears, either behind the boards or in a scrum of bodies. It’s a valid complaint and something that can be said about golf as well.
You basically watch a guy swing and a few seconds later the ball lands somewhere else. You then either see the golfer looking at his shot or a closeup shot of the ball travelling through the air. The latter could literally be stock footage, however. There is almost nothing discernible about most of these closeups which consist of a white ball over blue sky. What action is being showed here?
You will miss important moments like soccer
A major problem with watching soccer is that there are no stoppages in play. That means no chances to go to the bathroom. And if you go to the bathroom, a goal will almost always be scored. The moment you take your eyes off the TV, something important happens. Golf has the same issue. If you look away, something memorable has taken place.
Long stretches of nothing like F1/NASCAR
Those memorable moments during golf events are few and far between. In that way, it’s a lot like F1 or NASCAR. You’re waiting for an exciting overtake or, if we’re being honest, a crash. But there are always these long stretches of nothing that are unwatchable.
Most of it feels meaningless like the NBA
The first 45-ish minutes of an NBA game mean absolutely nothing. Teams will run out to 20-point leads and cough them away. Basically, the last few minutes are the only thing that matters. Especially in the regular season.
Everything apart from the final few holes of a golf tournament are meaningless as well. Maybe someone hits a great shot or yells at a fan during the first three-and-a-half days. But mostly, it’s entirely meaningless. Just like NBA games outside of crunch time.
Making the golf TV viewing experience better
There have already been numerous made-for-TV golf events that have shown a possible way forward. Make tournaments shorter, snappier and mean more. Matchplay is also another example of a better golf TV viewing experience. Really, anything that’s not four days of nothing would be an improvement.
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