Sky and golf.tv: What the heck are you doing?

Posted on by Alexander Rose

Just when you thought you got access to the best golf broadcasting service, you realize it’s still not the way it should be. It would be so easy though.

I was a long-time Sky subscriber. Already when it was Premiere and then later Sky, I paid a fortune in monthly fees to get to watch some golf. I was never interested in other sports than golf, so I paid it for the weekly tournament on the Euro tour and on the PGA tour. That was the time when I haven’t had a family and plenty of time.

The years went by and it truly annoyed me how much Sky charged for the sports package and that you a) need a set top box, and b) are contracted for two years with no chance to get treated like a valued customer. In order to benefit from some reductions you had to cancel the subscription and wait for the call with the offer.

So from a pure contractual standpoint I hated Sky from the beginning. But the golf was too good to be neglected. Then came the daughter and with her next to no chance at all to watch some golf on the weekend; neither the Euro tour in the afternoon and truth be told, nor the PGA tour at night.

There we have another problem with Sky, it’s all live. And while this is nice to have, what I’d really appreciated back then would have been a streaming functionality at your time of choice. I quit watching golf eventually and just bought one of the daily or week passes for Sky Ticket. That allowed me to at least watch some of the majors.

Continue reading Sky and golf.tv: What the heck are you doing?

“The greens at Winged Food West tumble downhill like a marble staircase”

Posted on by Alexander Rose

Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, NY is said to be one of the hardest golf courses to shoot low scores on. And quite fittingly it was the venue of this year’s US Open.

As a matter of fact, there was only one single player in the field prevailing in a sense that he managed to stay under par after 4 rounds in great weather conditions: Bryson DeChambeau, the 2020 US Open champion.

If you want to understand what all players went through these days, suffering from bad scores, across the leaderboard, you should watch this video to get a sense for the course characteristics of Winged Food West and potential traps along the way:

I seriously love these “Every Hole” videos of Golf Digest! If you like these too, then go check out their playlist! You’re welcome.

Any by the way: Can you read a Winged Foot green? Check it out here!

What a show, Bryson DeChambeau!

Posted on by Alexander Rose

Bryson DeChambeau is the 2020 US Open champion and seriously left the golf world stunned about his performance at Winged Foot Golf Club, NY.

DeChambeau is a phenomenon. He’s special in many aspects and with that I’m not only referring to the positive ones. But you could like him or not, that what he’s shown the world last weekend was truly amazing and outstanding — a great show of golf that will have its place in golf’s history books, no question about it!

DeChambeau, presumably the man with the most unbelievable intentional body transformation ever, won the US Open in style: With smashing drives but only 23 fairways for the whole week he managed to get out of these unfortunate and penalizing rough positions and still got to the red numbers eventually.

And that’s worth mentioning: Of the complete field at this year’s US Open at Winged Food Golf Club, truly a tough track apparently, he was the only one (!!) who shot under par. The only one. Let that sink in for a moment. Yes, US Opens tend to be tough and the rough is always set to make people rather cry, but only one person under par is quite astonishing.

And if this wasn’t enough, he won by a 6-shot margin over Matthew Wolff (E) and Louis Oosthuizen (+2). All in all an incredible performance.

Pure dominance. Here are some very interesting statistics:

Continue reading What a show, Bryson DeChambeau!

Hands up, who’s playing fantasy golf?

Posted on by Alexander Rose

If you’re like me, you really love all aspects of the game: The difficulty, the outdoors, the technical aspect, the social aspect, the ability to discuss it, the fact that every course in the world is different and, last but not least, the pro tours which usually tend to be really exciting.

There are other facts, too, but as I have a family I have to settle with the most important ones and leave side aspects to others. One of which is Fantasy Golf.

In case you’re not aware, this is, very similar to other sports, a way to win an online competition by creating week-in and week-out a list of (golf) players that you maintain regularly. The better those play in the next tournament, the more points you earn, i.e. the better you predicted the outcome of the tournament as a whole. Of course players do not play every single tournament, certain course characteristics do more favor a number of certain players and you could also count the current form factor in, in case you are able to assess or anticipate it.

It is really fun and a way to seriously stay connected to the game as you won’t miss a week(end) and get zero points. And there is a social aspect to that game also.

These guys however exaggerate a bit I’d say:

As an example, this is the fantasy golf game of the PGA Tour. Have fun!

Bryson’s new tactics seem to pay off

Posted on by Alexander Rose

In the past months Bryson DeChambeau had put up some extra weight in order to get to a physique he could drive the ball farther than everybody else. Did he manage to?

Well, the Charles Schwab Challenge is not over while I write this, so it’s a bit early to assess but from what I saw yesterday and today, it’s fair to say that DeChambeau had quite a transformation in the lockdown weeks. He must have found some weights in his basement to play around with.

So, that transition: It didn’t make him a nice guy or a more bearable guy, not even a faster guy in the sense of pace of play, but he truly looks like Popeye now with huge extra weight on.

Continue reading Bryson’s new tactics seem to pay off

Live TV golf back in the game

Posted on by Alexander Rose

After weeks and months of absence, pro golf is back on tour, back on telly and back in our hearts. It was about time, if you’d ask me.

2020 is a crazy year. It has been so far and seems to continue to make its way into history books on so many levels. Life, as we know it, came to a halt and so many beautiful factors of daily things were taken away from every one of us—including golf.

Not only was golf forbidden to play, it was of course also for the professionals, hence there was no live TV coverage for such a long time.

But that changed now. With the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club we have the first of pro event back in live TV. The PGA Tour being first out there, made a good effort with teasing the crowd in social media, as this tournament will–as all the others to come in the near future–be played under some new circumstances: Played without spectators, to start with.

I haven’t had much time to sit in front of the TV lately myself with this new COVID-19 home-office and child-care situation, but I seriously support the idea to bring pro golf back into play and back onto the screen.

I love my golf.tv subscription and can’t wait to see some of the events kicking in here on this side of the Atlantic, starting with a so-called “UK Swing” with six consecutive events in the UK, as announced by Keith Pelley, European Tour commissioner. Please read here.

The BMW Indoor Invitational at Royal Portrush

Posted on by Alexander Rose

The European Tour is never shy to test out new things, be it a huge shot clock to incentivize a faster pace, or a new 6-hole team match format with a lot of background noise to attract new people to the sport.

Presumably the same folks came up with a new series of events which are somewhat driven by the fact that people are not able to go outside anymore to play golf following the rather strict COVID-19 rules and restrictions in every state of the world.

What that does is to facilitate Trackman’s functionalities together with a famous course that is played virtually. It’s a professional battle on different grounds than usually but it’s still active golf, playing indoors against a huge screen.

Clearly putting and bunker game is necessary to adapt for the virtual world, but it’s impressive how modern technology can cater to establish a very similar feeling to real life golf. Of course there will never be a real alternative to play outside on real courses but you get close to the feeling anyway when you don’t have access to a course or just simply are not allowed to play.

I believe this is a great way to entertain the golf fan masses, much more than these selfie-like pro tip videos that you saw lately. Personally I could pass on those if you’d ask me.

Oh and by the way, Connor Syme took the lead by two shots:

So what do you think of those virtual indoor tournaments? Yay or nay? And what did you do to get in golf shape this year during lockdown? Anything special to share?

Brexit is done…

Posted on by Alexander Rose

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…and you can think or lean towards which side you want, leave or remain, your choice, but you all have to agree that it’s going to be and look weird when in a couple of months time, 12 Europeans, including English, Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish will enter the stage under the European flag, walking the arena to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 as the Anthem of Europe, waiving blue-yellow flags and telling reporters how proud they are to play and compete for their continent.

European continent that is, not the European Union – rocking the same flag though.

USA wins 2019 Presidents Cup

Posted on by Alexander Rose

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to watch a single second of this year’s Presidents Cup due to private and family commitments.

What I did check however were scores along the way. So I am aware that the USA team has been coming from behind just on the final day Sunday. And I also believe congratulations are in order.

The Presidents Cup always has been an event in the shadow of the Ryder Cup. It was this year when I had the feeling that this event somehow increased its media coverage and found its way to mass media coverage a bit more, compared to the last events, maybe for the wrong reasons though…

This edition of the cup obviously was a kind of special one. Ernie Els, team captain of the Internationals, asked local spectators in Australia to not root for Tiger Woods and his boys but rather cheer for the Internationals.

Then there was the incident with Patrick Reed just days before the tournament and this clearly didn’t calm the waves. On the contrary, I was told there have been many people shouting nasty things towards the US boys, in particular to Reed.

Who’s to blame? Well, it’s a team event and with that comes a certain degree of enthusiasm and volume that can be helpful for one side, but can at the same time be very hurtful for the other. It’s something that golf in general is not very used to.

Unfortunately this might be the topic of the week and will long be in the people’s mind looking back at this event. Generally I take off my hat to the Americans for winning this after they were behind for almost the whole time.

Congratulations! Well done! Can’t wait for the next edition of the Ryder Cup now!

Golf needs more celebrity tournaments

Posted on by Alexander Rose

I wanted to write this for quite a while but so many things came jeopardizing it to some extent. But it is as true as it was some weeks back really, when the 2019 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship took place.

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I doubt it, but in case you are not familiar with the tournament, it’s a proper European Tour event, this year end of September. There is another Alfred Dunhill Championship taking place in South Africa every year, but here I’m talking about the Scottish links variant of the tournament.

There are multiple things that make this tournament so special:

  1. The courses
  2. The players
  3. The vibe

So let’s discuss all that and what it does to golf, the sport, the industry, the marketing and the general public perception as I believe you can’t really underestimate its effect(s).

Continue reading Golf needs more celebrity tournaments