Open letter to Ken Brown at The Masters 2009.

Thank you for your enthusiastic and knowledgeable Masters presentation with your ‘Ken on the course’.

It was one of the best Masters (apart from the number of ‘get in the hole’ shouts!) as it had the winning ingredients of going down to the wire with the prospective oldest ever major winner at last being affected by the pressure.

• It’s great they had to cope with the unpredictability of the wind on some days.

• It is acceptable for the winner to rely on luck (i.e. to whack his ball at a tree and get lucky). This does not discredit his achievement.

• It is nice to have no intrusive corporate advertising on the course.

• Being allowed to film why certain shots have a risk and reward is informative and enjoyable.

It is a soggy mess

But why, Oh why don’t you explain to viewers that Augusta can’t be played for five months, it is a soggy mess? It takes millions of gallons of water and fungicides/pesticides and tons of fertiliser to prepare this course and millions of more dollars to create the infrastructure (heating elements under the greens to control their firmness etc.)

The Masters is great TV. It is pretty but the course is artificial. Why don’t you interview the agronomists and greenkeepers so the ordinary watching golfer can appreciate that their local club must not try to emulate Augusta’s methods of greenkeeping?

‘An Augusta syndrome’ policy…

….would only end in disaster for member owned clubs.

We, the armchair viewer, know Augusta so well, we think we know what needs to be done! Metronomic, huge length off the tee, high shots into spongy greens that stop quickly and a white-hot putter, but does this produce the best champions?

It would be hubristic to criticise your hosts and their brilliant presentation of a great event but you are missing a trick by not placing the event in its context of a comparison between ‘target’ and ‘fine’ golf.

There are many variations of ‘target’ and ‘fine’ golf and they merge in the middle. The Masters is the ultimate and most attractive ‘target’ golf event.

BBC golf audiencies are very knowledgable and appreciate your commentary as you don’t talk down to them and I beleive they would enjoy you showing the comparisons in shotmaking and some understanding of the agronomy that lie beneath the differences.

Best wishes from Lorne