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

However, I detect a subtle change is happening in the presentation of the coverage.

Is it because BBC Sport needs to compete with other TV golf channels that they feel a need to ‘sell’ the entertainment angle to us?

There seems to be a greater emphasis on the story of who is winning rather than on how it is being won.

The BBC technical coverage, though slipping, has been excellent over the years (particularly from Ken Brown) and it is only fair and correct that those who play the best get most of the coverage.

But is there now a move towards the cult of personality and celebrity and away from the game itself, its values, its craft?

Should the BBC be required to have some responsibility for the long term perception of the game?

The portrayal of The Open as the greatest golf tournament in the world should not rely on having the most prize money, the greatest number of visitors, the largest tented village, etc. It should be more than that.

The Open is the largest event played on a dry, running, ‘Fine’ course.

This requires a different game from the overwatered, fertilised, lush green target courses that host the bulk of European Tour and Ryder Cup.

One aspect of Target golf TV coverage is its high proportion of ‘power off the tee’ and ‘putting skill’ televised from fixed cameras.

OK, of course, in its own way. It is, understandably, not so easy and more expensive to film the creative stuff in between.

The bump and run along the ground is not as dramatic as the high shot targeted at the flag and stopping dead.

One of the fascinating aspects of The Open is that pros have to gradually work out how to play the holes, depending on the daily variable conditions.

The player’s strategy is not just about power, putting and yardage.

The results from our poll suggest that the public expect the BBC coverage of The Open to be different from Target golf coverage.

I would like the BBC to highlight the craft required when playing ‘Fine’ golf and to identify the differences to ‘Target’ golf.

Interview the Consultant Agronomists and Greenkeepers. Explain why sustainable greenkeeping is best.

We are forced to fund the BBC through a tax; should we not demand that it keep to its historical role of educating and maintaining standards rather than ‘dumbing down’.

Of course sport on TV is entertainment but we do not need the BBC to follow the commercial channels in striving to add extra layers of ‘selling’ the entertainment. As the BBC do not need to attract advertising, they should be able to be independent of commercial pressures which seem to focus almost entirely upon Target golf.

Lorne Smith 2009                   Please do leave a comment below

The BBC has been receiving some unattractive press recently about its perceived lowering of standards (Jonathan Ross etc.). I am afraid FineGolf readers don’t have any good news for them either.

Harrington at Birkdale

If you recall, there were windy conditions, particularly on the Saturday of  ‘The 2008 Open’ at Royal Birkdale. I thought it would give a higher BBC TV coverage than normal of pros hitting difficult shots from the fairway or rough, chipping, bunker and recovery play - in other words, the more creative, interesting side of the game, viz everything that is not the ‘teeing off’ or ‘putting’.

So I decided to put a stop-watch on the edited one hour summary of the play, late on Saturday night to see how much time was devoted to:
1) teeing off, putting and interviews
2) everything else.
I then invited visitors to the website to vote as to what they expected to see from 0% to 100% for either 1) or 2)

Our tiny inaugural poll cannot be said to be representative of what everybody expected the balance of the coverage to be, but if mine and my daughter’s votes (we knew the correct answer!) are discounted, then 74% of FineGolf voters expected 50% or more of the BBC coverage to contain ‘everything else’.

The correct answer as to what was actually broadcast was:
80% teeing-off, putting and interviewing; 20% everything else.

This is more typical of TV golf coverage from lush target courses around the world and not what one might expect from the Beeb during The Open. I shall let the BBC Sport have our FineGolf survey findings and then, hopefully, being aware that a part of their viewing public does not expect their Open coverage to copy that of commercial, target-golf TV, with a lowering of standards, they will reconsider their future policy.

                Please leave us a comment below

Nevertheless, this year at Royal Birkdale did anybody else have the impression the commentators were starting to try to sell us the entertainment value of what we were watching?

Ken Brown is good but perhaps it has something to do with the body-blow of losing the brilliant Bruce Critchley to Sky.

There seemed to be a worry that the conditions were too difficult; in line with one Pro’s statement that ‘the public want to see us get birdies not bogeys’.

Harrington’s last nine holes on Sunday showed the conditions could be mastered.

How much more interesting it is to have conditions that require creative and skilful shotmaking rather than the usual mechanical high-flying target golf.

The best golfers like Tiger Woods are superb at both Fine and Target golf.

What is your view ? Leave us a comment at the bottom of this page.

The windy conditions, particularly on the Saturday of ‘The 2008 Open’ at Royal Birkdale, I thought would give a higher BBC TV coverage than normal of pros hitting difficult shots from the fairway or rough, chipping, bunker and recovery play - in other words, the more creative, interesting side of the game, viz everything that is not the ‘teeing off’ or ’putting’.

So I decided to put a stop-watch on the edited one hour summary of the play, late on Saturday night to see how much time was devoted to:

1) teeing off, putting and interviews
2) everything else.

Have some fun and take part in our anonymous Poll below to say what you expect the balance of the coverage to have been.

BBC coverage of ‘The Open’ has been brilliant but it may be slipping. Read more….

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

This poll is now closed and to see the correct answer click here