Pebble Beach in 80-degree weather with no wind howling off the Farallons, no clouds scudding in low and gray, no foaming surf crashing over the greens and fairways is like Samson shorn, Man o’ War limping, Muhammad Ali hanging on the ropes and bleeding. I can’t look. It’s enough to make you gnash your teeth when you see players hitting 4- and 5-irons to No. 17, to see them teeing off with 3-woods on 18 and in general insulting the course as if it were some pitch-and-putt in Chillicothe. It’s like seeing the USS Missouri aground, the Titanic hanging off an iceberg. Golf at Pebble Beach was never meant to be a walk in the park, a dance with your sister, a trip to the moon on gossamer wings. JIM MURRAY
Nothing screams corporate passion like returning to your old stomping grounds the way Golf Channel has this week. Apparently the return of studio shows to Orlando is due to the bleak Winter Olympics in already awful Beijing necessitating NBC use of the lavender-tinged broom closet in Stamford, Connecticut.
While some might see a post-Chernobyl vibe to the former newsroom emptied of people, it’s also a fitting way of saying, “yes, we know a lot of people are paying attention to golf with no NFL and with the Saudi and Pebble events this week, but guess what? We just don’t care, plus we’d have to pay camera people and electric bills to go in the old studio just over their shoulders. And our partners, sponsors and viewers don’t deserve quality!”
Or, maybe it’s a way of signaling to a buyer? You know, one who’d like to return to where Arnold Palmer started the channel and it remained until his passing? And they tried to put out a good product? If only we the sport of golf could be so lucky.