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The Bitter End rarely looks pretty in golf. But at least for most, The Bitter End looks the same: A walk up the 18th fairway at the season-ending tournament, a chance to wave the fans off one last time, a final putt and a last-ever ovation.
On Sunday at the CME Group Tour Championship, this was the cause of frustration for retiring star Lexi Thompson. In what may very well be her final LPGA event — at least her last as a full-time player — she wanted the chance to send her career off in the traditional way, to see the 18th hole the way she had likely spent the better part of the last several months envisioning. But when she left the course on Saturday evening and received the following day’s tee times, she confronted an odd bit of news. In order to fit the LPGA’s broadcast window with NBC, the tour decided to split the weekend tee boxes, sending half of Sunday’s 60 players off on the first tee box, and half off on the 10th.
Given that Thompson found herself in the bottom half of Sunday’s field, the news meant her professional career would end in a harumph. The ninth green, not the 18th, would welcome her last-ever ovation, and fewer fans would be there to witness it all.
PRETTY SAD
“Pretty sad when you’re at -4 in the season-ending event, which could easily be the last CME of your career and you won’t even finish on #18 because they decide to double tee on the final day due to TV coverage window,” Lexi posted in an IG story on Saturday evening, voicing her displeasure. “Bummed I won’t be able to embrace all the incredible fans on 18 tomorrow as I finish. Hopeful some will be out there on #9. But just know I’m grateful for you all.”
SOP
The post raised eyebrows almost immediately in the LPGA world, but not for the reasons one might have thought. For one thing, the LPGA has long maintained the practice of splitting tees on tournament Saturday and Sundays in the fall — a function partially driven by glacial pace of play, dwindling daylight hours, and broadcast windows that the LPGA would do well to complete its events within. For another, Thompson’s finish on the ninth green at the CME Group Tour Championship would happen only about 30 yards from the 18th green amphitheater, giving fans ample access to move from one site to the other to send Thompson off properly. And for a third thing, Thompson only finished on the ninth because her 54-hole score of 4 under was more than 10 shots off the lead.
In other words, Thompson’s complaints might have been substantiated (split Sunday tees are still unusual on the PGA Tour), and she might have been rightfully emotional about the end of her professional career, but her complaint was leaving out a lot of relevant context.
OTHER ANGER
The CME Group Tour Championship’s Saturday broadcast also came under fire last week from within the LPGA tent, when CME Group CEO Terry Duffy voiced his displeasure with Golf Channel’s decision to broadcast the tournament’s third round on tape delay.
“That’s bulls**t, isn’t it?” he said in a meeting with reporters before the start of the tournament, adding he hoped LPGA commissioner Molly Marcoux Samaan would “make that not be the case.”
Duffy is no stranger to criticizing the LPGA. His company is one of the tour’s biggest benefactors, but that didn’t stop him from calling out a lackluster showing from LPGA stars at last year’s CME Group Tour Championship dinner. This year, the topic was TV rights, an area Duffy hoped — as many golf fans do — that common sense would eventually prevail.
“I would hope that people would recognize that if you’re going to continue to build women’s sports, you have to give them the same billing as men,” he said. “Stop — stop — the nonsense of saying that, well, we have to show a men’s tournament because they’re the men.”
REWIND
A quick refresher: Networks and golf tours set broadcast schedules, or windows, together. It benefits all parties when the most dramatic moments at tournaments are televised, so networks will often work to make sure events are completed within the broadcast window.
Sunday at the CME Group Tour Championship had added broadcast significance to both parties. NBC was airing the action, a national network with viewership often 10x that of the Golf Channel, and the LPGA had an out-time in the early evening, with an all-important Sunday Night Football broadcast set to begin as the NFL’s 4 p.m. games concluded.
These things together contributed to NBC setting a 4 p.m. end time to the CME Tour Championship telecast, which contributed to the LPGA’s decision to split the Saturday and Sunday tee boxes, which contributed to Thompson’s frustration.
WHY
The bigger question facing the LPGA/NBC debate, though, is why? Pace of play and TV exposure have ballooned into growing issues on the LPGA, and Thompson’s frustration underlined the ways the two problems often dovetail.
On one hand, the tee time decision showed the LPGA operating in favor of TV exposure, working to ensure a compelling broadcast filled the airwaves during one of the rare moments of nationwide exposure. On the other, though, it showed the extent pace of play issues affect the week-to-week product of the LPGA, in this instance casting doubt that 20 threesomes of professional golfers could complete their rounds between sunrise and 4 p.m.
DOES IT *REALLY* MATTER
In most instances, no: The LPGA won’t run into many issues operating in the best interests of TV partners. But at the same time, failure to address the underlying issues facing the tour’s telecasts almost certainly undermines the LPGA product. Just last week, Charley Hull outlined her “ruthless” slow-play solution to cheers from some within the women’s game — “If you get three bad timings, it’s a tee shot penalty. If you have three [penalties], you lose your Tour card.”
Is such a dramatic step necessary to rectify the problem of six-hour rounds on the LPGA? Perhaps not. But operating from the current position to appease the playing class has kept purses growing at the cost of discontent among nearly everybody else. A growing women’s game seems to be the goal of broadcasters, sponsors and players alike, but too often those parties have failed to meet even some of the lower thresholds for boosting entertainment value and viewer interest.
It seems it’s past time for somebody to outline a solution.
