It was on my local affiliate so I tuned in for about 90 minutes with a few takeaways below:
- The biggest and (perhaps only) positive is it did show more actual golf shots than CBS and NBC. But perhaps this is because they have basically nothing to show in terms of advertisers for commercials, so there weren't many.
- Hearing that much music on the course was a big turnoff to me, and it was mostly house/party music, which would be even worse in this setting.
- While I don't mind Feherty, the amount of inane and non-golf related chat between him and the others was a bit mind-numbing.
- They had a segment on the stuffy traditions of the game, which was a good message IMO, but the pontificating nature of how it was presented was almost amusing.
- Seeing Greg Norman riding his bike around the course... in Spandex....ummm that's a hard no.
- The leaderboard thing that took up most of the left side of the screen was beyond distracting, much less making sense of everything on it.
Overall, it certainly didn't have anywhere near the feel of a legit competition. The golf almost seemed secondary and felt more like a Corporate junket/getaway celebration at no doubt a gorgeous location. Seems pretty clear they are targeting a young demographic, and who knows, it might stick.
I couldn't agree more with your takes above. The pylon leaderboard on the left of the screeen doesn't bother and part of me likes the colorful graphics. Problem is the golf is next to impossible to follow, as the action moves so fast you have no idea what hole anyone is on at any given moment.
To your last comment, this week's event feels more like an exhibition than a serious competition and lacks the itensity and drama of the past two PGA Tour events. While I love the format, for this to work long-term they're going to need to open it up to more players/teams, go to 72 hole tourneys and have some type of 36 hole cut or team relegation. They're needs to be consequences for consistenly shitty play, as there are too many "past their prime" grifters in LIV for anyone to take it seriously.
I texted my brother, a former PGA pro, that Rory, Rahm, Homa, Sheffler and Cantlay would be running circles around these guys were they at this weeks event. I added that when Peter Uihlein is the best player in the field you know you got problems. No offense to him, but the dude hasn't won anything of substance his entire professional golf career.
Unless something demonstrably changes in the short-term, I see the LIV guys having their lunch handed to them in the majors this year. You can tell these guys have lost a lot of their competitive fire and sharpness since joining. Even Cam Smith doesn't look the same as he did a year ago. For the league to be successful and taken seriously it's critically important that their players perform well in the majors. If they can't place at least 3 or 4 guys in the Top 10 of every major and or have a player win one, they'll never be viewed as legitimate.