No. 25: I Know It When I See It
Dear Pards,
My 11-year-old son has loved golf since he could hold a cut-down 7-iron. Always begs to go to the range and plays every chance he gets. But I’ve never really let him sit down and watch a professional broadcast start to finish, nor has he ever shown much interest. Until now.
We're pretty intentional in our house about screentime and what the kids are exposed to. Filters on the iPad, that kind of thing. But with me watching the Open at 6am all week, I figured this might be the time to introduce him to real tradition, real stakes, and what the game can be at the highest level.
By my second cup of coffee, I started to feel like the parent who takes his kid to see The Wolf of Wall Street before reading the IMDb parental guide. After another Cam Young leaderboard duplicate, I turned to my wife and said, "I don't think this is appropriate for an 11-year-old." Not because of a lack of clothing. But rather because I couldn't in good conscience let him think that this is what loving pro golf is supposed to look like.
How does this change? Is my kid old enough to watch golf on NBC? Or should I keep him on the course a few more years and guard his heart from seeing another Cialis ad on Playing Through?
-Vigilant Dad in Durham
Dear Vigilant Dad,
In the 1964 Supreme Court case over whether the French film, The Lovers, counted as obscene, Justice Potter Stewart said this when asked to define “hard-core pornography”:
“I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.”
-Justice Potter Stewart
Before I say my piece, I will acknowledge that critiquing how we consume professional golf on our 75” LED framed televisions while sipping single-origin coffee on an Italian leather sectional is very much a first-world issue. To quote the number one player in the world out of context, “I don’t really have a ton to say on it. Actually, I do have a ton to say.” So since I’m not in the midst of trying to win a major championship, I’m going to say a ton.
I was in Sweden last month during the US Open at Shinnecock. Instead of messing with a VPN or risking a virus from Kisner's commentary a sketchy pirated stream, I consumed the entire tournament in Swedish, courtesy of Viaplay, a local broadcaster carrying the world feed.
Other than asking my wife to translate an interview with Åberg and his coach Hans Larsson (anything for Ludvig, she says), I didn’t need a word of English. I reveled in the simplicity of mic’d-up player/caddie convos and immersive crowd reactions. In fact, the brevity from the broadcasters made me wonder if we are overcomplicating this whole golf-on-TV thing.
I thought about that Sounds of the Masters pod that No Laying Up put out last spring, telling the story of the 2025 tournament with audio from the event. For someone who’s never been to The Masters, I can tell you the closest I’ve felt to Amen Corner was spreading mulch on a muggy April Saturday, listening to Neil Schuster and fellow patrons through an AirPod react to Rory’s roller coaster around the second nine on Sunday.
A week after it happened!
The Open Radio was cream for the cup of coffee I didn’t know I needed this past week. Aspirational one-liners from Marcus Buckland and company. But another bogey from NBC reminded me that all I want from televised golf is to see the shots and, even more importantly, to feel as close as I can to the event. Which, as it turns out, is not an ad for erectile dysfunction while the High King of Content stomps walks to the first tee on Saturday the morning after the most bizarre rules incident in recent history.
Unfortunately, I, as well as the rest of the golf sickos, sound like habitual sinners swearing off NBC every time we’re caught watching another Charles Schwab ad on Playing Through. Thankfully, the Sky Sports feed served as a healthy option in lieu of Tommy Roy’s ad-filled debacle this past week at Birkdale.
I will admit to being on the obsessive side of the golf consumption spectrum. I know Tommy Fleetwood is from England and has never won a major. I know Rory hates Bryson. I know the Coody twins' grandpa won The Masters. I even know Alex Smalley’s mom feeds him non-GMO blueberries before he tees off. But you know what I don’t know? How on earth Sam Burns shot a 62 during the second round of a major championship.
My 16-month-old loves books, and unlike most parents, I love reading to her. Her top pick right now is anything from the interactive "Peekaboo" series. Part of the magic is pulling the flaps on my lap while hearing the same silly voice tell the story. And no, it’s not just me. She'll hop into the arms of anyone holding a book faster than Ryan Fox can hit a ten-footer to win the Open Championship. But put her in a circle of four people alternating the reading of each page, and she's gone in thirty seconds. No cadence. No buildup. No familiarity. Or, as D.J. Piehowski put it after the U.S. Open, no intimacy.
While Kisner is often an easy target (see above) due to his unfiltered takes and known history to chirp back at the critics, I actually think he can give great insight when he’s set up to do so. He is not the problem. Neither is Faxon. Or Furyk. Or Gannon. Or Hicks. And definitely not Tirico. I just don’t need a different narrator for the odd and even chapters of the book. Just give me one or two laps to crawl into while I skip church and sip coffee on Sunday morning in mid-July.
Do I miss Johnny Miller?
I won’t try to pretend all the hoops and hurdles required to put on a successful broadcast. It is far easier to mash buttons on a keyboard than it is to talk on live TV, or anywhere for that matter. I don’t have all the answers. I can’t point the finger at one person or one thing. Like life, everything about this game is so nuanced. Maybe all we need is an ESPN2, Manning brother-esque feed with Kyle Porter and Soly going live on Twitter for the last two hours of the broadcast. Who knows.
What I do know is that when I take off my green-filtered glasses and try to define a good broadcast, my answer might be similar to how Justice Potter defines pornography. Or how Mark Darbon defines a violation of Rule 8.1a:
I know it when I see it.
P╞r╠℮P.S. All month, the stamp at the top of the newsletter will be St. Andrews, by Dave Baysden, in honor of No. 04 | Dear St. Andrews, that dropped in the mail last week for members of the Postage Club.
