Mecedes Benz Championship

I've been watching the Golf Channel's coverage for the last couple of days. My very first observation was: Rich Lerner sounded like he should be calling the action at a dog show on Animal Planet. Does anyone else get the impression that the coverage is more detached from the players than on the other networks? I don't know if they don't have their cameras close enough to them, or if they don't have the sound on or what, but I feel like I'm watching some European Tour event. Friday's coverage was a little better than Thursday's in this respect. Let's talk for a second about the Pat Green song. I have never really been a fan of his and last year, the Nationwide Tour coverage played his music so much that I got pretty tired of it. I don't know what will happen if I have to listen to Green every week for 30 weeks or more. I'm enjoying Rocco Mediate's efforts. He's very entertaining. I like that there's no barrier for him between the tv people and the players. All the commercials about the 'team' the Golf Channel assembled - Faldo, Kelly, Lerner and Nobilo - I was very disappointed to not hear Nobilo covering the event. He's doing the Post Game Show. Why is he part of the commerical and part of the 'team' when he's not in Hawaii with the rest of them? And a comment on AimPoint, the high tech purple dotted visual aid for showing the line of putts - I like it but I don't think I want to see it on every putt. So, far they are doing a pretty good job of deciding when to use it.

As for the event itself: I don't want anyone to say that an event needs a Tiger Woods or a Phil Mickelson. This week we have Vijay, Trevor, Will, J.B., and a bunch of other exciting players to watch. Anyone who likes golf would love this tournament this week. The one down side is that Arron Oberholser had to withdraw. Maybe he will stick around in Hawaii for a while though and enjoy the view. I would if I was there.

I saw something on another blog about how the Golf Channel doesn't reach as many tv viewers as ESPN or ABC. Well, for my satellite dish provider, I have to pay $58.00 a month to get the Golf Channel as opposed to about $22.00 a month for the package that includes ESPN (the local channels I get free with an antenna). It isn't so much a matter of no one's watching the network, it's that it's too expensive to get for a lot of people. Hopefully, this year, the Golf Channel will do away with a lot of the infomercials now that they will have more golf coverage to air and people will tune in to see something other than testimonials for the Q-Link. It isn't like there isn't a golf tournament going on somewhere in the world every week they could be covering.