Was just driving to take care of some chores and the topic of conversation on Mark Madden's radio sports show (Madden was off, it was guest hosted today by Tim Benz) was the "all Tiger all the time" coverage of The Masters by CBS, which was being criticized by Benz and also by callers. Just as I figured, there's a lot of us out there disgusted by how the media has turned the washed-up 46 year old who's won but one major in 14 years, into an idol in the most blasphemous sense of the word. A recent column by Phil Mushnick of The New York Post was mentioned, which I looked up and it's right on point. Here's the relevant part about The Masters and CBS (he leaves out Rich Lerner and the Golf Channel, who are magnitudes worse than CBS when it comes to Tiger worship):
MLB, Masters coverage hit embarrassing new lows with on-air commentary
Then there was the CBS/ESPN coverage of the Masters — the most insulting, dishonest and maudlin presentation ever applied to a televised golf major. If you didn’t know better — and everyone attached to those telecasts did, but chose to treat us like drooling fools — you’d have thought
Tiger Woods was a returning war hero, severely wounded in action.
Thus we were involuntary participants in a religious retreat, a four-day worship service. “What a friend we have in Ti-ger!”
You wouldn’t know that “Tiger’s miraculous comeback” (Dottie Pepper several times) and “extraordinary courage” (everyone, all the time) was fully caused by his own rank negligence.
Or was it insignificant that this profile in courage was the result of Woods’ inability to stay awake while driving a car, once leading to his arrest for being wasted on opioids, the second time to police ignoring the first time by not investigating why he flipped his car at nearly twice the speed limit and was discovered unconscious?
Had a guy named Joe returned to his job as a welder or window washer after such episodes — forget that Woods had often previously been treated by a doctor flown in from Canada, one who’d be convicted of dispensing illegal and mislabeled drugs, though Woods denies any use — the CBS/ESPN crews would have admired Joe’s courage or shaken their heads in disgust?
Yet even as Scottie Scheffler putted out on 18 to win the Masters, Jim Nantz continued to chant his adulation of Woods, who’d finished 23 shots back (but was the leader among those tied for 47th place). The theme of the first two rounds — “Tiger can win this!” — had become, “He’s the bravest man on Earth!”
It kills me to write this, because I know Nantz to be a good man, but he has sacrificed his credibility at the Altar of Tiger Woods. And if he doesn’t know it, genuine golf fans, as opposed to “Tiger!” yahoos, do. And have for years.
There was no break from the obsequious, the cloying and gushing that caused the intelligent to cringe.
What should have been poured on our pancakes was used to clog our senses. [great line! -- DW]
As S.J. Im putted to go 5-under Saturday, CBS’ Trevor Immelman could’ve allowed the scene to speak for itself. Instead, he told how Im was born “the year after Tiger won the Masters in 1997,” adding that Im “considers Tiger to be a god.” Not sure if he meant upper or lower case.
Good grief!
From Day 1, that this was a major was irrelevant. Countless noteworthy shots, many by the leaders, were relegated to dishonest “plausibly live” tape as CBS showed Woods, even after well out of it, walking a fairway, headed for the next hole, even waiting to hit while seated on a bench beside a tee box.
“Look! He’s smiling! You think he’s happy?”
“I hope so. He must be, he’s smiling.”
I wanted to see all of his shots, too, but wasn’t that the Masters being played in the background?
What a weekend. Two collectors’ items. Best left out for the garbage collectors.
https://nypost.com/2022/04/14/mlb-masters-coverage-hit-embarrassing-new-lows/
