My post today is all about how we watch the game these days. Am I the only one who thinks it hasn't really changed at all over the last twenty years? Granted we are getting lots of stats, ball tracer etc but we are still only seeing the players the director of whatever channel we watch it on wants us to see ( Unless Tigers playing )
My point today is why can't Golf go the way soccer did with Player Cam or Fan Zone ! I would only love if I had an option to shadow a player during a round. I mean the minute he arrives on site the camera is on him. I would love to know what he does step for step before he tees off, then watch all his preshot routines and listen to his conversations with his caddy, I'd even love to know what he eats and drinks during his round.
At the beginning of Sky's coverage tonight of they showed a few minutes of players warming up on the range, I know for the average golfer this isn't that interesting to watch but if I had the option to watch this feed via the red button I'd probably watch more of that then the live coverage, especially during the early rounds. Any of the live events I've been to in the past I always find myself standing at the range for hours watching the Pro's grind.
Fan Zone: A couple of weekend golfers commentating, now that would be TV gold. Just calling shots as they see them, no favouritism. Forget Monty regurgitating his near misses, Ewan Murray constantly giving us players Ryder Cup records and well lets just forget Bruce Critchley.
I know we are lucky to get live golf fifty two weeks of the year but listening to the same questions at the Sky Cart "So tell us how you felt out there today?" over and over is just lazy broadcasting, Watching the leaders on a Saturday and Sunday and then we flash to another player , suddenly we all turn to fortune tellers because we know he's going to hole that putt or chip in.
With smart TVs surely we should be able to hit the red button and watch who we want, on what hole we want, whenever we want.
I know this probably wont happen any time soon but at least in the mean time we have the mute button because I'm sure a certain Mr Montgomerie is going through his vocal exercises as we speak in preparation for his spot in the Sky Sports Studio next week.
