ORLANDO, Fla. - Everybody in town knew it was going to be stormy and windy and lightning and thundering Sunday afternoon.
It was everywhere. It was in the newspaper. It was on the 11 o’clock news.
In situations like this, even youth sports organizers have the good sense to make arrangements in order to work around the weather. They know that the most important thing is to play ball and get the game in.
Then again, TV networks don’t pay billions of dollars to televise kid’s soccer games, which is why the PGA Tour made the monumentally boneheaded decision to ignore the weather forecast and start the Arnold Palmer Invitational at its regularly scheduled time Sunday afternoon. It seems getting the game in wasn’t nearly as important as getting it on TV.
The show must go on - even if the live telecast pushed tournament leader Tiger Woods’ 1:40 p.m. tee time into the teeth of a powerful storm that downed trees, snapped power lines and spawned a microburst of hurricane-like winds.
PGA Tour spokesman Mark Russell said the Tour just got “unlucky” with the weather, but I say the Tour got lucky nobody was seriously hurt. Winds on the course howled at more than 60 miles per hour, downing trees limbs, collapsing tents and toppling TV cameras. The media tent, housing hundreds of broadcasters and writers, had a hole blown in it and had to be instantly evacuated, as did fan hospitality tents throughout the course.
“We just got unlucky with the weather,” said Russell, after announcing that the final round of The Arnie had been delayed until this morning. “That is the way it goes. ... If you were in another area, it might not have been this bad.”
How is it unlucky if you know a storm is coming and yet still decide to roll the dice? That’s not unlucky; that’s irresponsible. Then why wouldn’t the PGA Tour err on the side of caution and do what it has done before when inclement weather is predicted? Tournament organizers sometimes have golfers tee off early to beat the weather and then show the telecast on tape-delay later in the day. Then again, with a marquee final pairing of Tiger and Rickie Fowler, it’s clear the Tour was going to do everything in its power to maximize NBC’s TV ratings.
“Absolutely, our television partners were totally involved in the conversation,” Russell admitted. “We laid out the scenarios and decided we were going to take a chance… . If we played early, it was going to be a tape-delay situation. People were going to know who won before it came on television, so it defeats our television partners.”
Instead, they defeated the fans who bought tickets to the tournament; fans who were left out in the driving rain just so TV networks could have their show. Then again, golf is no different than college football, the NFL, NASCAR and all other big-time sports who cater more to the TV fans than they do the fans who actually attend their events.
Sports, Pages 16 on 03/25/2013