Viewers No Longer Primed for Tiger?

All right, the golf was better than last year, but the facts are that the national Nielsen ratings for the “Battle at Bighorn,” Monday night’s made-for-TV golf show starring Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Sergio Garcia and Lee Trevino on ABC, dropped from 6.1 to 5.1 (and both ABC and IMG were mystified), so what does that mean?

It’s possible that we’ve got a case of overexposure right here.

It’s possible that regardless of the format--Tiger vs. somebody, Tiger and an LPGA player vs. somebody else and another LPGA player, or even Monday night’s matchup of two teams of superstar-with-superstar geezer--enough is enough already.

Can you remember anyone saying we don’t have enough golf on television? That we don’t see enough of Tiger on TV?

If you have been paying close attention, he’s pretty much all that we do see.

Tiger playing golf. Previews of Tiger playing golf. Taped highlights of Tiger playing golf. Tiger selling cars. Tiger selling golf clubs and balls.

And players wearing microphones while they play isn’t new anymore, if that’s what passes for cutting-edge golf programming these days. The point is, the golf has to be something unusual, something compelling, something you can’t get anywhere else if it is going to score a ratings hit in prime time with many viewers who are casual golf fans at best.

Even for the more ardent golf fans, there might be a saturation point when the novelty of the event wears off, regardless of the quality of play, which was high enough Monday.

But that may be the reason for a 33% decline in the ratings, from a 7.6 in 2000, to a 6.1 in 2001 to the 5.1 national rating from Monday’s telecast.

Here’s an idea: A Senior PGA Tour player against an LPGA player, golf’s version of Bobby Riggs vs. Billie Jean King.

But that wouldn’t include Tiger, and Tiger is the deal right now, in this game. Another 33% drop, and this show should be over.

Suggestion Box

It’s true, next year’s event will move from Bighorn Country Club in Palm Desert, thus ending the “Battle at Bighorn” series, and relocate to the Bridges at Rancho Santa Fe, where it will be renamed the “Battle at the Bridges.”

As long as this thing is staged at golf courses that start with the letter “B,” they’re going to be all right in the “battle” alliteration game, but you have to wonder what titles they didn’t choose.... “Rumble at Rancho”? Don King probably has the rights to that one. Or “Every Which Way at Rancho Santa Fe.”

They have time to think about it.

Tiger Update

Why it’s good to have your own jet: Woods is going to be a very busy player toward the end of the year.

In a span of 18 days, Tiger will play four events--in Japan, Hawaii, Indio and Thousand Oaks.

He has the Dunlop Phoenix tournament in Miyazaki, Japan, Nov. 21-24; the PGA Grand Slam of Golf, Nov. 26-27, in Koloa, Kauai; the Skins Game, Nov. 30-Dec. 1, at Landmark Golf Club; and his own tournament, the Target World Challenge, Dec. 5-8, at Sherwood Country Club.

Smackdown

News item: CBS, which is broadcasting the Tour de France, asks on its Web site whether Tiger or Lance Armstrong has had the most impressive accomplishments and Armstrong wins by more than a 3-1 margin.

Reaction: Really? Next time, on the WWE Web site, during pro wrestling telecasts, let’s put Lance up against the Rock and see who comes out on top.

Closing Numbers

Annika Sorenstam has won seven times this year and 38 times in her LPGA career, but she couldn’t close the deal last week at the Sybase Big Apple Classic in New Rochelle, N.Y. The record shows that Sorenstam is still a decent closer: she’s 23 for 39 when leading after three rounds.

Time Out

The last word on the British Open was that it was, well, timely. The average round time for the 52 threesomes for Thursday was four hours 30 minutes and 4:34 on Friday. The 42 groups of twosomes for Saturday’s round, which was affected by bad weather, was 3:52, about 12 minutes over the optimum time established. On Sunday, the average round time was 3:28.

Vision Quest

J. P. Hayes says he had a vision before last week’s John Deere Classic at Silvis, Ill. He told his caddie, Steve Kay, that he would have a putt to win.

“You mean the pro-am?” Kay asked.

“No, the tournament,” said Hayes, who was wrong. He won by four shots, his second PGA Tour victory in his eight-year career.

Hayes had only one bogey in four rounds. The last player to win a 72-hole event without a bogey was Trevino at the 1974 Greater New Orleans Open.

Equipment News

News item: Hale Irwin shoots a closing 66 at the FleetBoston Classic, playing the putter he used when he won the 1990 U.S. Open at Medinah.

Reaction: The rest of his clubs are in a museum.

Monty Update

News item: Colin Montgomerie, who angrily says at Muirfield that he won’t play for a while because of media criticism, enters this week’s Volvo Scandinavian Masters.

Reaction: He must have remembered that he’s the defending champion and it’s worth $300,000 if he wins it again.

Conjunction Malfunction

It had to happen--a story that upset virtually everyone mentioned in it. That would be Golf Digest’s recent story on Mark Calcavecchia, who candidly dissects the mostly frosty relationship between Woods and Phil Mickelson.

Nobody is arguing that Calcavecchia didn’t say what he did (“ ... half of what Phil says is complete BS” and “they put up with each other”), but as it usually happens, it looks harsher in black and white, which is why Woods and Mickelson are not happy with each other and not happy with Calcavecchia, who is not happy with writer Jaime Diaz. That’s journalism for you.

Ryder Cup Update

It’s not too early to start thinking about the Ryder Cup, which is less than eight weeks away, after being postponed for a year because of security concerns from last September.

The list of players includes nine major championship winners--eight on the U.S. team and only one, Bernhard Langer, on Europe’s team. But the real story is how the players’ performances have fluctuated since Sept. 2, 2001, when the European team’s qualification process ended.

Here is a list of the players, with their current World Ranking and then their ranking from Sept. 2 in parentheses.

Europe: Garcia, 5 (7); Padraig Harrington, 8 (13); Darren Clarke, 14 (8); Montgomerie, 15 (10); Langer, 30 (21); Niclas Fasth, 32 (31); Thomas Bjorn, 36 (20); Jesper Parnevik, 44 (22); Paul McGinley, 57 (40); Phillip Price, 85 (56); Pierre Fulke, 92 (44); Lee Westwood, 107 (16).

U.S: Woods, 1 (1); Mickelson, 2 (2); David Toms, 6 (9); Davis Love III, 7 (6); David Duval, 9 (3); Jim Furyk, 12 (11); Scott Verplank, 20 (26); Scott Hoch, 25 (12); Paul Azinger, 41 (15); Calcavecchia 43 (18); Stewart Cink, 48 (24); Hal Sutton, 99 (19).

Birdies, Bogeys, Pars

Michelle Wie, 12, of Honolulu, qualified for her third LPGA event, this week’s Wendy’s Championship in Ohio.

A tournament to benefit Barlow Respiratory Hospital will be played Friday at Robinson Ranch in Santa Clarita. Long-driving specialist Mike Moulton will conduct a demonstration. Details: (213) 202-6816.

Andy Carey, Don Ford, Willie Buchanon, Mitch Gaylord, Willie Gault, Randy Jones, Mike Lansford, Dr. Sammy Lee, Pat McCormick and Rogie Vachon are some of the celebrities expected to play in the Ford/San Clemente Sunrise Rotary Club tournament Aug. 26 at Talega Golf Club in San Clemente. The event benefits Laura’s House, a shelter for victims of domestic violence. Details: (760) 632-7770.

Walter’s Auto Sales of Riverside donated $4,450 to the American Heart Assn. from the registration fees for an amateur tournament, as part of the Mercedes Dealer Championships series.