Shag Bag: Tiger 4-putts, Palmer 5-chips, golfer chased by a goose
The Shag Bag
The Shag Bag is a weekly compilation of amusing stories and anecdotes from the wacky world of golf.
What the Hell, CBS!?
At Fairways, we love razzing the CBS golf broadcasting team for its puzzling personnel decisions and milquetoast analysis and play-by-play, but we rarely get to take shots at the crew for its camera work and shot coverage because it’s generally exceptional and robust. On Sunday, however, it was not, and we were not the only ones who noticed! For whatever reason, the CBS team failed to show co-leader Harold Varner III topping his drive on Riviera’s iconic 10th hole, a critical moment of the tournament that led to Varner taking a double bogey and falling out of a tie for first place. CBS missed the swing altogether and when it returned to Varner, he was inexplicably 129 yards down the 10th fairway, well back of the lay-up area. Everyone was confused—even analyst Frank Nobilo—but rather than showing the replay of the shot, which CBS had and eventually aired in a recap video some 90 minutes later during its coverage, Trevor Immelman merely mentioned in passing that Varner had topped his tee shot and the coverage just moved on.
Here’s the shot, in all its awful splendour:
Still can’t tell – did Varner chunk it? Top it? I think maybe both? A good ol’ drop-kick pic.twitter.com/8hC9CTdgdI
— Dylan Dethier (@dylan_dethier) February 17, 2020
HV3 😳 pic.twitter.com/tiM16u0Obv
— Jason Sobel (@JasonSobelTAN) February 16, 2020
Nantz: "Let's go t othe 10th."
Nobilo: "Correct me if I'm wrong, that is a layup for Varner."
Immelman: "It was actually a 3-wood that he topped."
Hmmm if only we could unearth video of this somehow.
— Brendan Porath (@BrendanPorath) February 16, 2020
The Bad News Tigers
Tiger’s career struggles at Riviera continued this past weekend with his score of +11 for the week, but he did come away from the venue with a victory—of sorts. Three days before the Genesis Invitational, Tiger captained his team to a win in the annual Celebrity Cup, beating Bubba Watson’s squad by a score of 12-9. Neither pro played in the event. They merely offered encouragement and advice to their celebrity squads, and both must have had their hands full in those endeavours, judging by what we saw in this video of Team Tiger warming up before the event. Here’s Tiger looking on and making jokes as Oliver Hudson shanks a range ball into the safety net, Alex Rodriguez gets tangled up in his own lanyard while swinging, and Chris Pratt gets a swing lesson from his caddie!
See @TigerWoods roasting celebrity swings.
Yes please… pic.twitter.com/0pf8OZe7O2
— GOLFTV (@GOLFTV) February 11, 2020
Not that Team Watson looked any more impressive, mind you. We don’t have any footage of their warm-ups but even Bubba couldn’t hold back from cracking jokes about his team’s chances before the event, saying “My team looked really good on the range . . . no they didn’t. They looked so bad. I can’t even lie. They looked so bad on the range but they can’t hear me right now.” 😀 Watch video.
Marooned
Ryan Palmer experienced at Riviera on Saturday what most amateur golfers would probably classify as their worst nightmare. After finding the left bunker on the 193-yard 14th hole, Palmer misplayed a series of bunker shots, each arguably worse than the one that preceded it, leaving the gallery on hand groaning in disbelief at the carnage. I’m not sure if it was a lapse in judgement or concentration that resulted in Palmer taking a 9 on the par 3, given how much green he had to work with and the fact that 67% of the field had already gotten up and down from that spot, but the 43-year-old needed five attempts to get his ball out of the trap and then three soul-crushing putts to get off the hole. For those faint of heart, you might want to avert your eyes. This footage is straight-up ugly!
This poor guy… took 5 just to get out of the trap. #badbreak #twoinchesbehindtheball #GenesisInvitational #RyanPalmer #PGATour pic.twitter.com/wy3XT624Nt
— Denise Cubbins (@__DNice) February 15, 2020
Back to the Practice Green
Ryan Palmer wasn’t the only golfer looking foolish out there on Saturday. Tiger had an embarrassing moment of his own when he inexplicably four-putted for a double bogey on the 13th green from just inside of 18 feet, essentially ending his chances at any type of heroic comeback.
The second 4-putt in two weeks for Tiger.
The last time he had multiple 4-putts in a season was 1998. pic.twitter.com/W4kEXpdWHG
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) February 15, 2020
For those keeping track at home, it was Tiger’s 14th career four-putt and his second of the season already—a statistic he has managed to avoid every year since 1998, his sophomore season on tour! It was his fourth four-putt since 2018, however, and the second time that he has needed four putts to get off that very hole, having also four-putted Riviera’s 13th hole in 2000.
Bad Bounce of the Week
Everything about this video is spectacular from the impossible redirection off the tree and collision with the cart to the cameraman’s laughter, which one commenter below the video perfectly describes as being eerily similar to the mini-putt clown from Happy Gilmore!
Golf Course Animal of the Week
The golf courses belong to the geese. They just let us play there, sometimes:
Picture of the Week
All of Phil’s Phans couldn’t help him find this wayward drive.
“That’s the largest search party I’ve ever seen,” @bkatrek says on the PGA Tour Live call.
Phil’s drive right of right on 3 @thegenesisinv. pic.twitter.com/LJgbYvfsHD
— Garrett Johnston (@JohnstonGarrett) February 13, 2020
Epic effort to find @PhilMickelson’s tee shot on 3 @thegenesisinv ultimately unsuccessful pic.twitter.com/Im4uvsv17b
— Geoff Shackelford (@GeoffShac) February 13, 2020
Hello Peter
I cringe when CBS doesn’t deliver the absolute best TV golf experience.
I was a spotter for ESPN when Tiger hit six iron out of the fairway bunker at the Abbey.
When the Canadian Open moved from September to June I continued my spotting duties with CBS.
It’s a pretty good gig and have met some pretty good people along the way.
As I’m sure you can imagine, there are a lot of moving parts in putting together a “live” production.
I don’t know what happened in that CBS missed Varner’s worm burner but I truly hope that it wasn’t because a spotter went for a pee.
Imagine that you’re sitting in your living room in your leather tilter watching golf when you realize that your glass is empty. You get up and go to the fridge to grab another beer. When you get back in front of the TV you watch Varner hit his 3rd shot. No biggy…….ya got a cold one.
Love, Franzee
I sense there’s an interesting column or a series of stories from your days as a spotter Dave. But you’re absolutely right about missing some action. Doesn’t matter, as long as ya got a cold one.
On a related topic concerning the exit of Peter Kostis and Gary McCord at CBS.
I’m curious to know how everyone feels about the commentary of Jack Armstrong and Matt Devlin during a Raptors telecast.
When I watch the Raptors I mute the sound and put The Glorious Sons on level 8.