Observations of an Event: A Real City, An Unreal Putter and a Real Sad Tiger

Here are just a few observations made during a high energy week of PGA Championship golf in Johns Creek:

• It’s “Johns Creek” – not a “suburb of Atlanta” or “Atlanta” or just some no-name place near Atlanta. 

CBS Sports commentators kept referring to the location of the 93rd PGA Championship as a “suburb of Atlanta” or “Atlanta” or just some place near Atlanta.  Aside from listing Johns Creek in small letters beneath the Atlanta Athletic Club identifier on the screen when the network would start or continue coverage of the championship, the mention of “Johns Creek” was virtually non-existent. It’s just a part of the mentality that exists within the New York-based network media giants.

The very first time I ever covered a story for CBS News, I noticed that the editors at CBS were very insistent that the location be generalized. 

It was the summer of 1979. There had been a grizzly multiple homicide of a local family in the small southeast Texas town of Winnie. Winnie is less than 30 miles west of Beaumont and about 60 miles east of Houston. At the end of my first report, as I read my copy to the network editor before going on the air, I ended with the standard close, “Randy Wyles for CBS News, Winnie, Texas.”

“People in Bangor, Maine, won’t know where Winnie, Texas, is,” I was told, “so let’s just say ‘near Houston.’ ”

“But it isn’t near Houston,” I replied, “it’s just outside of Beaumont.”

“Well, then let’s say ‘Beaumont.’ ”

As if people in Bangor would know where Beaumont is, I thought?

“If it happened in Newark, New Jersey,” I replied, “would you say ‘New York' ? ”

“Well, no, that’s different,” came the answer. “People here know that Newark is not New York.”

“And people here know that Winnie is not Beaumont, nor is it near Houston,” I said.

“Fine,” the frustrated editor said, “maybe someone can get a map if they’re that interested.”

“Now there’s a concept,” I quipped. “Someone might actually learn something that they didn’t know before as a result of news coverage.”

I was young, innocent and a local CBS affiliate freelancer – and surprised that the network ever used me again.  But they did – a lot, strangely enough.

The point is, Johns Creek is the 10th largest city in Georgia.  The Atlanta Athletic Club is located in Johns Creek, and the city and the PGA both went to great lengths to make certain that Johns Creek was credited with hosting the championship. Why the mentality of ”if it’s outside of New York City, it doesn’t really matter” still exists is beyond me.

• Belly putters don’t seem to be “all that and a bag o’ chips, too.”

I know some of the best in golf like this strange, oversized putter, but by my count, it appears to have provided the golfers who use it with less success than the traditional putter. And it looks funny – like an adult learning to ride a bicycle with training wheels. 

I’m just saying – it seems like the belly putter doesn’t live up to the hype. But I guess if you need training wheels and a bell on your bike then that’s what you need.

• Tiger ain’t king anymore.

I know that, for whatever variety of reasons, a lot of the biggest names fell this week when they tried to master Rees Jones’ redesigned course at the Atlanta Athletic Club. Phil Mickelson even came right out and said he was no fan of Rees Jones, claiming the redesign by the son of golfing legend Bobby Jones Jr. might be good for the PGA Championship, “but not the membership.”

But, redesign or not, Tiger Woods’ performance was the worst I’ve seen since the movie The Legend of Bagger Vance when, after Rannulph Junuh had managed to send his ball everywhere but down the  fairway for several holes – in front of two golfing legends and the entire city of Savannah – he told Bagger, “This is getting embarrassing.”

“Oh, no sir,” Bagger replied, “this has been embarrassing for quite some time.”

Despite whatever you think of Tiger and his recent problems, it was just embarrassing to watch Tiger play so poorly. I was embarrassed for him.

I don’t know what Tiger’s problem has been. Everyone thinks they know, but the truth is, no one really knows – least of all Tiger.  In the meantime, Tiger seems to have just morphed into a mere shell of his former self – and that’s just sad.

• Finally, the traffic. 

You know, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The planners, law enforcement and the city of Johns Creek did a good job of keeping the traffic moving safely and efficiently – well, as efficiently as one would expect in a town besieged by half again as many people as are normally here in a given week.

So, why is traffic such a problem when those people aren’t here?