Rory McIlroy lets another victory slip away

How do you produce live golf in the age of COVID-19? It’s complicated. Sean McManus, Chairman of CBS Sports, said the network will use roughly half its normal on-site personnel, including Jim Nantz with a robotic camera instead of Nick Faldo, who will be in Orlando with Frank Nobillo. Staff in New York and Los Angeles will also be contributing. “It’s one of the great challenges that I’ve ever seen in my 35 years,� Nantz said. “This is the most complicated production plan I’ve ever been involved in,� McManus added. Golf was already the hardest sport to produce. Now it’s exponentially harder, but the network is embarking on an 11-week run of coverage in which they’re figuring it out on the fly. This week’s show has been more than two months in the making, McManus said. Among the never-before-attempted features will be a mid-round confession cam, in a tent, featuring a robotic camera and a single question on a cue card for players to (hopefully) answer as they play through. Necessity is the mother of invention, McManus said, and with no fans and no roars, it was time to explore new audio sources. The broadcast will acknowledge current events – the pandemic, the ongoing protests for racial justice – but provide much-needed counterprogramming. “I think our nation maybe needs a bit of a distraction,� McManus said. Nantz called this week “an opportunity for the TOUR to create a wider fan base than it’s ever had before.� FedExCup No. 2 Justin Thomas echoed that sentiment. Ryan Palmer, a member at Colonial Country Club, said, “We need live golf. America needs it. We need live sports. I think this week is going to be a very special, huge week for the sporting world.� We need it because we have had almost nothing but sports rebroadcasts and “The Great British Baking Show� and far too much terrible news to watch for nearly three months. The Schwab will pull in golf fans, yes, but also sports fans and anyone just looking for something different. “I think we’ve all exhausted every one of our favorite shows,� said Brandel Chamblee, the Golf Channel analyst, who will also ramp back up this week. “By now, we’ve done everything there is to do around the house. I think everybody’s honey-do lists are checked off and completed. “Sporting events bring us together in a way nothing else does,� he added. “It gives us something somewhat trivial to talk about, but entertaining nonetheless, and allows all of us to have loyalty. It’s not life or death. It’s raw entertainment, but in it, you know, there’s inspiration. So it just galvanizes us. … I expect the ratings to be colossally high.� Indeed, it’s almost hard to overstate the importance of this Return to Golf. We’ve missed the percussive thwap and eye-popping parabola of a Rory McIlroy drive. We’ve missed the terrible tension of a jam-packed leaderboard on a late Sunday afternoon. Heck, we’ve even missed the “mashed potatoes� guy. (OK, maybe not so much him.) Scientifically, what we’ve been missing is mirror neurons, which are what happen when we watch golf, listen to a concert, or even read a novel. To the extent that we’re familiar with an activity, some percentage of our premotor cortex kicks in even as we observe it. Simply put, as Rory sizes up a putt to win on a steamy day in Texas, our palms, too, are sweating. Sports bring us together? Oh, yeah, they do – on an empathic level. “There’s the empathy of almost being in the mind of the athlete,� said UCLA neuroscientist Marco Iacoboni, an expert on mirror neurons, “and then there’s sharing that empathy with other people watching that athlete – we’ve been missing that big-time. It will be nice to get that back.� We’ve also been missing the element of surprise; fans like watching talent, yes, but also want to be surprised by luck – a crazy bounce, for example, to give the underdogs and/or less skilled a chance. Iacoboni calls it the you-never-know-what-is-going-to-happen factor. Meanwhile, real life goes on, and continues to surprise us all. “I’m 61 years old,� Nantz said, when asked about current events, “and I consider this to be perhaps the most important time in history in my lifetime. We just have to get this opportunity right. We can’t let this moment pass without real and meaningful progress when it comes to equality, diversity, justice, love and empathy, and I hope to express that at the top. “… I think the golf TOUR being back in action,� he added, “it comes at a very important time in our nation’s history. It’s a chance to get people to actually watch something together, root together, unify together, and I hope that that can be achieved.�

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PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — Carson Daly, the defending amateur champ and the host of “The Voice” on NBC, is playing with a heavy heart at this week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Daly’s stepdad, Dick Caruso, passed away last October — just five weeks after Daly’s mother, Pattie Daly Caruso, died. It was Dick Caruso, the longtime member at Riviera Country Club, who helped generate Carson’s interest in golf as a youngster. When Carson made his first appearance at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in 2002, he was joined by his mother and stepdad who stayed with him at the Lodge at Pebble Beach. With each subsequent appearance, more of Carson’s family members, including his brother and sister, made the trip to Pebble Beach to cheer on Carson. “It’s become a family event,” he said. Last year, Daly — also a member of NBC’s “Today” show — and his PGA TOUR pro partner Ken Duke won the team portion of the event, giving the family a reason to celebrate that Sunday night. This year, there are 30 family members in attendance, spread out over three rented houses in the area. Carson is leaning on his family this week as he plays for the first time without his parents. But he’s carrying Dick Caruso’s memory with him inside the ropes. Daly has made pins with his stepdad’s photo, and wears one on his cap. He also has his stepdad’s image on his golf balls, with the hashtag #PlayingForPops. “We bonded through golf and on the golf course,” Carson said. “It’s hard this year without him.” It definitely was a struggle on Thursday for the defending team champs. Duke and Daly combined to shoot 76 at Spyglass Hill, leaving the duo in last place — by four strokes — in the 156-team field. Duke shot a 7-over 79 on his own ball but Daly, a 9-handicapper, admitted his own performance was poor. “I’m sort of glad he wasn’t here to see it,” said Daly, who’ll try to make up ground in Friday’s second round at Monterey Peninsula. Daly did feel his stepdad’s presence at Spyglass, but there was definitely a difference from the previous 15 starts he’s made when Pops was in the gallery. “Sometimes I’d see him in the corner and he’d give me a fist pump,” Daly said. “I missed that today for sure.”  

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POTOMAC, Md. — Tiger Woods used a new putter and got the same middling results Thursday in the Quicken Loans National. Woods battled back from a double bogey with five straight birdie chances from 8 feet or closer. He made only two of them and had to settle for an even-par 70, leaving him seven shots out of the lead in the opening round on the TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm. Andrew Landry set the pace on a difficult, but rain-softened course with a 7-under 63. J.J. Spaun matched him in the afternoon, playing in the group behind Woods without hardly anyone noticing that he played bogey-free while running off five birdies in a seven-hole stretch. Landry, who won the Texas Open in April for his first PGA TOUR title, also had a new putter in the bag. All the attention was on Woods, who had hoped a mallet-style putter might help him shake out of a putting slump. It didn’t. “I shot about the score I should have shot today,” Woods said. He never made a putt outside 10 feet, and the final stretch in the afternoon appeared to be a wasted chance to salvage a score under par. Woods also kept his round from getting worse with two big par saves to start the back nine, including an up-and-down from 147 yards on No. 11 after driving it into the trees. “This is a course that’s going to get tougher as the week goes on,” Woods said. It was plenty tough for him in his first competition on the TPC Potomac, and his first time playing the tournament since 2015. This also is the last edition, and the field is among the weakest on the PGA TOUR this year. Rickie Fowler is the only player in the top 10 in the world, and he also rallied for a 70. Even when he kept it in the short grass off the tee, Woods didn’t have a reasonable birdie chance until No. 5, and he missed from 10 feet. And then he ran into trouble on the par-4 sixth, starting with a tee shot he pulled left that caromed off a tree and landed in a the mown path that leads from the tee to the fairway. Woods tried to hit a 3-wood to the green and it came up short and into the hazard. He had to drop it in more rough, came up just short of the green and wound up making a 4-foot putt to escape with double bogey. Going with an iron off the tee at the par-5 10th, he pulled that into the hazard but at least was able to chop it back to the fairway, rip fairway metal around the green and chip it close to save par. On the next hole, he blasted a tee shot well right, over the gallery, and had to pitch out back into play again. He said the 6-foot par putt gave him momentum, and he was never under much stress the rest of the day. He just didn’t make anything. Woods missed from 10 feet and 6 feet on his next two holes. He made his first birdie on No. 14 with a 3-foot putt, only to badly miss from 7 feet on the next hole. “I didn’t really have anything going through the middle part of the round,” Woods said. “I hit some poor tee shots and didn’t really give myself a chance. I have to do a better job of getting more chances.” He had no beef with the putter, saying he rolled it well and hit plenty of good putts that didn’t fall. “Most of the good scores were shot in the morning,” Woods said. “Hopefully, I can go out there and do it myself.” The course was the fourth-toughest on the PGA TOUR last year, trailing only three majors, though it was soft enough and the wind was mild so that low scores were available. Kyle Stanley won at 7-under 273 last year. Landry and Spaun shared the lead at 7 under after one round. “I expect that if we don’t get any rain the next few days, the course is going to firm up, greens get firm, get a little bit quicker, but it’s not going to be like last year,” Billy Horschel said after his 64. “So you’re going to have to go out with the mindset that it’s a little bit different course, you can’t be as conservative, you’ve got to still try and make birdies.” Andrew Putnam also was at 64 while playing in the afternoon. Beau Hossler and Abraham Ancer were another shot behind. Woods has been at least six shots behind — and no better than a tie for 29th — after the opening round of his last six tournaments dating to the Masters.

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