Mother Nature Made The Masters Pay For Their Archaic TV Policy, As Rain Suspends Play Just 15 Minutes Into CBS' Telecast
Patrick Smith. Getty Images.I love the Masters Tournament. The stroll down Magnolia Lane. Getting my heart curb stomped by Rory McIlroy every single year. Clinging to any glimpse of Prime Tiger we get to see. All the thrill of the back nine on Sunday. Amen Corner. The only major championship to remain at a single venue every single year. It's special, special shit.
So while I understand wanting to preserve the mystique of it all or whatever the fuck, this is just a bad product. This ain't it. Mother Nature was fed up with Augusta National's leadership and their bullshit and decided to defecate a torrential downpour onto the pristine Georgia grounds, suspending play for the entire rest of the day.
Inclement weather already forced typical Saturday pairing to go off in groups of three, teeing off from both nines, just so we could maybe finish this thang on time. Sunday's forecast is partly cloudy with a 20% chance of rain, so things may be looking up. Nevertheless, this is merely the latest prime example of why the Masters desperately needs to figure out a new TV situation.
There were countless hours of coverage to be had before CBS FINALLY got on the air at 3 p.m. ET. I want to say something like six hours were burned on Masters Dot Com's various streams of featured groups, niche hole coverages, and most importantly, we got to see the freaking tournament leaders like Brooks Koepka, Jon Rahm and whomever else hit less than a handful of shots. Like, seriously?
We can do better than this. People have been calling for this change for years, I know. It hasn't happened yet. If it doesn't after this debacle, I don't know what else the elder Augusta statesmen need to fucking see. Can only imagine what's running through their heads right now.
Maybe they don't care. If I were them, even if I were so obnoxiously stubborn and set in my ways on this particular issue, I'd still be doing something like…
Anyway, ICYMI — because it would've been pretty fucking easy to unless you were glued to your computer or smartphone checking the leaderboard — Brooks Koepka is still leading the Masters Tournament. He's at -13 overall, good for a four-stroke edge on Jon Rahm. They've made it through six holes of their third round.
Don't ask me precisely how Koepka got to one under par in Round 3 because I don't know, I COULDN'T SEE IT!!!! Now I'll go back to Masters Dot Com to watch all of his shots in retrospect.
And hey…at least CBS is airing the hours upon hours of coverage they didn't run earlier in the midst of this rest-of-day rain delay. LOL. I'm in like a combined state of delirium and slap-happiness.
Come on, Augusta. I love you. But. Change your shit up and join the rest of us in the 21st century.