CBS Denies Demanding 3:00pm Sunday Start For PGA Leaders

CBS Denies Forcing Late Afternoon Tee Times

CBS Sports Senior VP/Programming Rob Correa said that the network “did not demand a 3 p.m. tee time” for the final pairing during Sunday’s final round of the PGA Championship, “or stand in the way of starting the round an hour earlier,” according to Richard Sandomir of the N.Y. TIMES. The PGA of America and CBS were criticized for not moving up tee times for the final round to avoid a weather-related delay that pushed the completion of the tournament to Monday. Correa: “The [PGA] of America is responsible for the scheduling of the tournament. It’s up to them.” Correa added that CBS “would not have objected to an earlier start ‘if the weather reports were that severe’” (N.Y. TIMES, 8/16). SI.com’s Gary Van Sickle wrote the PGA “ruined a great golf tournament” by not moving up the tee times. Pushing the final round to Monday assured that the outcome would be “an anticlimax and be viewed by only a fraction of the number of fans who were on hand Sunday” (SI.com, 8/14).

A DAY LATE: CBS earned a 3.6/12 overnight Nielsen rating for yesterday’s resumption of the final round from 10:00-11:15am ET, 63.6% higher than the 2.2/7 average overnight for the Monday time block on the network for the previous two weeks (THE DAILY). The N.Y. TIMES’ Sandomir writes that with only 12 golfers on the course yesterday, CBS’ commercial load “was a distraction ... creating a disjointed viewing experience.” CBS cut away from eventual winner Phil Mickelson’s walk up the 18th fairway “to a two-minute cluster of commercials.” CBS Sports VP/Communications LeslieAnne Wade said that ads were shown during Mickelson’s fairway walk “because his shot was not on the green; he was not a cinch to win at that time and he was not surrounded by thousands of cheering fans lining the fairway, as he would have been at the 18th at Augusta National” (N.Y. TIMES, 8/16).