Bye Bye Auntie

Last week the best golfers of the European Tour will assemble at Wentworth for the flagship tournament of the Tour, the BMW PGA Championship, it is a tournament which is among the great sporting traditions of British sport. Wentworth in May has become as synonymous with the start of summer as Queen's Club is a warm up for Wimbledon, and for the last 40 years the British public has been able to watch the likes of Seve, Langer, Lyle, Woosnam, Faldo, Olazabal, Montgomerie, Els, Westwood, Donald and Garcia compete in the tournament which is only superseded in prestige by The Open Championship on the European Tour. 

From last week though to watch the stars of golf play on the greens and fairways of the West Course you will have to be a subscriber to the pay-television network Sky Sports, rather than a license fee payer. The BBC is one of four free-to-air networks in the United Kingdom, the first television network in the United Kingdom and rights holder to the Olympic Summer and Winter Games as well as the FIFA World Cup. Up until 22 years ago they had a near monopoly on broadcasting world-class sport live to the British public and a total monopoly on the broadcasting of live golf in the United Kingdom. But in 1991 BSB and Sky merged to become BSkyB and the new company re-branded the Sports channel as Sky Sports, beginning an assault on the rights for live sport including Football, Rugby League, Rugby Union, Cricket and Golf. Their live coverage of golf on a weekly basis was unique, with the PGA Tour every Thursday to Sunday from 1992 and live coverage of the US Open from 1991 and USPGA Championship from 1993, in 1993 they began their weekly coverage of the European Tour, with BBC retaining exclusive live coverage of the big British based events.

In 2000 BBC showed Benson and Hedges International Open, Volvo PGA Championship, Standard Life Loch Lomond, CISCO World Match Play Championship and the WGC-American Express Championship in addition to The Masters and The Open Championship. 28 days of live golf were shown on BBC in the year 2000, this year the channel will show just 10 including the final two days of The Masters, all four days of The Open Championship and all four days of The Ricoh Women's British Open. For the first time they won't show any live coverage of regular tournaments on the European Tour, as Sky Sports assume the role of host broadcaster for the BMW PGA Championship and Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open. 

I for one have two views about this development. Firstly I believe Sky Sports provide the best coverage of golf, and it is arguably the best coverage of any sport they have the rights to. They are extensive in their broadcast times for every single European Tour event and they broadcast live from every European and Middle East based event on the schedule. Their team is headed by in my opinion the best presenter in sports broadcasting - David Livingstone. Veteran BBC and ITV presenter Des Lynam said of the Scot "Sky presenter of 2010 for me was David Livingstone, who did a fantastic job during the rain-drenched Ryder Cup back in October. He had hours to fill but never failed to ask intelligent questions or lose his composure or let his ego get in the way of the event."

And their commentary team is experienced, knowledgeable, entertaining and informing, led by Ewen Murray and Bruce Critchley the team includes former European Tour players Robert Lee, Howard Clark, Wayne Riley, Ross McFarlane, Richard Boxall, John Hawksworth, Jamie Spence and Andrew Coltart. No network dedicates so many hours to live and edited golf coverage anywhere in the world with the channels of Sky Sports showing The Masters, US Open, USPGA, Ryder Cup, Presidents Cup, World Golf Championships, all PGA Tour events and now every European Tour event.

"Sky knows how to do golf better then any other Network in the world. Just a fact"
Butch Harmon, Sky Sports golf commentator and analyst since 1994 and has worked at 19 US Opens, 18 PGA Championships, 9 Ryder Cups and many other tournaments including the Players Championship, Tour Championship, World Golf Championships and Presidents Cup for Sky Sports.

But for all the very great work Sky does there is one certain fact that is bad about the current situation in golf broadcasting the UK - exposure and the lack of availability for young people to watch golf and get inspired to take up the game. Even in over 20 years of the company there are only 10.38million households who subscribe to Sky in contrast to some 25million television license holders. 

Viewing figures for regular PGA Tour and European Tour events on Sky rarely soar above 100,000 households but spike dramatically for The Masters, US Open, PGA Championship and most dramatically of all for the Ryder Cup. For Sky it is about having the complete package rather than justifying their coverage of golf based upon numbers of viewers. For golf in the UK though it is a major problem for the growth of the game not having any live week-to-week golf available free-to-air to the masses, especially at a time when many of the world's best golfers are British and are winning and contending for Major Championships.

For many youngsters the opportunity to watch Britain's best golfers will now be restricted to the Saturday and Sunday of The Masters and the four days of The Open Championship, and with less golf shown on BBC it means the career of the renowned "Voice of Golf" is surely coming to an end.

Peter Alliss was one of the most influential golfers in Britain at the start of the European Tour in the 1950's and 60's winning over 20 tournaments and featuring in 22 Open Championships including four top tens. Alliss was also a prominent member of the Great Britain Ryder Cup team on 8 occasions including being on the winning team in 1957. But it is his voice rather than his golf that he will be remembered for, taking over from Henry Longhurst as the lead golf commentator for the BBC in the 1970's Alliss has worked for ABC and ESPN in the United States and has commentated at every Open Championship since 1978. Alliss is famed for his outspoken, witty and sometimes controversial style of commentary and has resisted the temptation to leave the BBC for more regular work with Sky Sports.

Now aged 82 the three-time BMW PGA Champion will be stuck for work to do as his employers have seen it fit to desert the sport just at the time at which our players have come to prominence once more. Even if the BBC don't feel live golf works for them surely a 2 hour highlights programme Thursday to Sunday would work, it would enable them to edit the live coverage from European Tour Productions and produce a very entertaining and informing alternative to the live coverage offered by Sky.

The lack of live golf on free-to-air channels in the UK is in stark contrast to that seen on the networks of NBC and CBS in the United States. From the Farmers Insurance Open in January to the Tour Championship in September there is not a weekend goes by where golf is not shown live and free in America.

Golf is gradually declining in the UK and at the very heart of it all is accessibility and visibility of the best players in the world to a young audience via television.

After all, had I not seen Nick Faldo make a hole in one on the 13th at The Belfry in the 1993 Ryder Cup on BBC Grandstand it is highly likely that this blog would be HooperstarAngler not HooperstarGolfer.