Pardon My Rant

I can already hear all five of you followers of this blog releasing a huge sigh and muttering under your breath "not again."

Well, sorry but yes again.

This past weekend the LPGA held their third of five major championships, the KPMG Women's PGA Championship just outside of Dallas. The best women golfers on the planet were there to compete and they got trounced. Mother Nature let them know that she is still the top lady out on tour by hitting them with extremely high heat and humidity and wind speeds mostly steady in the upper twenties and low thirties for four days.

Of the hundred and something women that teed off on Thursday morning, when all was said and done Sunday afternoon, only three of them had shot under par. The winner was Minjee Lee from Australia at four under par. She played fantastic golf, especially on the weekend when the winds were particularly strong.

But that is not what I'm writing about today.

What has me upset is what usually has me upset regarding women's golf, the coverage they get from TV is shameful. They are mostly shown on one of the NBC channels, either NBC, like this weekend, or usually on The Golf Channel. They are also streamed on NBC's Peacock service. Plenty of options you're thinking so why is this fool upset.

Imagine, if you will, that the men are playing their major, the PGA Championship. You would expect to have coverage starting Monday morning with "Live From" for about twelve to fifteen hours each day leading up to the tournament. Then, starting on Thursday, you would find wall to wall coverage of the morning and afternoon rounds this day and the next before the cut is made.

Following the golf there would be another four to five hours of "Live From" coverage to wrap up the day's top shots and stories. On the weekend there would be live TV coverage of all the golfers hitting all their shots from early in the morning to late at night followed by another four to five hours of "Live From" wrapping up the moving day and final round stories and pictures. All of this viewing would be on either ESPN, The Golf Channel, or one of the networks depending on who's turn it was.

In total we would see more than one hundred hours of coverage for the men's major tournament.

Since this is a major for the ladies what kind of coverage would you expect to see from the TV networks for them? If you said nineteen and one half hours of golf and two hours of "Live From" you are our winner. Less than 25% of what the men get. In fact "Live From" was on from the ordinary men's weekly event, The Traveler's, for over twenty hours. Ten times more coverage for a nothing men's tournament over the women's major.

And the TV coverage isn't the only insult to the LPGA. If you look above you will see the ESPN page with a section titled "LPGA Tour". Wow, you're thinking, they get as much respect as the major sports from ESPN. When you click on the link you get 100% stories about the men's PGA tour's. Nothing about the LPGA, or if you hit it on the right day, maybe one story.

The lack of respect this tour gets is appalling and shame on the LPGA for allowing it to happen.

Besides giving them minimal coverage, TV routinely cuts away from them to cover one of the men's tours or does not go to them when they are supposed to go so they can stay and finish the last five holes the men are playing. You get a bright yellow note on the bottom of the screen that the LPGA is being streamed on Peacock. Great, what if you don't have Peacock like 99.7% of the viewers don't.

Seriously, if TV treated the men like they do the ladies the PGA Tour would demand their money back.

I know what everyone is going to say, the men get many more viewers than the ladies. That is true. You know why they do? Because TV has shown them so much they are household names where the ladies are still in witness protection from golf fans. It is just unreasonable the way they are treated by the media.

I am getting tired of having to write about this every year. The LPGA has nicer players. They are much more fan friendly. There is waaaay less drama from the spoiled brats playing the game like you have on the PGA tour. Their game more closely resembles how the vast majority of the weekend golfers play. And honestly, they are better to look at then the men by a mile but that isn't the point.

The LPGA has some great, and loyal, sponsors. Maybe it is time for them to get together with the LPGA Tour and start their own TV network. I believe that if given the choice, and knowing where you could go to see them, the LPGA would have viewership numbers, maybe not to the PGA Tour level, but certainly better than the Senior Tour and the Korn Ferry Tour.

It would be a chance for the LPGA to showcase their players and their up and coming players on the Epson Tour. They could replay top rounds from years past and show younger fans who Nancy Lopez, Judy Rankin, and Annika Sorenstam are. It would grow young and old viewers to their tour and the player s would finally get the coverage they deserve.

LPGA Tour - call me. I have many more great ideas.