With most of the chasers already on the course enjoying one last chamber of commerce Augusta afternoon, CBS came on the air at 2 p.m. ET—an hour earlier than usual. And while it kept one eye on the action, its focus was on Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau, two titans of the game who have taken divergent paths in fractured times, readying for their moment.
No one in sports is better at telling a story than incomparable CBS director Sellers Shy, but in this case the plot was not exactly subtle. The sheer enormity of McIlroy, the people's champion, seeking to join golf's immortals by completing the grand slam against self-fashioned man of the people DeChambeau, whose theatrics and own major triumphs have turned him into a cult-like figure, had Jim Nantz and Trevor Immelman wondering if one of the most iconic and important rounds of golf in modern history was nigh. This was a heavyweight fight complete with tale-of-the-tape graphics and the type of buzz that felt more like something suited for pay-per-view than network television.
By the traditional 3 p.m. start time, McIlroy had already surrendered sole possession of the lead with his third double bogey of the tournament and was well on his way to surrendering it completely. That's how fast this sport can change. But if it can change once it can change again. And again. Then change some more until there are so many big mistakes that become small and small breaks that become big. DeChambeau would fade out of serious contention as fast as he rose to the top. Past champions like Patrick Reed and Scottie Scheffler would threaten to capitalize on McIlroy's roller coaster, which included an unprecedented fourth double bogey and four of the steeliest green jacket-seeking shots a person could ever hope to see. Ludvig Aberg, a statuesque vision of the future, tried to usher in that new world with a hard charge. It was Justin Rose, who slept on a lead twice this week, left as the final obstacle in the way of McIlroy not only entering a fresh stratosphere but also exorcizing decade-long demons that have left him heartbroken in front of golf's largest audiences.
Rose, at 44 and with the ability to conquer the most difficult tracks against the most difficult fields, would have been a worthy and poetic champion. When he rolled in an improbable birdie on No. 18 to get to 11 under and really put the screws to McIlroy, CBS showed him looking to the sky to acknowledge his late father. It's worth marveling at how skilled the Masters broadcast is at making viewers feel how much winning this tournament means. Even for non-golf fans, for four days a year golf's protagonists become three-dimensional and intensely human. Those who watch every week feel it on a different level because we know where every scar was inflicted and every triumph celebrated. For one Sunday per year, though, we are all playgoers attending a drama of the human condition and setting aside all the earned cynicism. We embrace the dogmatic undertones between the azaleas and commune with a natural beauty where the superhuman feats are often followed quickly by human error.
At some point—and with all respect to Rose—the story became about the one true main character entering this week and now exiting it. It wasn't so much about McIlroy against the field as it was McIlroy against himself. McIlroy against history both nearly uncharted and recently painful. Perhaps someone has won and lost and then won a tournament in a single weekend more often, but no one has accomplished that at the Masters. No one has knocked on the door of heaven only to knock on the door of pure tragedy so many times. CBS adroitly referenced the many failures and nightmares to befall the Northern Irishman without being gratuitous. They made it clear that Rory is a figure who is easy to root for even though he's won so much. They didn't ignore the other competitors yet didn't stray too far from what became a different heavyweight matchup.
Not since 2019 and Tiger Woods rising like a phoenix has there been a more overt monoculture moment for golf. All of that preamble before McIIroy and DeChambeau promised that Sunday would be a day for the books and every twist and turn made the tome more compelling. What emerged was the rarest of rare situations where viewers knew in their bones, as the outcome was being decided, that they'd always remember where they were and who they were with when McIlroy either snatched victory from the jaws of defeat or defeat from the jaws of victory. It was the kind of perfect storm that had casuals texting each other to make sure the person on the other end just saw what this guy did—clipping the flagstick blind or dumping an 86-yard chip wide right a la Scott Norwood.
Time stands still at Augusta after the event as its history lives forever. Shackles of technology are left behind for safekeeping. CBS's brilliant use of the manual scoreboard updating patrons about the latest wild shift at the top of the scoreboard took the job of most reliable narrator out of Nantz's hands and returned it to the public. The sudden eruption of joy or anguish told the story better than someone could ever write it. Delayed gratification and a communal timeline harkens back to the tournament's roots—hell, all sports's roots—when the only way to learn of something was word of mouth. Whether this was the original content plan or not, once it worked once they observantly went back to that well and were richly rewarded with a picture worth more than a thousand words.
This classic economy of language was on display as Nantz and Immelman, at the top of their game, said all of 46 words in the seven minutes following McIlroy's legacy-altering birdie in the playoff. They let ambient noise be the soundtrack to ball falling into the Earth followed quickly by a man who had fallen down so many times before only to pick himself back up again to collect the a prize that fit him like a glove. "Laying out," in broadcast-speak, is like laying up in that it requires patience and a firm commitment that discipline will pay off in the end. With the sun setting and a tracking shot on McIIroy being welcomed home from a decade-long exile he helped prolong, there was enough cinematic meat to carry the shot as long as it needed to be carried. He could have stayed out there all night and people would have kept watching.
And yet all great things have to come to an end. The perfect day went to Butler Cabin for a nightcap. McIlroy got to sit in a chair he's been dreaming of sitting in since he was a little kid. He got to reflect on how far that perch is from where he learned the game and speak about all the sacrifices other have made for him to get there. He got the hero shot of all hero shots, alone on a screen transitioning to primetime programming, with a smile of relief and exhaustion after a heavyweight fight against others and against himself. Some scripts can only be screwed up by trying to hard to punch them up. Without trying too hard CBS could have created some of the best sports television in years on the strength and pace of the outcome. Instead they rose their game to the same levels on display, painting a moment in time that was shared together with no rush or urgency to be anywhere else but right there. The only ticking clock was that of 60 Minutes due up next.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as CBS Allows Sights and Sounds to Carry Incredible Masters Sunday.
