Back in late March, after becoming disillusioned with the overall televised golf experience, I invested some time in a project to compare the coverage between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour.
Interestingly, the results revealed that LIV Golf showed a lot more general coverage of golfers hitting shots than the PGA Tour, which got me thinking about what I want to get out of watching televised golf coverage.
Clearly, there is always going to be a place for contextual footage of elite players calculating their next move, as this provides an insight to their dedication to a craft that demands attention to the finest details in order to yield success. Ultimately, however, I wanted to see more golf shots, and less useless 'filler' content of aerial golf course images and random flowers.
Finding the balance between the shots and the important contextual stuff clearly isn't easy, but my data-driven brain wanted to understand which product was best-meeting my preference, so I decided to extend my research.
Over the course of this week, I watched an hour of coverage on both the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, counting the exact number of shots shown... and it wasn't even close!
How Many Shots Did The PGA Tour Show In 60 Minutes Of Coverage?
Let's start with the PGA Tour. As I sat down to watch an hour of first round full coverage from the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, I decided to go one step further and split the coverage into four 15-minute quarters. In the interest of parity, I decided not to include the advert breaks in the experiment for either product, although the volume of these was higher on the PGA Tour.
Overall, the PGA Tour coverage broadcast 88 shots in 60 minutes. That is an average of 1.46 shots per minute, and the split between the four quarters demonstrated a good level of consistency. The four quarters delivered between 20 and 25 shots each, with an average of 22 shots per 15 minutes.
You might be asking, 'Why is that information relevant?', but for many golf fans what they watch on the television is only a snippet of the entire offer. There will be plenty of viewers who are not able to sit down and watch a full hour of uninterrupted coverage, and instead want to tune in sporadically for their fill of elite golf.
Therefore, I would argue, that the importance of that short period being engaging is even greater, in order to convince that section of the audience to continue tuning in.
How Many Shots Did LIV Golf Show In 60 Minutes Of Coverage?
This half of the experiment followed the same protocol - using the coverage from LIV Adelaide.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, based on the results of my previous research, LIV Golf showed far more shots than the PGA Tour, broadcasting a staggering 120 shots in 60 minutes of coverage.
That works out as an average of two shots per minute, more than half a shot more than the PGA Tour. Staggeringly, based on those figures, it would take the PGA Tour approximately 22 minutes more to show a similar number of shots.
The quarter split was again very consistent, ranging between 28 and 33, but the average number of shots shown per quarter for LIV Golf was much higher at 30 shots per 15 minutes.
That means that a viewer sitting down for half an hour to watch the golf would see around 16 more shots on LIV Golf than they would on the PGA Tour, and based on the coverage for both would likely see those shots hit by a wider range of players.
Is There A Reason For The Disparity?
So, the numbers tell a certain story, but why is there such a disparity?
The most obvious difference to note would be the size of field, with LIV Golf limited to just 54 players in comparison to the field of 156 teeing it up this week on the PGA Tour.
The size of the field certainly brings challenges in relation to television coverage, particularly around showing every golfer, but I would argue that it shouldn't impact the ability to show more golf shots.
LIV Golf is played over 18-holes, as is the PGA Tour, and coverage on the LIV product comes from all over the course.
In my opinion, reducing the number of ill-timed visits to the studio, and filler footage being used to segway from one group/hole to the next, would significantly improve this figure for PGA Tour coverage and as a result make the experience a lot more engaging for fans.
I don't believe golf fans expect to see every golfer on the course, but there are lessons to be learned from the LIV Golf coverage. As talks continue between all parties over the future of men's professional golf, it would be refreshing to see the PGA Tour adopt a similar model, showing a good mix of players, holes and an increase to the number of golf shots shown.
