Friday, August 21, 2009

Can It Be? Golf Channel Going All Out for the Solheim Cup

Wow, after years of terrible LPGA highlights, looks like Golf Channel has realized it had better build up U.S. interest in women's golf for the start of its new contract next season. For this year's Solheim Cup, they have produced a great overview page, interesting, well-informed video previews, profiles of Michelle Wie, Kristy McPherson and other rookies, pages and pages of Tour Insider stories, great live-blogging from The Shag Bag, and Randall Mell in the house. Amazing what they're capable of when they start trying.

That's not to say they're any better than the combined forces of Bill Jempty, Hound Dog, and Ryan Ballengee.

From them and the LPGA.com scoring summary, I'm psyched to catch some of the live streaming video from GC when the morning matches are complete! Nothing much of interest to add until then, plus I have some work that can't be avoided any longer--sorry!

[Update 1 (2:57 pm): Oh, who am I kidding? With the US leading 2 of the final 3 matches and none separated by more than a hole, this is a dramatic morning. So I'm squeezing work in. Anyway, turns out Creamer and Kerr came back from 3 separate deficits to win 1-up over Pettersen and Gustafson. Phew!]

[Update 2 (4:03 pm): Oh, man, got caught up in my work (don't you love when that happens?) and forgot to check the final morning results. 2.5-1.5 lead is huge for the Americans, but if it weren't for Alfredsson and Matthew, it could have been 3.5-.5--hope that doesn't come back to bite Team USA.]

[Update 3 (4:27 pm): Listening to the live feed is hilarious. It's like the announcers don't know if/when people can hear them talking!]

[Update 4 (5:24 pm): Yeesh, listening to the live feed was all I could do. Too much work!]

[Update 5 (5:32 pm): Here's Brent Kelley to the rescue with an executive summary of the morning action and afternoon match-ups.]

[Update 6 (8/22/09, 12:21 am): Hound Dog's semi-live-blogging picks up right about where I had to leave off my not-at-all-live-blogging!]

[Update 7 (12:28 am): Nice executive summary from Bremt Kelley.]

[Update 8 (7:57 am): Maybe I'm caught up in the Solheim Cup excitement and all, but I'm enjoying the live-blogging from Golf Digest Woman. I know Ryan's regulars at Waggle Room are going to tease me for saying that (at least the guys!).]

[Update 9 (8/25/09, 10:24 am): Sal Johnson still gets a lot of things wrong, but he is dead on in his assessment of Golf Channel's coverage of the Solheim Cup.]

No comments: