There are a lot of sports fans who don’t like announcers. They even have favorites they love to hate. If that’s you, ESPN+ has a new feed available during its PGA Tour coverage called Quiet, Please, and it’s ANNOUNCER-FREE.
I first saw the no-announcer golf by accident, although I knew it was supposedly happening “sometime” in the future. The future – for me -- turned out to be this past week at the Rocket Classic in Detroit.
Usually, I turn on Hulu (I used to have YouTubeTV, but they don’t have History Channel), and it gives me a bunch of stuff I don’t have any interest in watching. But last week, it also had the new ESPN+ option for golf with announcer-free coverage. I decided to watch some of it, even though there are plenty of announcers I personally like.
There are some things I like about the no-announcer format and some things that need fixing. (You know women; they love to redecorate.)
For the amount of golf I watch, I have found that I really like the early-round ESPN channels. I’m usually offered at least three, but sometimes four different choices or featured players and featured holes.
It is a way for me to watch some golf in the morning and early afternoon before network coverage. In addition, the featured-group coverage usually has somebody you know, like Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Tony Finau, Xander Schauffele, Matt Fitzpatrick, or Collin Morikawa. Even if the big names are playing like dogs or semi-dogs, sometimes you want to watch them mess up until you can’t take it anymore.
The first thing I noticed on announcer-free is that it was very much like being at an actual tournament. It’s quiet. Nobody is telling you anything. There’s no “Let’s go to seven….” So you have to pay a bit more attention instead of just listening to the action.
At an actual tournament, you go, you watch whoever you want to watch, you applaud good shots, you moan sympathetically for the mistakes. Quiet, Please was very much like being there but farther away from the action. It was kind of like being outside. The only thing missing is that I went to the fridge instead of a concession stand for a drink. And the drink price was much better on my sofa.
Some guys, like Jordan Spieth, are big talkers before and after they hit a shot. If he ever goes to a grocery store, he probably talks his way through that, too. You know, fresh veggies, they're a dogleg left. Ice cream is a gap wedge down the far aisle. It's a real chance for, "I could swear I saw butter pecan, and now I can't find it."
Now, none of what I heard was unexpected. Things like giving his ball a, “Stop, stop, stop!”
He would complain that his ball didn’t make it over a tree, that it looked like it was headed for a bunker when he thought he cleared it. Yada, yada, yada. One thing he did not do at all was blame his caddie, Michael Greller, for anything. Not that I heard anyway.
We ALL talk to our golf balls when playing. You’ve probably heard that line made famous by Lee Trevino: “You can talk to a fade, but a hook won’t listen.” Well, it’s the same for PGA Tour players today. They can't help it. The stupid ball just won't go where you want it to.
What I did notice were several dropouts of the audio with a variety of players. I took that to mean cursing was happening and that Priscilla Goodbody, the fictionally named NBC censor from the old Tonight Show days, was back in action. TV still has that seven-second delay rule to minimize the chance for foul language to reach our ears over the airwaves.
That means somebody in the production truck or in Bristol, CT, was watching and listening for bad language, and because of the seven-second delay, the mute button was pushed before swearing hit our eardrums. Sensible. No sense teaching the audience, in case they are younger, new swear words. When my daughter turned two, I changed my cursing to “Rats!” most of the time. (It was a struggle, but I recommend it. Rats! Covers most occasions.)
The other thing I noticed is that the audio on the microphones by the greens was turned up
WAAAY too high. It sounded like the tournament had been dropped into a convention floor because it was so loud. All the talking and laughing and so forth.
Very few golf tournaments are as loud as that made it seem. One exception is whoever the fans are at the 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass during the Players, at least lately. Similarly, the triple-decker fan zone at the 16th in Phoenix. In recent years, they seem more interested in what they are talking about than the golf, but it’s kind of a moderate level, constant buzz that just hangs in the background. A player can almost deal with that.
If I hadn’t been to a gazillion golf tournaments, based on this behavior, I would think anybody holding up a quiet sign on site, which they always do before a golfer hits, was nuts. Because if I had to judge on this audio alone, it seemed like nobody was paying attention.
In case you don’t know, talking or yelling when a player is hitting is just plain rude. Unless a player says otherwise, fans are supposed to be quiet when a guy walks up to take his stance over the ball and stay quiet until the ball is struck. Whether you are playing golf or watching tournament golf, it’s an unwritten rule. You need to be smart enough to know that, and/or someone needs to be smart enough to tell you and make you behave properly or eject you from the premises. It's not basketball or football, as much as the powers that be wish it were.
Another thing of note on the telecast were the graphics, which were helpful, but the side-by-side screens had text that was too small to read. One readable screen at a time, please.
If you are getting ESPN+, which for me is an extra $10 per month, you can probably get the no-announcer option, too. For the amount of golf I watch, I like having it available. I particularly like it because I can watch in the mornings and the early afternoons before network golf or Golf Channel comes on. And if there’s an announcer I don’t like, now there’s the Quiet, Please option so I can watch golf without being annoyed.
Is this the way of the future? I doubt it. Announcers provide a great deal of good material and background. They give us clubs, the wind, and its direction. And more.
I used to laugh when Mark Rolfing said, “when I was at dinner with so and so last night, he told me…” but it always ended up being a gem of information about the player. And he he said it so often, he must have had dinner with every player on the planet.
In addition, former players who become announcers know what’s going on in a current player’s mind, up to a point. They know what a hard shot is and what an easy shot is. They just have to be like Johnny Miller and tell us the truth. Bob Rosburg became famous for saying, “He’s got no shot,” even though sometimes the player hit a great recovery and made Rosburg look wrong.
It was still great announcing. And you could never take your eyes off the screen after Rossi said that because you wanted to know what happened. Did he have a shot or didn’t he? We had to find out!
So, bottom line, I'll give Quiet, Please two thumbs up.
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