It’s not been a banner week for television coverage of the US PGA Championship. Due to a rights issue, viewers missed record-chasing scores on Friday morning, while technical difficulties have prevented those in the United Kingdom from watching the tournament, period. Those issues didn’t end on Saturday, as CBS was riding the struggle bus.
There have been long shots on practice swings instead of live action, Nick Faldo mis-reading a situation involving Gary Woodland in a bunker, and a number of mispronunciations and straight-up mistakes on players’ names (there was a moment, hand to the golf gods, where Gary McCord said “Bruce” Koepka, followed by the crew debating why Koepka doesn’t get enough attention).
Among these faux pas was a cut to a roar, which had been heard minutes before, of Matt Wallace, who recorded a hole-in-one on Bellerive’s 16th hole.
ACE 🚨!@mattsjwallace notches a hole-in-one on the par 3 16th! #PGAChamp pic.twitter.com/cW9DgFOeJy
— PGA of America (@PGA) August 11, 2018
One slight problem: CBS identified him as “Mike Wallace.” Not great, Bob. Er, Verne.
To the network’s credit, they later corrected the mistake. But the damage of the moment, and the day, had been done. Let’s make sure the video’s on mute if Wallace wants to watch a replay.
