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By BOB HARIG, Times Staff WriterTiger Woods' dramatic playoff victory over Chris DiMarco was the highest rated Masters telecast since 2001.
AUGUSTA, Ga. - The riveting final round of the Masters produced prodigious ratings for CBS, a 41 percent increase over a year ago, when Phil Mickelson provided a very popular victory.
That tells you something about the power of Tiger Woods , whose playoff victory over Chris DiMarco on Sunday was the highest rated Masters since 2001, when you-know-who won his fourth consecutive major.
But at the other end of the ratings scale was the conclusion to the third round, which garnered a 0 rating.
That's because it wasn't televised.
And what a shame. Unless you were fortunate enough to be at Augusta National on Sunday morning, you missed the incredible turnaround to the tournament, a possible record-setting run by Woods and what you could argue is the reason Tiger won.
In the span of 30 minutes, DiMarco double bogeyed the 10th hole, which Woods had just birdied. Woods then birdied the 11th, 12th and 13th holes.
And these were not routine birdies. Woods knocked his approach on No.11 stiff from pine straw to the right of the fairway; at the 13th, he actually came out of his approach to the green, but hit it so bad, his ball stayed short of the water. He got up and down for his seventh straight birdie of the third round.
CBS paid lip service Sunday afternoon to what transpired that morning. Only a few snippets were offered, not a detailed highlights package that would have gone a long way toward giving fans a feel for what happened in the dew-filled morning.
This is where the Masters' longtime policy of "less is more" is really a disservice to the game. The Masters is the least-televised of the majors, with a scheduled 14 hours of live coverage. That was extended this year somewhat due to the various rain delays.
But when poor weather pushed the start of the third round to late Saturday afternoon, why not make an exception and show the remaining nine holes on Sunday morning? If CBS couldn't do it, how about cable partner USA? ESPN? The Golf Channel?
DiMarco was giving the tournament away, making double bogey and three bogeys. Woods was on pace to set the course record of 62, having played his first 13 holes in 9 under par. That he later bogeyed two holes is not the point. It is hard to imagine such history being missed completely by live TV. Heck, CBS missed most of what was likely Jack Nicklaus ' final round of the Masters on Saturday.
There is something admirable about not overdoing it. The Masters has long resisted the urge to fall into the trap of wall-to-wall coverage. It has added a few minutes here and there over the years, keeping commercial interruptions to a minimum.
Nonetheless, people would eat it up, especially since most of the world never has a chance of attending the tournament.
Here's hoping it at least adopts a policy of televising suspended rounds. A lot of history occurred Sunday morning that nobody got to see.
PHIL'S FEUD: Mickelson tried to downplay the fact that there is any tension between him and Vijay Singh , first in a television interview with CBS and then with reporters Sunday. The two played the final round together, and other than an obligatory handshake on the first tee and what appeared to be staged banter by Mickelson as they walked to the 18th green, there was no interaction.
"I don't know where you guys come up with this stuff," Mickelson said. "You guys are unbelievable."
Yeah, it came out of nowhere ... like right from Mickelson's publicist.
On Friday night, T.R. Reinman passed out quotes from Mickelson after talk circulated about rules officials asking Mickelson about his spikes and if they were damaging the greens. Turns out, Singh was the one who asked Mickelson to be questioned. And his timing seemed odd, as he had played behind Mickelson for some 27 holes.
Mickelson said he was "distracted" and didn't feel the situation was handled properly. He also "confronted" Singh in the locker room after hearing him talk about it.
So that's where "you guys" came "up with this stuff."
SECOND-GUESSING: When DiMarco layed up instead of going for the green in two at the par-5 15th, trailing Woods by one stroke, CBS analysts Lanny Wadkins and David Feherty seemed stunned. They felt he had no choice but to set up a chance at eagle or at least an easy birdie.
They said this despite knowing DiMarco had some 220 yards to the green ... certainly not a gimme distance, even in today's era of enormous length.
"I had 236 yards to the hole, so it was either try to cut a big old 3-wood off a downhill and who knows where it would go," DiMarco said.
"Or just kill a 2-iron and if I just came up with it a little bit, it was going to go in the water. I had a downhill lie with a 2-iron in. I didn't feel like that was a smart play. My wedge game was great all week."
So DiMarco layed up, then stuck his wedge to 5 feet and made the putt for birdie.
Earlier in the day, he had hit his 2-iron off a downhill lie at the 10th hole into a bush and needed to take an unplayable lie, which led to double bogey.
AROUND AUGUSTA: For the 15th straight year, the winner of the Masters came out of the final pairing. ... The last player to lose consecutive major playoffs before DiMarco was Tom Watson , who lost to John Mahaffey (along with Jerry Pate ) at the 1978 PGA, then lost to Fuzzy Zoeller (with Ed Sneed ) at the 1979 Masters. ... Woods' driving accuracy is still a concern, even at wide-open Augusta. He hit 32 of 56 fairways (57.1 percent), which ranked 49th out of 50 among those who made the cut. ... A Masters trend continued: no player has four scores in the 60s in 69 Masters.