JEFF PATERSON - - - Golfing My Way

JEFF PATERSON is a sports talk host on Vancouver's TEAM 1040 SPORTS RADIO, can be seen from time-to-time on Rogers Sports Net TV and is a freelance writer. The opinions expressed are solely those of Mr. Paterson and are not representative of BC Golf News.

The frustration of those who passionately follow the game in this country should probably match that of Tiger after one of his many missed eight-footers on that Sunday.

For the first time in a long time -- certainly since Mike Weir became a household name on the PGA Tour but quite likely much longer than that -- it appears that no Canadian print or television network was on hand at a golf major to provide daily accounts of or to get explanations for the struggles of Weir who shot 81 on Friday and missed the cut by six shots. And at the same time, no Canadian outlet was on hand to cover Stephen Ames who, midway through Sunday's final round, was in contention before finishing his day with bogeys on five of the last seven holes.

While the Weir story is significant, the Ames story would have been huge had he been able to hold things together down the stretch. But we'll never really know what went wrong for either golfer since no one was there to document it.
 
Exactly a decade after Mike Weir played in the final round with Tiger at the PGA Championship at Medinah and just weeks shy of the 10th anniversary of his breakthrough win at the 1999 Air Canada Championship at Northview, Weir has a legion of fans in this country that care about his performance every time he tees it up -- especially in one of the majors. They care when he's playing well, and they certainly want to know what isn't working when he balloons to an 81 as he did to play himself out of the tournament.

Not surprisingly, yet understandably, there is no account of Friday's struggles on Mike Weir's own website which, if the mainstream media in this country, chooses to ignore major golf championships, may soon become the only way anyone ever gets any information on Canada's top golfer. But that's only if the golfer himself chooses to give it and when he does it will obviously be filtered. That's no way to cover golf.
 
The CBS broadcast crew went on at length during that Sunday final round about what a major championship win by Y.E. Yang would do for golf in Asia. Who knows what the full impact will ultimately be?

What we in this country know is that Mike Weir won the Masters in 2003 and six short years later, Canadian media outlets can't afford or can't be bothered to make the trek to Minnesota to cover the PGA Championship. It's a sad story because Canadian golf fans deserve a whole lot better.

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