ESPN Accused Of Butchering Rory McIlroy's Masters Moment, And Then Lying About It
We've got drama at The Masters, and it's got nothing to do with Rory McIlroy flirting with the course record. Well, scratch that, it does, but not in the way you think. Rory was on a different planet during Friday's Round 2, specifically on the second nine. Yes, the second nine, not the back nine. That's a no-no at Augusta, and I'd very much like to NOT be banished from the grounds. Not that I've ever been invited. Anyway, he was the most dialed-in golfer I've seen on the course in quite some time. Honestly, probably since someone named Tiger Woods back in the day. The defending Masters champ birdied six of his final seven holes, carded a 65, and took a tournament-record six-shot lead into Saturday. The biggest moment of the afternoon came late in Rory's round, when he scrambled out of the trees on 17 and found himself facing a tricky little chip to give himself a shot at saving par. Instead, McIlroy promptly holed out from about 30 yards, sending Augusta into an absolute frenzy. The moment was massive. It gave us our first real Masters roar of the weekend. And … ESPN appeared to miss it live:Not great! Look, this isn't super unusual for a golf broadcast. Honestly, a golf broadcast has to be one of the tougher things to produce – regardless of the network. You have a billion guys on the course at one time, shots are flying left and right, and you're bound to miss one. It's just going to happen.Now, I could certainly argue that there was absolutely no excuse not to be locked in on Rory yesterday, especially during the second nine. The guy was clearly on a heater. You don't take eyes off of him, ever. He's also Rory McIlroy at Augusta, so that should be a hard rule all the time. There were also, what, three groups left on the course at this point? Not a ton of options for ESPN, and they chose Viktor Hovland walking. That's a tough look. What really bothered folks, however, was ESPN not being transparent about the whole thing. Again, it's customary for a golf announcer to slip in a "a moment ago" before letting the shot play out. Jim Nantz has said that for decades, so much so that nobody even notices it anymore. We're numb to it. And, we don't care. That's the thing. We do not care. It may have happened "a moment ago," but to us, it's happening right now. A little disclaimer isn't going to ruin that shot, I promise. It's just not. Is this a huge deal in the grand scheme of things? No. Of course not. It didn't happen on Sunday. It happened late on Friday. It is what it is. But viewers certainly noticed, given that clip has over 1 million views and hundreds of comments. It also comes on the heels of a pretty rocky three days of coverage for ESPN, going all the way back to the Par 3 contest, which was, frankly, disgraceful. Life goes on. We're onto Saturday at The Masters. But, it was a tough look.
