It has been a sad week for golf.
A lamentable one, in fact. I find it hard to believe that, after 60 years of marriage, the BBC and the Open Championship are to be no more betrothed from 2017 onwards. Money talks, you know, and Sky has far more of it - or at least, is far more brazen with it - than dear old Auntie.
In case you missed it, here is the deal. The R&A have decided to take live Open coverage away from the BBC and give it Sky for an estimated £14m-a-year deal, starting with the Open at Royal Birkdale in two years' time. Sorely outbid, the BBC will retain a two-hour highlights package every night during the four days of the championship.
It is tragic news. It's a bit like waking up in the Rusacks Hotel in St Andrews to find that some incredible tidal event has consumed the Old Course, submerging it for ever. Many of us have sworn by the BBC's coverage of the Open. Not only that, but the BBC has projected the magnificent event to a huge audience, young and old, unburdened by any Sky subscription packages.
I'm sorry, but I don't buy the hogwash of Peter Dawson, the outgoing R&A chief executive, who claims the deal is good for golf. Generations of golfers and golf fans have been drawn to the game in Scotland and Britain via such exposure offered by the BBC during Open week. To take that away to a more exclusive audience is to cut off a chief avenue to the game's wider fan-base and its potential future participants.
One main remit of the R&A, surely, is to nurture the game at grassroots. Mr Dawson argues that, with the Sky millions, the organisation will be able to do precisely that, only better. Well, heavy sacks of money are certainly enticing and useful. But what value the far bigger audience on free-to-air TV in seeing Rory McIlroy and Bubba Watson, and wishing to follow in their footsteps?
Of course, I'm speaking subjectively. The first Open I ever saw on the BBC was the 1975 tussle between Jackie Newton and Tom Watson at Carnoustie, and like many of these things, it established a groove. The BBC was where the Open belonged, and all these years we have faithfully trudged along behind the late Harry Carpenter and Peter Alliss as they brought us all the action. It has been a magnificent TV experience.
I'm perfectly aware that things evolve, and that the world changes. Golf is also suffering in terms of participation and club memberships, and society's attitude to the game has changed. Habits do alter, and the R&A, in going with Sky instead of the BBC for the Open, are only adapting their own policies in a shifting world.
But this is still a hammer-blow, a badly shanked 3-iron, not just for the viewing public, but for the game of golf itself.
I happily admit the BBC was not perfect. But that's the thing about the BBC: it's very British, it's flawed, it sometimes bumbles along. The BBC is not slick, like Sky. Sky, I've no doubt, will cover the Open brilliantly, as it currently does a host of other golf tournaments. In all of this Sky need offer no-one an apology. In actual fact, this gripe is not about Sky's production values at all.
Nor, indeed, is the slightly tight-fisted BBC wholly to blame. The Open should have been protected under the 1996 Broadcasting Act as one of Britain's "crown jewels" of sport - those that are deemed so important to the country they must always be on free-to-air - but it wasn't.
It seems to me quite a scandal that, while Wimbledon, the Grand National, the Rugby League Challenge Cup final - and even the Scottish Cup final - were all given "crown jewel" status, the Open was not. What kind of dereliction was this?
A similar heartbreak occurred 19 years ago when the Ryder Cup disappeared from most of our TV screens, to be claimed by the then still-infant BSkyB. That was 10 Ryder Cups ago and the omission is still being felt. Unless you "had the package" then the sheer joy of kicking back, beer to hand, and taking in those three days of glorious action were snatched away from you. Instead, thousands had to scarper down to the pub to watch the golf.
Some will point out that, with just two Opens to go on the BBC, there will be a natural closing point for the broadcasting career of Peter Alliss. This may be so. Alliss has been a wonderful institution in golf but his critics have mounted up in recent years. As long ago as the 2006 Open at Hoylake, when he was a mere 75, Alliss drew criticism for his on-air attitudes.
Come 2017 at Birkdale, when the Beeb are shunted to their two-hour evening highlights package, it will be miraculous if the then 86-year-old Alliss remains behind the microphone. Everything comes to an end, as the British game has learned all too painfully this week.
I sincerely hope that, in years to come, the R&A decision this week is not looked back on as severely damaging to golf. But I think there is a great danger of that. Things are never going to be the same again. The BBC, having been a great and faithful servant, is bowing out of golf.
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