Sunday, May 19, 2019

Shot chart from CBS Sunday PGA Championship telecast - 2019

I tracked the strokes televised by CBS during the Sunday round of the PGA Championship. I counted 321 televised strokes from the 4th round. This total includes nine shots that CBS aired on its Eye On The Course split screen feature during four of the commercial breaks. This resulted in an average of 1.14 strokes per minute which was much lower than the 2017 PGA, but the same rate as the 2016 telecast.

CBS televised 73 strokes by winner Brooks Koepka, skipping only a tap-in putt on hole 7. The network aired 67 strokes from runner-up Dustin Johnson, bypassing his tap-ins on the first two holes. Jazz Janewottananond received the next most frequent coverage (39 strokes) but was not shown after hole 13.

Nine players received coverage for at least 10 shots. Late in the round with so few players in contention, CBS shifted into a mode of primarily showing just Koepka and DJ. Overall, CBS showed 20 different golfers playing strokes, but eight of these were for a single shot. The highest finishers not shown at all by CBS were four of the six players who tied for 8th (Matt Kuchar, Shane Lowry, Adam Scott, and Gary Woodland).

I also tracked the number of televised strokes by hole. The 12th was featured the most (25 strokes) with holes 3 and 11 receiving coverage for 24 shots each. CBS devoted the fewest televised strokes to the 14th and 16th holes (only 10 shots each).

CBS made a very questionable decision to interview DJ while Koepka was hitting an important layup shot on the 18th from what appeared to be a tricky lie. CBS also made a blunder after the final group completed hole 5 when it displayed a scorecard graphic for Harold Varner III showing him making a bogey on hole 6 (which he had not yet started!) and showing his overall score at E when he was still at -1. Jim Nantz, apparently reading from the incorrect graphic, rattled off Varner's run of poor scores including the phantom score from the 6th hole.

This is the sixth year that I have compiled these televised shot charts. For comparison to other majors, see the summary table which contains links to all of these charts since 2014. (Note: I was busy during the Sunday round of the 2018 PGA and never compiled that chart, but I have a DVR copy of that telecast and may get to it eventually.)

Here is the complete shot chart (including the highest finishers not shown on the telecast) followed by the hole-by-hole breakdown:


PlayerShots shownFinishPairing
Brooks Koepka7311
Dustin Johnson6723
Jazz Janewattananond39T142
Harold Varner III34T361
Matt Wallace23T34
Jordan Spieth22T36
Hideki Matsuyama17T163
Patrick Cantlay16T35
Rory McIlroy10T816
Luke List662
Jason Day3T2315
Rickie Fowler3T367
Sung Kang177
Erik Van Rooyen1T86
Lucas Bjerregaard1T169
Lucas Glover1T169
Webb Simpson1T2921
Kiradech Aphinbarnrat1T4114
Francesco Molinari1T4822
Zach Johnson1T5422
Kuchar/Lowry/Scott/Woodland0T8
others0
total321

Note: The Pairing column reflects the tee time groupings in reverse order, so 1 =  final pairing, 2 = next-to-last, etc.


Hole numberTelevised shots
122
221
324
421
520
612
713
812
919
1023
1124
1225
1316
1410
1514
1610
1714
1821