ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, August 10, 1996 TAG: 9608120115
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: ON THE AIR
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
The PGA Championship is seeking a place to call home at least once in a while. At Valhalla Golf Club, however, CBS Sports isn't quite so interested in good finishing holes as a good finish this weekend in the final Grand Slam tournament of the year.
``We're just anxious to have a back nine,'' said Jim Nantz, the CBS golf anchor. ``That would be nice for a change.''
In the past five PGA Tour stops televised by CBS, the total winning margin is what Nantz called ``an ungodly sum'' of 32 strokes. The closest finish was John Cook's four-shot victory at Memphis in late June.
The Valhalla layout, only a decade old, may provide what the network wants. Because it is a first-time Tour site - much less home to a major - more than a few golfers are guessing. ``They're trying to learn a course they've never played before, and it's going to take three or four days,'' said CBS analyst Gary McCord.
The PGA, the least heralded of the four majors, finishes today and Sunday with 14 hours of live telecast coverage from Valhalla, a Jack Nicklaus-designed layout in Louisville, Ky. Cable's TBS has 2 1/2-hour shows from the third and final rounds at 10:30 a.m. CBS will air 41/2 hours of each of the last two rounds today and Sunday (1:30 p.m., WDBJ Channel 7).
While CBS is looking for a competitive finish and the PGA is seeking more respect for its championship, Valhalla hopes to impress the pros enough to become what Nantz called ``a semi-regular home, maybe there every sixth or seventh year,'' to the event. The PGA of America owns 25 percent of the club, and if the players like it - the crowds have been huge - the PGA may exercise an option for a deeper investment.
``The other Grand Slam events all are known for something,'' said the acerbic and astute McCord. ``They have connections. The U.S. Open is known for hard greens, high rough and being tough to break par. The British Open has a rotation of six courses. It has the wind, the Scottish courses. The Masters is Augusta.
``The PGA is a great tournament. It's had some great champions, but I think people are still trying to figure out what its trademark is.''
Nantz and McCord agreed it will take a score of 12-under or better to win at Valhalla. The fairways are the Nicklaus-trademark wide, and the greens aren't fast because they've been watered to stay alive in the heat, and then more rain doused the first round Thursday.
Still, McCord said, ``the [tiered] greens are bizarre. It's a second-shot golf course - typical Nicklaus. How would I describe the rough? Like steel wire. It's Kentucky bluegrass, and it's thick and it's brutal.''
Nantz figures the finish will be a ``shootout.'' At least, he has his fingers crossed in the 18th tower for some drama at dinnertime Sunday.
``In any sport, the one thing you really want is close action,'' he said. ``Golf is no different than football or basketball. You want a competitive situation. The last thing you want in the World Series is a 6-0 game.''
Two of the past three PGAs have gone sudden-death. Is Valhalla up to that?
FIVE RINGS: Those viewers unhappy with NBC's prime-time coverage of the Atlanta Games just weren't paying attention before the Olympics. The network did what has worked in the past - and did what it said it was going to do - and that was do a show for U.S. viewers and tape delay the glamour events.
Yes, there could have been more coverage of some sports - softball, for one - and fewer tear-jerking features, although those personality pieces did tell viewers who they were watching, and there were quite a few on foreign athletes.
And, the organizing committee never announced this, but Katie Couric must have been the official artificial sweetener of the Atlanta Games.
There was no cable coverage because NBC affiliates paid $65 million of the network's $456 million rights fee. The pay-per-view ``TripleCast'' that lost $99 million for NBC on the Barcelona Games wasn't brought back, because why would viewers want to pay to see something in the afternoon that they could see on tape at night?
For the Sydney Games in 2000 and Winter Games in Salt Lake City two years later, NBC will deliver daytime coverage on its cable outlets, MSNBC and CNBC, but will not sell any rights to any competing cable networks, such as Turner.
What cable viewers will see in those years will be what wasn't seen from Atlanta - perhaps an entire softball or baseball game or soccer match, as well as more tennis, wrestling, weightlifting. However, the cable shows won't air what will be shown (perhaps on tape) that night on NBC, which is where most of the gymnastics, swimming, diving and track and field will stay.
The Atlanta Games were a huge success financially for NBC, too. The network figures to net about $80 million after the rights fees and production costs. The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG), besides its 10 percent of the rights, made another estimated $35 million in revenue sharing with NBC.
The contract called for the network and ACOG to split any advertising revenue above NBC sales of $615 million. That figure was in the $685 million range. That $35 million is more than half of what is projected as a $60 million profit by the Games' local organizing committee.
HISTORY: Tune to ESPN at 6 tonight to see Cigar run for his 17th consecutive victory in the Pacific Classic at Del Mar Race Track outside San Diego. Cigar shares the thoroughbred record for consecutive victories with Citation. The show is one of six live racing programs on ESPN leading up to the Breeders Cup in late October at Woodbine in Toronto, as racing's richest day moves out of the United States for the first time.
LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) McCordby CNB