TV coverage stays silent on protests

They talked birdies and bogeys, Tiger and Phil, dogwoods and azaleas. They ran long, sappy montages about caddies and past champions, the whispering Georgia pines and the mystery of the Masters.

What CBS announcers didn't do Saturday was talk about the protests taking place down the street from Augusta National, a front-burner topic here for much of the last nine months.

"The focus of CBS Sports is on golf," network spokeswoman Leslie Anne Wade explained.

Goodness knows, the lack of coverage wasn't for lack of time.

As promised, CBS went commercial-free during its nearly three-hour telecast. Club chairman Hootie Johnson freed sponsors of their obligations last year when Martha Burk, chairwoman of the National Council of Women's Organizations, threatened to picket them if they continued to pay for commercials on the broadcasts.

The logos of those sponsors and the network were all prominently displayed at the demonstration Burk led in a field about a half-mile away from the club's front gates.

In New York, about 15 people demonstrated in front of CBS headquarters; that also wasn't mentioned.

About 50 people demonstrated in Augusta. The protest went largely unnoticed by spectators entering the club, but the media in town to cover the golf tournament paid ample attention. In fact, reporters and protesters were about evenly represented at the event, which lasted about an hour.

CBS, however, chose to ignore it on its telecast.

The network has carried the Masters since 1956, and has long been known to almost exclusively show only the sunny side at Augusta National. Both last year and this year, for instance, there has been almost no pictures or mention of the mud, muck and smell that has overtaken much of the grounds due to heavy rain. Several years ago, the network pulled Gary McCord off its Masters coverage for joking that the greens were so slick, they had "bikini wax" on them.

About the only mention of the controversy came at the beginning, when the club's vice chairman, Joe Ford, welcomed viewers to the commercial-free broadcast. He also paid tribute to soldiers fighting in Iraq.

From there, it was all golf. In place of commercials, the network ran a handful of public-service announcements, thorough scoring updates and syrupy features on amateurs, past champions and caddies.

A caddie, intoned Dick Enberg, "has chameleon magic to become at one with the golfer." A few minutes into the piece, he offered a touching tribute to Tom Watson's looper, Bruce Edwards, who was recently diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease.

Augusta National spokesman Glenn Greenspan said the club would have no comment about the CBS coverage, referring reporters to Wade of CBS and to statements Johnson made at his news conference Wednesday.

At the news conference, Johnson said, "We hired them to present the golf tournament. And CBS News, I expect, would present whatever news there is, but we haven't had any discussions or made any demands."

Would they be free to talk about it on the air during the tournament?

"That will be their call," Johnson said.