Does TV need marquee names for the weekend ?

CARLSBAD, Calif. One of the reasons the PGA Championship abandoned match play in 1958 was that it became difficult to televise. There was no guarantee the marquee players would reach the finals, no idea how long the matches would last.

So, why is Jack Graham so excited?

"It's luck, it really is," said Graham, golf producer for ABC Sports, which has a four-year deal to show the Match Play Championship. "But there's a real good chance for this to become the biggest PGA Tour event of the winter. The buzz around this thing seems to be high."

Graham's goals are also high.

ABC Sports will have 28 cameras at La Costa Resort, at least eight more than it would for a regular, 72-hole stroke play tournament. Most of them will be positioned from the 11th hole on to capture the turning point in each match.

Still, most of the attention will be on the top seeds, and the PGA Tour is doing its part to help.

Unlike the U.S. Amateur, in which the top seed is assigned the first tee time in the early rounds to take advantage of the best conditions, Tiger Woods, David Duval, Mark O'Meara and Davis Love III will start their matches at 1:44 p.m. EST, which fits perfectly into the 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. time slot that ESPN has on the first day.

"It's good for television, but there's a service to the gallery, too," said Donna Orender, the tour's top broadcast executive.

Of course, everyone involved in the tournament -- particularly the television interests -- got a huge break when Nick Faldo narrowly hung on to the 65th spot in the rankings and Jumbo Ozaki decided not to enter.

That put Faldo, in a slump but still one of the best in match play, against Woods in the first round.

"We got lucky with Faldo and Tiger," said Graham, who plans to take full advantage by assigning two additional cameras to that pairing.

The trick is on the weekend. Graham will have his fingers crossed that enough top seeds make it to Friday afternoon's quarterfinals, which would set the stage for a dramatic weekend.

Still, there are concerns about star quality for the weekend and timing of the matches, which haunted previous attempts at televised match play.

"You can get a little unlucky and get four guys on Saturday and two on Sunday that have no ratings appeal," Graham said. "If we get real unlucky and don't have that ratings appeal and get a 2 rating, that's not a good start."

But ABC at least has depth in its corner. When Tucson tried match play in the mid-1980s, it didn't have the top 64 players in the world.

If the Andersen Consulting Match Play Championship doesn't get Duval and Woods on the weekend, there are plenty of other stars who could emerge, such as Ernie Els, Fred Couples, Greg Norman, Justin Leonard, Phil Mickelson and Colin Montgomerie.

And PGA commissioner Tim Finchem believes it will all pan out over the course of the four-year contract.

"When you're talking about this kind of a field, everybody believes that year in and year out, the very best are going to perform well," Finchem said. "They may not in one year, but over four to six years they will. At least that's the assumption I'm going on."

History might prove him correct.

ABC also televised the old Andersen Consulting World Championship of Golf, in which four players emerged from four regions of the world in matches played in spring and summer, setting up a final four in Arizona the first week of January.

David Frost and Barry Lane reached the finals the first year, which is about as appealing as synchronised swimming.

"But the next year we had Greg Norman, and the year after that Love and Montgomerie," Graham points out. "This will all shake out four years from now."

Graham's biggest challenge will come on Wednesday.

While most of the attention in the first round will be on Woods and the other top seeds, ABC wants to show something -- anything -- from all 32 matches.