Golf Channel 2

In several cases this year, the Golf Channel has had coverage of all five major golf tours' events in a week - PGA, LPGA, Champions, Nationwide, and European Tours. This week, that happened to be the case again. Scheduling becomes difficult for TGC in these cases.

Today, the Valero Texas Open went to a playoff that stretched three holes. Intelligently, the Golf Channel canceled its Post Game Show to go right to coverage of the Nationwide Tour's Mark Christopher Charity Classic. After that, the LPGA Tour crew of Grant Boone and Beth Daniel took over for final round coverage from California of the Longs Drugs Challenge.

This is almost flawless handling of a very busy day of golf. BUT, there's a hitch. Right now (9:30pm ET), Lorena Ochoa and Suzann Pettersen are about to enter a sudden death playoff. On the Golf Channel, though, Lorena Ochoa is on the 15th hole. Whoops. The coverage is on tape delay. I want to know right now what is happening with that playoff and I will have to wait at least an hour to see it.

It is tough to juggle broadcasting five tournaments. There is no doubt about that. But, if TGC intends to be golf's home for a long time to come, then there needs to be an expansion of their capabilities. And by that, I mean there needs to be a Golf Channel 2. Live tournament action should be broadcast on TGC2, or at least overlapping tournament action can split time between the two channels. That way, fans of any tour can know they will be getting live action when TGC does broadcast it.

ESPN developed ESPN2, ESPNU, and The Ocho for that reason. Obviously, TGC does have the same amount of live sports on their schedule. But, having that second channel available could go a long way. Let's work on that.