As I wrote yesterday, it is too bad Sunday’s final round didn’t produce more drama. The lack of suspense on the back 9 accounted for the sharp decline in the rating as much as Tiger Woods’ absence.

From Sports Media Watch:

Final round coverage of The Masters earned a 7.8 overnight rating on CBS Sunday afternoon, down 24% from last year (10.2), down 4% from 2012 (8.1), and the lowest overnight for final round coverage since 2004 (7.3).

Overall, the 7.8 is the third-lowest for the final round since at least 1991, ahead of only 2004 and 1993 (6.8). Excluding Easter Sunday telecasts, the 7.8 is the lowest over that span.

It was one of the dullest final rounds at the Masters in years, and had to account for at least 10 percent in the ratings decline. If you had a good battle between Bubba Watson and the young Jordan Spieth, the audience would have been much higher. Remember, the previous two Masters went to playoffs, and not one of them involved Woods.

In regards to Woods, for a true apples to apples comparison, you have to look at the Friday and Saturday numbers. The ratings tell the story.

In 2013 with Woods playing late in the second round, ESPN did a record 3.0 rating (4.2 million viewers). This year, the rating dropped 40 percent to 1.8 (3 million viewers).

The Saturday rating also is telling. In 2013, with Woods in contention despite a controversial two-shot penalty, CBS did a 6.3 overnight rating. This year, with no Woods, the rating dropped 30 percent to 4.4.

Really, the third round was quite compelling with Spieth making a surge and Watson struggling. Yet a considerable amount of viewers didn’t tune in because Woods wasn’t in the field.

Declines of 40 and 30 percent on Friday and Saturday make this Volume 258 on Tiger’s impact on the ratings.

At one point during the back 9 on Sunday, a friend of mine sent a text saying, “Is OK to admit this is pretty boring?”

Indeed, it seems almost sacrilegious suggest the Masters, the tournament we wait for all year, was rather dull for the final two hours. The top three players combined for all of two birdies on their last nine holes.

Dan Jenkins said it best in this tweet:

Indeed, with the exception of Watson’s crazy drive long drive on 13 and his even crazier shot through the trees on 15, there wasn’t the back 9 suspense we always seem to get at Augusta.

Brian Murphy of Yahoo! Sports thought it was a Tiger and Phil thing. He wrote:

The bigger problem was the cast of characters around Bubba. This Masters lacked fireworks. That whole “roars amid the pines” thing we get every April? Could have fooled me. The reverential say Augusta National is like a church. It was as quiet as one on the back nine Sunday.

Even Bubba himself shot a mostly ho-hum even-par 36 on the back nine. When he said in Butler Cabin on CBS, “I was telling my caddie, ‘I don’t even remember the last few holes,’ ” the rest of us were saying: Neither do we.

Murph added:

Say what you want about Tiger Woods – and believe me, if you read the “Comments” on Yahoo Sports, many of you say what you want – he’s become as much a part of the Augusta National landscape as the azaleas, as much a part of the landscape as Rae’s Creek, as much a part of the landscape as CBS’ Nick Faldo referencing his three Masters wins every five minutes, as if on an egg timer.

And even if he hasn’t won a green jacket since 2005(!), he is there on Sunday on the back nine, and he is close to the lead, and he is applying pressure. And you care about him. And even though I was with everyone who said the Masters is bigger than Tiger, that his back surgery and ensuing absence did not mean we would not get a great show, it turned out the show wasn’t as good.

Same goes with Phil, who disintegrated into triple-bogey hell on Thursday and Friday and missed the cut. When Phil is around, pressure is applied. Heart rates quicken. Cheers are louder.

Sure the tournament is better with Woods and Mickelson in the field. But there have been plenty of memorable finishes by other players in recent Masters.

2011: In charge worthy of Palmer and Nicklaus, Charl Schwarzel birdies the last four holes to overtake Jason Day and Adam Scott.

2012: Louie Oosthuizen makes a double eagle on 2. Watson then hits one of the greatest shots in Masters history to win the playoff on 10.

2013: Angel Cabrera cans a birdie on 18 to force a playoff. Scott then makes a dramatic putt on 10 to win the Green Jacket.

If we had some of the theatrics on Sunday, we all would be buzzing today about the Masters. For once, it didn’t happen at Augusta National.

Then again, there’s always next year. Let the countdown begin.

More on the ratings later.

O.B. Keeler was a sportswriter forever linked to Bobby Jones. He covered every stroke the legend ever took in a tournament.

In the last couple of years, I have written so much about Jim Nantz, I joke I am his O.B. Keeler. I even sign my emails to him as “O.B.”

My latest piece is a profile of Nantz for the spring issue of Links Magazine. Naturally, the focus is the Masters.

Some excerpts:

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In his mind, the script already has been written. Jim Nantz’s broadcast career will be bracketed by the Masters.

Part One is already in the books. In 1986, at age 26, Nantz—just a few years removed from being a dreamy-eyed college kid at Houston—was tabbed by legendary television director Frank Chirkinian to work his first Masters.

Now jump forward a few years and the grand finale also takes place at Augusta. In 2035, Nantz plans on being on the call for his 50th Masters, at the age of 75.

How important is it to him? Nantz already has consulted a calendar for the exact date.

“I would say goodbye to the career on April 8, 2035,” he says. “That’s the second Sunday in April of 2035.”

In between that first and last Masters, if all goes as planned, Nantz will have worked as the play-by-play man for several Super Bowls and even more NCAA Final Fours. His resume will make him one of the supreme sports voices of his generation.

CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus sums up Nantz’s budding legacy: “If you turn on the TV and hear his voice, you know it is a big event.”

Nantz, 54, maintains a whirlwind schedule that includes myriad endorsements and speaking commitments that barely leave him time at his home that peers out over Pebble Beach. Besides his work at CBS, his main passions are growing a new wine brand and raising funds for the Nantz National Alzheimer Center in Houston, dedicated to his father. Coming along for the journey is his wife of two years, Courtney. She is intricately involved in his endeavors. Nantz says, “It is a team effort.”

Yet through it all, it always comes back to the Masters.

“It’s the one event which people relate with me the most,” Nantz says. “I might be talking to a football coach in August, and he’ll ask me, ‘What about Augusta?’ Fans at games ask me, ‘Who’s going to win the Masters this year?’ It’s the one event I think about all year long. The Masters is in my heart.”

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Yet if Nantz does indeed do 50 tournaments, it will never get more personal than Fred
Couples’s victory in 1992. In a story straight out of Hollywood, he and Couples, along with Blaine McCallister, a five-time winner on the PGA Tour, were roommates at the University
of Houston.

Nantz, working as a cub reporter for a Houston TV station, would bring the equipment back to their dorm room, where he’d do a mock broadcast of the green jacket ceremony with Couples.

“It happened,” Nantz insists. “We were just kids having fun.”

In 1992, their college fantasy actually took place in Butler Cabin, Nantz presiding over the ceremony on TV in which Couples is being presented his green jacket. Initially, Nantz wasn’t going to make it personal, but ultimately, he had to bring his old roommate back to that dorm room in Houston.

“In the end I said, ‘You know, Fred. I think about our days at the University of Houston and Taub Hall.’

“He turned his head, covered his eyes, and looked off to the side. My voice is quivering. I said, ‘All of us said, One day you’re going to look great in a green jacket.’”

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This year’s tournament will be number 29 on his way to 50. Yet he allows that maybe he won’t do his final signoff on April 8, 2035. There could be a change to the script.

Last year, Nantz made a speech in which he spoke about his grand plan. In the audience was one of his heroes, Jack Whitaker, who covered a few Masters of his own.

“We were having a drink after the event,” Nantz recalls, “and he said, out of the blue, ‘You know, I think you might want to amend your way of thinking about 50 Masters and do 51.’ I said, ‘Why is that, Mr. Whitaker?’ He said, ‘Because if you look it up, your 51st Masters would be the 100th Masters played. You need to be there for that one.’ So maybe it’s 50 plus 1.”

The second Sunday of April 2036 is the 13th. You can bet Jim Nantz already knows that.

My latest column for the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana gives thanks to one of the best traditions with the Masters.

To put you in the proper mood, listen to the Masters theme.

From the column:

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Crank up the theme, start thinking of azaleas, and be sure to get the signature line right.

The Masters, a tradition unlike any other.

Despite a certain player not being in the field for the first time in 20 years, CBS still is going ahead with its plans to air the tournament. Indeed, the Masters is and always will be a celebration of golf. And just golf.

That goes to the core of the entire presentation. The telecast also is one of the reasons why we look forward to the Masters every year.

In an age of loud, blaring music, everything being sponsored, and all sorts of other clutter, the Masters remains the most pristine telecast in sports television. Perhaps in all of television.

You won’t hear endless promos for “Two Broke Girls” from Augusta National this week. That replay won’t be brought you by State Farm. They won’t show two shots and then cut to another three-minute block of commercials.

Obviously the technology is light years better, but at its essence, CBS’ coverage of the Masters is the same as it was when Jim McKay was on the call of Arnold Palmer’s victory in 1960. It is an annual reminder that sports TV used to be a much simpler viewing experience.

Say what you will about them, but Augusta National officials, who could collectively buy CBS (remember, Bill Gates is a member), continue to pass up big TV bucks to maintain the purity of the Masters telecasts: Only four minutes of commercials per hour and, blissfully, no network promos.

Naturally, Verne Lundquist is a big fan of the format. Now in his 50th year in the business, he enjoys stepping back into time every April.

“It’s refreshing,” said Lundquist, who will work his 30th Masters this year. “It adds to the quality of the event. You use the word ‘pristine.’ The fact that we don’t do commercials and don’t do promos for what’s coming up on Monday night adds to the pleasure of the telecast.”

My latest Chicago Tribune column is about CBS’ first Masters without Tiger Woods in 20 years.

You also can access the column via my Twitter feed at @Sherman_Report.

It seems CBS and ESPN are going to air the tournament anyway.

Here is an excerpt from the column in which Jim Nantz finally had enough of the talk about Tiger.

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CBS analyst Nick Faldo predicts this will be the most “wide open” Masters in years, with as many as 30 players having a chance to win. One of them could be a relatively new face such as Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed from a highly touted class of first-time players at Augusta.

“I think we have something special in this rookie class,” said Jim Nantz, who will call his 29th Masters. “Once the tournament gets started, we’ll have a quick transition from the headlines of Tiger not being here to these young players and the impact they will have on golf.”

Nantz bristled at the barrage of questions about Woods late during a teleconference last week. He noted with some surprise nobody had asked about defending champion Adam Scott or Rory McIlroy, the two favorites to win.

“If Rory wins, I will be the least shocked guy in the world,” Nantz said.

Nantz’s larger point is that there still will be a golf tournament this week even without Woods, and that the Masters always seems to deliver memorable finishes.

“I don’t think the golf fan cares about the ratings,” Nantz said. “I’ve never had anybody say, ‘Tell me about the ratings when Jack Nicklaus won in 1986.’ I never had anyone say, ‘Phil’s victory was great in 2004, but too bad about the rating.’ It was on Easter Sunday that year (which generally means a smaller rating).

“Yeah, we’re going to miss Tiger, but this tournament never has been about one player. It’s going to be thrilling, and I can’t wait to see what the next script is to be written.”