PGA Tour on CBS (or Golf on CBS) is the branding used for broadcasts of the PGA Tour that are produced by CBS Sports, the sports division of the CBS television network in the United States.
Coverage overview
CBS Sports has been a carrier of PGA Tour golf since 1970. CBS was the Tour's primary television partner from 1970 to 1998, carrying 20 or more events per season. CBS shared duties as primary Tour carrier with ABC Sports from 1999 to 2006, covering around 15 events per season. CBS regained its primary status in 2007, once again covering 20 or more events per season, and has remained so ever since. CBS also holds broadcast television rights to the two of the four majors, the Masters Tournament and PGA Championship. CBS has long-term deals for the PGA Championship (initially from 1958 to 1964 and again starting in 1991). Meanwhile, the Masters operates under one-year contracts; CBS has been the main television partner every year since 1956.
Innovations
Frank Chirkinian was known as the 'father of televised golf' for the impact he had on golf broadcasting. He came to the attention of CBS after he impressed with his direction of the 1958 PGA Championship. Recruited by the network, who had no one with expertise in the relatively new field of golf broadcasting, he went on to be executive producer of CBS's golf coverage from 1959 to 1996. During his time at CBS, he was nicknamed "The Ayatollah" for his brusque, uncompromising approach to directing broadcasts. Chirkinian was particularly well regarded for the coverage of the Masters Tournament that he oversaw for four decades, working closely with the management of Augusta National to ensure they were satisfied. Following his retirement, he remained a consultant to CBS for golf coverage.
Chirkinian was responsible for a number of innovations in the television presentation of golf. He ensured as many microphones as possible were placed around the golf course to pick up the sounds of the tournament and golfers' conversations, rather than having commentators talk over silent footage. He showed as many golf shots as possible, cutting quickly from player to player to keep up the pace of the broadcast, unafraid of focusing on the game's stars. The use of multiple cameras was introduced during Chirkinian's tenure, including high-angle cameras mounted in trees and on blimps for the first time. Chirkinian said that he was most proud of being the first to display golfers' scores relative to par, rather than cumulatively, making it simpler to work out how they were faring relative to the rest of the field. Most of all, Chirkinian thought it important to allow coverage to focus on golfers and the shots they made, and was critical of recent innovations in golf broadcasting that he saw as distracting and unnecessary.
Since 2004, all of CBS's golf broadcasts outside of the Masters have featured super slow motion video of golfers' shots from a super slow motion camera used for swing analysis by Peter Kostis. The camera was known as "CBS Swing Vision" during its first year; it gained sponsorship from Konica Minolta the next season, an arrangement that has lasted over a decade. The feature was known as the "Konica Minolta SwingVision camera" in 2005, the "Bizhub SwingVision camera" from 2006 to 2008, and the "Konica Minolta Bizhub SwingVision camera" since 2009. The camera is actually provided by Tech Imaging Services, not Konica Minolta, which merely sponsors the feature to promote its Bizhub line of printers (Konica Minolta was previously well known as a still-image camera manufacturer but sold that product line to Sony in 2006). The cameras are present and used at the Masters, however they are not branded or sponsored.
In 2021, CBS adopted several new features in its golf broadcasts, including adding a rules analyst to its broadcast team, and adopting a persistent leaderboard displayed in the bottom-right of the screen (a feature introduced by Fox during its U.S. Open telecasts). In the 2023 season, CBS began to experiment with technology that can predict where a ball will land while in-flight, and live in-game interviews with players (particularly Max Homa during a hole at the Farmers Insurance Open).