{"id":78170,"date":"2016-05-02T18:46:36","date_gmt":"2016-05-02T18:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sandbox.web.rcn.net\/rcntv\/?p=78170"},"modified":"2023-02-17T22:22:56","modified_gmt":"2023-02-17T22:22:56","slug":"behind-mic-announcing-masters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.astound.com\/atvn\/behind-mic-announcing-masters\/","title":{"rendered":"Behind the Mic:  Announcing the Masters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As I hope you may have noticed, I have been away from my blog for a bit.\u00a0 April is a quiet sports month for us here at RCN so it is a good time for me to reunite with my wife and with my golf game.\u00a0 I managed to do both this past month \u2013 I went on a cruise and followed that up with a five-day golf trip.\u00a0 Those obviously made the month fly by, but it is good to be back at the computer and looking towards the baseball championships coming up this month.<\/p>\n<p>The last major sporting event that I watched prior to vacation was the Masters.\u00a0 I have always been intrigued by the reverence that the announcers seem to pay to this event.\u00a0 So I did some research and found that, in 1979, the radio and television announcers were given rules and a terminology guide from the Masters committee that they must follow.\u00a0 Some have lost their job by not obeying the edict.\u00a0 Here are a few of the rules:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Never refer to the gallery or patrons as a mob or crowd.<\/li>\n<li>Never estimate the size of the gallery.<\/li>\n<li>Never refer to players\u2019 earnings.<\/li>\n<li>Never refer to Masters prize money.<\/li>\n<li>De-emphasize the players\u2019 antics.<\/li>\n<li>Do not compare any holes at Augusta National with those at another golf course.<\/li>\n<li>The water in front of the 13<sup>th<\/sup> green is not to be called Rae\u2019s Creek, but a tributary of Rae\u2019s Creek.<\/li>\n<li>Make no reference to Masters tickets having been sold out.<\/li>\n<li>Make frequent mention of the presentation ceremony to be conducted at the end of the final round.<\/li>\n<li>Do not guess where a ball might be.<\/li>\n<li>Do not estimate the length of a putt.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>In addition, there is a Terminology and Style Guide which includes the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Augusta National Golf Club<\/strong> \u2013 not Country Club or Golf Course.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Patrons<\/strong> \u2013 the people in attendance are patrons, not fans or spectators.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Second Cut<\/strong> \u2013 there is no rough; the higher grass should be referred to as the second cut.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Bunkers<\/strong> \u2013 they are not sand traps.<\/li>\n<li><strong>First nine\/Second nine<\/strong> \u2013 not front nine and back nine.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Groupings<\/strong> \u2013 not \u201cthreesomes\u201d for rounds one and two.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Hole number 1<\/strong> \u2013 not 1<sup>st<\/sup><\/li>\n<li><strong>1st round<\/strong> \u2013 preferred term for rounds and <strong>Final round<\/strong> for 4<sup>th<\/sup><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are more rules and more terminologies, but you get the idea.\u00a0 And\u2026 if you announce the Masters, you BETTER get the idea.\u00a0 Gary McCord was fired in 1994 for saying that \u201cbikini wax\u201d was used on the Augusta greens to make them slick and that some of the bunkers around the course looked like \u201cbody bags\u201d.\u00a0 He has not been asked back.\u00a0 Long-time announcer Jack Whitaker once referred to the gallery as a \u201cmob scene\u201d and the Augusta committee got him removed from the broadcast.<\/p>\n<p>This Masters will be remembered for the collapse of Jordan Spieth in the final round, but I, for one, paid a bit more attention to every word that was spoken during the broadcast.\u00a0 And, I am quite sure, so did every one of the announcers (if they wanted to keep the job).<\/p>\n<p><strong>ABOVE THE EARS (SOME MUSINGS)<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Some good news out of Philadelphia \u2013 a new <a href=\"http:\/\/www.philadelphiaeagles.com\/\">Eagles<\/a>\u2019 quarterback, the <a href=\"http:\/\/flyers.nhl.com\/\">Flyers<\/a> made the playoffs, and, better yet, the <a href=\"http:\/\/philadelphia.phillies.mlb.com\/index.jsp?c_id=phi\">Phillies <\/a>are winning. Light at the end of what has been a very dark tunnel.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol start=\"2\">\n<li>Speaking of Eagles\u2019 football, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nfl.com\/draft\/2016\/profiles\/carson-wentz?id=2555259\">Carson Wentz<\/a> played for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gobison.com\/\">North Dakota State<\/a>. I did a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.goleopards.com\/\">Lafayette<\/a>-North Dakota State game in Fargo, North Dakota, back in 2011.\u00a0 Boy, do they love their football.\u00a0 It was a packed house at the indoor stadium with the loudest crowd I have experienced.\u00a0 Lafayette lost 42-6.\u00a0 There is not much else to do out there.\u00a0 In the local pub the night before the game, dogs sat on the bar stools and they had a meat raffle!\u00a0 What?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol start=\"3\">\n<li>I mentioned <a href=\"http:\/\/m.phillies.mlb.com\/player\/488721\/peter-bourjos\">Bourjos<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/m.phillies.mlb.com\/player\/514917\/cesar-hernandez\">Hernandez<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/m.phillies.mlb.com\/player\/546318\/odubel-herrera\">Herrera<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/m.phillies.mlb.com\/player\/596748\/maikel-franco\">Franco<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/m.phillies.mlb.com\/player\/429667\/ryan-howard\">Howard<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/m.phillies.mlb.com\/player\/520471\/freddy-galvis\">Galvis<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/m.phillies.mlb.com\/player\/519237\/cameron-rupp\">Rupp<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/m.phillies.mlb.com\/player\/595963\/tyler-goeddel\">Goedel <\/a>as the Phillies position players to start the season. However, it has been the pitching staff, both starters and relievers, who have been responsible for the success of the team so far.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol start=\"4\">\n<li>As I write this, every team in the National League East, except the <a href=\"http:\/\/atlanta.braves.mlb.com\/index.jsp?c_id=atl\">Braves<\/a>, is at .500 or better. The Phillies have the fourth best record in the National League and third best in the NL East.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol start=\"5\">\n<li>Jim Best will offer up his blog on this site next week. Thanks to him, John Leone, and Scott Barr filling in for me.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I hope you may have noticed, I have been away from my blog for a bit.\u00a0 April is a quiet sports month for us here at RCN so it is a good time for me to reunite with my wife and with my golf game.\u00a0 I managed to do both this past month \u2013&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"Yoast SEO Relevanssi index exclude","inline_featured_image":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,4],"tags":[176,190,331,421],"class_list":["post-78170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-behind-the-mic","category-featured","category-sports","tag-eagles","tag-flyers","tag-masters","tag-phillies"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - 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