Tracking runaway leader on digital rumour mill

Not Watching The Masters, Day Two. The tournament has chug-chugged along on its merry way in Augusta but for all of it we’ve seen, it may as well be in a galaxy far, far away.

Having slept on a three-shot overnight lead, Jordan Spieth went out yesterday and birdied the second, the fifth and the eighth, the 10th, the 13th and the 15th. We know this because we can read a website and scroll through an app. But we couldn't watch it on TV.

Spieth ended yesterday on 14-under-par. But because of the Masters’ ludicrous rationing out of their coverage, eight of his birdies over the first two days of the tournament have happened while the TV stations are off air. Essentially, the winning of one of the world’s great sports events has happened behind a locked door.

Out shopping

Indeed, it was all more or less done and dusted by mid-afternoon. With a good three to four hours left until

Sky

and

Setanta

started their live action, Spieth was out the gap and away. You knew that by the time they switched on, Spieth would surely be out shopping for the world’s biggest jacuzzi to fill with models to whom he has promised all the 21-year-old they can handle. Nobody – not Tiger, not nobody – has been this far ahead, this early, this young. And yet we were following it on what amounted to a digital rumour mill.

We thought the Masters couldn’t possibly get more dull than last year’s Sunday afternoon. But at least when Bubba Watson was strolling away from the field, you got to watch it happening. Bad enough that Spieth has reduced the weekend to a matter of wondering which of Angel Cabrera or Mark O’Meara will keel over first but we didn’t even get to see him do it.

“All the energy has gone out of the place,” Nick Faldo opined on Setanta as Rory McIlroy and Phil Mickelson hit the turn last night.

“The concentration of a few players is going to be affected as well and I think Rory might be one of them. All the weight of expectation and now they’re just out of it.

“They’re scrambling to make the cut. We had a dozen guys who came in here believing they could win and Jordan has just given them a two-by-four to the side of the head. He’s sucked all the fun out of it. Now it’s a real grind.”

Within 90 seconds, McIlroy’s tournament was over. It was over already but a duffed chip and a three-putt left him walking to the 10th tee 17 shots behind Spieth. So it was over, over.

What we did manage to see of Spieth had been smooth and irresistible. Red Button golf is better than no bread so Amen Corner was the first time we saw him. His lead was getting silly by this stage, to the point where were willing him to hit it in the water a few times just to keep the thing interesting.

But no – his play was flawless. Never have so many wished ill on a perfectly agreeable 21-year-old who is doing something better than anyone else on the planet just at that very moment.

Mind you, whatever our own annoyance at not being able to watch Spieth win the Masters, it was as nothing compared to Sky’s at not being able to show it to us.

Paul McGinley was practically hopping out of his chair, describing what Spieth had done behind all our backs.

“He’s basically spread-eagled this field. He has this tournament won.” McGinley, of course, is an honest man. A straight shooter.

Turning off

We’re not saying that Sky’s occasionally easily-flustered presenter David Livingstone isn’t both of those things but he nearly pulled a muscle trying to find a way to keep people from turning off as soon as they’d turned on.

“Of course, due to broadcasting restrictions, we can’t show you live coverage until eight o’clock but before then we do have plenty of analysis,” he says, before cutting to a pre-cooked package detailing how hard it is to achieve the career Grand Slam. And then another one on caddies at Augusta. This has not been Sky’s finest Masters.

Their main innovation this year has been holograms of the players and the green. And in fairness, they worked pretty well. A life-size player hologram standing beside Butch Harmon as he points out the various weight shifts through the swing is undeniably cool.

Problem is, all anyone wants to see when the Masters is on is the Masters. Holograms butter very few parsnips when a record score is being posted behind closed doors by someone who could be the future of the sport. All in all, the most frustrating sports-watching experience imaginable.