Professional wrestling is (a) staged and (b) often taped well in advance.  If you do watch wrestling and miss the most recent episode, you can find the results online in advance if it has been taped.  Even if it hasn't been taped, you could miss the broadcast, read the recap online, and probably not miss a thing.

As I was watching the ADT Championship yesterday on NBC, I couldn't help but have the same feelings about this tournament as I do about pro wrestling.

No, I don't think that the results were staged.  Hardly.  If the results were staged from the beginning, Annika would ride off into the sunset with a glass case filled with $1 million, not have been randomly selected for a drug test, and announced her un-"stepping away" upon winning.  Sadly, that didn't happen.

What I mean, though, is that the ADT Championship final round really lost a lot of its luster on television because it was tape delayed.  Not to begin a cliche sentence, but in the age of the Internet, spoilers are only a click away from interested parties. 

I was an interested party and went over to LPGA.com for the results.  They had them up even though the NBC telecast had not even started yet.  Even World Wrestling Entertainment doesn't put up spoilers before a key telecast!  They ruined their own telecast - that they paid for - by announcing the results.  Not to mention that it was not as though Golf News Net, Golf Channel, or any website with golf in the name had not posted the results before the NBC telecast at 3pm.

The LPGA Tour may be a niche sport.  Its leadership may make questionable decisions.  But the Tour's marquee event, its finale, should not be relegated to a taped broadcast.  There was nothing else on NBC on Sunday.  Notre Dame plays on Saturdays.  Even the Dew Action Sports Tour couldn't knock the LPGA Tour off of the air this weekend.  To paraphrase Bill O'Reilly, they should DO IT LIVE!

Broadcast the final round of the season, giving away $1 million to the champion, on live TV.  If it costs more, pay for it.  The NFL has been so awful this year that a few extra eyeballs might avoid those snoozer 4:15 games to watch someone win a million bucks.  But when they see that it has been taped, they probably changed the channel.  I watched the World Series of Poker final table the first time because I purposefully avoided the spoilers online.  Once I saw the first airing, I can't watch it again because I know what happens. 

That's the same kind of impact that a tape delayed ADT Championship has on the LPGA Tour.  The only difference is that ESPN gets a lot of mileage showing WSOP repeats to nightowls like me at 1am.