The LPGA Tour Could've Shown Ochoa's Final Tournament

Last weekend, there were probably about a handful of articles bemoaning the LPGA Tour's inability to somehow broadcast the Tres Marias Championship, which was Lorena Ochoa's last as a full-time pro golfer.  Some wondered if it was a contractual issue for Golf Channel in their deal with the LPGA.  Len Shapiro found out that it wasn't a contractual deal.  It was more complicated than that.

Golf Channel spokesman Dan Higgins, "It was not our call; it was the LPGA's call."

"I was told that it was not possible due to logistical and technical video feed issues from Mexico," Higgins said in an e-mail. "As with all of TV production, what may seem simple, never really is."

The LPGA Tour responded as well saying that their efforts to broadcast the event through any means - TV or Web streaming - fell through.

LPGA spokesman David Higdon said, "We did approach [the Golf Channel] to see if they would be interested. But the quality [of the international feed] was not acceptable to them. From our standpoint, we felt it was really important to get it on. The quality of play was amazing and obviously because of the historical significance."

Higdon said the LPGA also approached several companies about the possibility of streaming the international feed live over the LPGA Web site, and that fell through, as well.

Seems like a little bit of blamestorming here.  Here's the solution: get a time machine, go back a week, bring down like 20 Kodak Zi8s (since they shoot in HD), hook 'em up to computers broadcasting on Ustream, and show history.

If it weren't for Beth Ann Baldry doing play-by-play on Twitter, I would have had to rely on my Spanish comprehension skills (which are good, but still) to follow ESPN Deportes' John Sutcliffe being the SAP button on my Twitter feed.

[H/T Golf.com gang]