On TV, some on course conversations better seen but not heard

Though the Watson eruption might seem somewhat funny to we Gen-HBO types with thicker skin and scarred eardrums, and the Golf Channel is a cable network with broad latitude regarding what it can televise, sprinkling F-bombs into mainstream broadcasts is reckless television. Sure, Watson will surely be fined by the PGA Tour, but the networks bounced it off a satellite and onto your TV screen. Twice, in this case. So we're clearly complicit to some degree.

I don't watch as much golf on TV as some, but I can think of only two recent instances in which an eavesdropping microphone captured illuminating conversation between player and caddie: last summer when Hunter Mahan was conversing with bagman John Wood down the stretch at the Travelers Championship, and two weeks ago when Steve Williams called Tiger Woods off a key shot at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. The rest is mostly a rote exchange of yardage and wind information, as in how far and how much. Riveting.

Though the PGA Tour said it has fielded inquiries about profane remarks uttered recently by prominent players, spokesman Ty Votaw said there's no sentiment at tour headquarters that encroaching network mikes are casting the tour in a bad light by catching a few potty mouths dispensing off-the-cuff remarks.

"We don't have that sense," Votaw said.

Players who are uncomfortable with the proximity of network microphones -- which can pick up nuanced conversation from a distance of five feet -- are encouraged to push them back to a comfortable distance, Votaw said.

Call me a prude, which would certainly represent a professional first, but perhaps it's time the networks understood that their microphones aren't the only listening agents that are increasingly sensitive.

So are many viewers, dagnabbit.