Masters exerts ‘prior restraint’?

The third round of the Masters Tournament is about to end and I want to comment on something that has stuck in my craw for the past several years.

CBS Sports has been broadcasting this professional golf “major” for as long as I can remember. Some years back, CBS hired a smart aleck announcer named Gary McCord to broadcast golf on the network.

McCord played on the PGA tour. He didn’t win any tournaments. But he fancies himself as a comedian. I don’t find him funny.

Neither do the snotty souls who belong to Augusta (Ga.) National Golf Club, where they play the Masters every year.

What did these ultra-rich guys do some years back? They ordered CBS to pull McCord off its broadcast team for the Masters.

Why did this stick in my craw? It kind of smacks of a form of “prior restraint,” with an exclusive, private country club dictating to a major media outlet how it can do its job.

This brings to mind a question I wish I would have asked the corporate owner of the Amarillo Globe-News, where I worked for nearly 18 years until Aug. 31, 2012. William Morris III is chairman of Morris Communications, which owns the G-N. It is based in Augusta, Ga. Morris is a member of Augusta National, an outfit filled with members who are “invited” to join; one doesn’t apply for membership, mind you. The blue-noses at the country club have to ask you to join.

As near as I can tell, the predominant qualifier for membership has something to do with the size of one’s bank account.

The question I wish I would have asked Billy Morris? Why do you people at Augusta National take yourselves so damn seriously?

One thought on “Masters exerts ‘prior restraint’?”

  1. Mr. Kanelis,

    Neither you nor I have to “like” the fat cats who run the Masters Tournament (and, as you pointed out their private golf club).

    I didn’t know what “prior restraint” meant, so I looked it up. To my untutored self it seems a poor analogy, for the following reasons:

    1) Augusta National Golf Club’s private status distinguishes it from government.
    2) As such, anyone who steps onto the property without permission, is trespassing.
    3) Augusta National Golf Club therefore exercises its legitimate prerogatives when it throws out a TV announcer that offends them. Such prerogatives are implied under any respectable government that respects property rights (which still includes the US and Georgia, last I checked).

    You probably already know that Augusta National Golf Club strictly enforces station breaks – to which CBS gladly agrees and abides.

    As for membership policies, neither you nor I have to like those either.

    As for Billy Morris, why not ask him yourself? In a full-page local or national newspaper ad?

    (I’d LIKE that!)

    (but don’t expect an answer)

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