PGA Championship faces CBS blackout for Time Warner Cable customers

With the PGA Championship set to begin Thursday, tournament officials face the prospect that millions of fans in Los Angeles and cities across the nation will not be able to watch the final rounds on CBS this weekend.

The network is embroiled in a dispute with Time Warner Cable, which has pulled it off the air in numerous markets that also include New York.

“Well, absolutely, our goal is to make sure that the PGA Championship is as visible and as watchable to as many people as possible,” Pete Bevacqua, the PGA chief executive, said during a Wednesday news conference at Oak Hill Country Club. “So we will continue to keep an eye on it as weekend coverage draws closer.”

PGA.com will provide limited streaming of the competition for all four days.

On a brighter note for the championship, the experiment that has fans selecting a pin location for the final round seems to be going well. The voting page at PGA.com has received a quarter-million hits, with 55,000 votes cast, officials said.

The PGA has asked fans to chose between four potential locations on the 15th green.

“There’s water down one side and a steep drop-off behind that green,” PGA executive Kerry Haigh said. “Any hole location on that green is challenging.”

With voting set to close at 5 p.m. EST on Saturday, caddies won’t have a chance to study the placement in advance. Still, golfer Ian Poulter said he’s OK with giving the public a choice.

“It’s not like one of the fans is going to go out there and put it one inch from the edge of the water, is it?” he asked.

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