Augusta Gets Longer, Bighorn Ratings Smaller

They have fired up the bulldozers again at Augusta National.

It’s nothing like last year’s extensive remodeling project, when seven par-four holes and nine holes in all were altered to add nearly 300 yards, but Augusta is undergoing another course change.

Work is continuing this week on the 435-yard par-four fifth hole, which will wind up being lengthened about 20 yards when the tees are moved back.

But that’s not all. The bunker complex on the left side is being moved about 80 yards closer to the green and both the bunkers and the fairway are being shifted slightly to the right to create even more of a dogleg.

For the players who stay left, it’ll take a drive of 315 yards to carry the bunkers.

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The overnight Nielsen rating for Monday’s “Battle at Bighorn” on ABC was 5.3, down for the second consecutive year.

Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus defeated Sergio Garcia and Lee Trevino, 3 and 2, in a prime-time match-play event. The match produced a 9 share, the lowest in the four-year history of the show.

Last year’s overnight rating for Woods-Annika Sorenstam and David Duval-Karrie Webb was 5.9 and a 10 share, although it measured slightly higher in the final national Nielsen rating, at 6.1 and an 11 share.

In 2000, when Woods lost to Garcia, the national rating was 7.6 and a 13 share.

The first prime-time event, when Woods defeated Duval in 1999 at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, drew a 6.9 rating and a 12 share.

The overnight ratings measure the 53 largest television markets, covering about 65% of the U.S.