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via Reuters

via Reuters

One man arguably outshone all the rest at the Masters Tournament last week: Phil Mickelson. Despite not being able to win the trophy, Lefty won the hearts of many in the golf world with his magnificent final-round run. And post-event, a lot of controversies arose about the game’s coverage of the defectors. Amid the rumors floating around about the coverage choices by CBS, golf analyst, Jim Nantz takes a stand for the media house giant.

The CBS and Phil Mickelson controversy

At Augusta last week, Mickelson outperformed himself on Sunday. Carding a 65 with 7 under par on the final round, he made his way to the top of the leaderboard, only narrowly missing out on his fourth Green Jacket. With his record-breaking performance, Lefty found himself many new admirers that day, many of whom began wondering why he wasn’t covered by CBS as much as he should have been.

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The first conclusion every golf fan jumped to was his LIV Golf involvement. And the rumors only grew from there. Many began insinuating CBS actively played a role in keeping him out and hid him in the shadows on purpose. But that’s not the media giant’s side of the story, of course! Their claims, on the other hand, are quite the contrary, brought about by their hit sportscaster, Jim Nantz.

Nantz recently joined Sports Illustrated’s Jimmy Traina for an interview where he addressed the widely spreading rumor. “I think if you went back and looked at the full coverage on Sunday… our guys were really on Phil,” he stated. “There was no effort at all by anybody at CBS to treat anyone any differently.”

Nantz defends CBS against the rumors

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The CBS Master Anchor claimed that it only seemed like Mickelson was kept hidden because of how the leaderboard looked like. “Part of it is the optics,” he stated. He claimed that although the 6-time major-league winner played remarkably well throughout the day, his biggest hits came quite late.

via Imago

The analyst explained that Lefty’s push to the top came only during the final two holes, which no one could have predicted. “When you look at a leaderboard at the end and you see that Phil’s tied for second, you think, well, my gosh, they must have been on him all day,” he stated. “But you don’t know how it’s all going to play out.”

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Now that some light has been shed on CBS’ side, do you suppose the LIV golfer was in fact treated fairly with the coverage? Let us know in the comments below.