For the first, I like the Swing Vision for bad shots. For a 340 drive down the middle, there is not much takeaway from that. But for a 160 yard chunk (cold top I saw it called here ) , or a duck hook, or a hosel rocket... that is what I want to see the analysis of. Mainly because I am guilty of all of those, but I imagine 95% of all viewers are. Let us see what happened that led to it. Maybe that is just the educator in me.
They have Trackman on every tee box but only a certain amount of cameras with TopShot tracking so it's really about showing the data when they have it. There's also no guarantee that either system picks up the terrible shots with any accuracy. To some degree, I think, there's also the idea that they're trying to highlight just how good these guys are, not that they're human. To another degree, I think, these are actually humans and they're probably much happier to see their highlights, not their lowlights on TV.
Get rid of "Now we go to 18, where some random player who is 20 shots off the lead is hitting his approach in/has a 70 foot putt for birdie"- yes, he makes it, we know.
There are only so many shots happening at once though. Going to 18 to watch someone make a 70 foot putt isn't dramatic, but it's more interesting than watching Rory stand on the tee waiting for the group in front of him to find their ball in the woods.
I love the mic'd up idea- Is there a player's union/ would they need to ok this?
Strictly speaking, there's no union but the PGA Tour is made up of the players themselves so it kind of functions that way. There is more than one reason the players and caddies aren't mic'd though. First, they really don't want to have to think about everything they say being televised while their trying to golf. Second, and most importantly, is that it could lead to a competitive advantage. Players could easily have people in the stands listening in to broadcasts to hear what other players are hitting, what their though process is, what conditions are like in certain areas of the course, etc. I'd guess it's similar to why there's no baseball broadcast that includes nothing but mic'd up dugouts and bullpens.