Just focusing on the positive!
The initial foray into golf broadcasting for Fox Sports was the mess you'd expect when a network is essentially debuting a new broadcast team during a Super Bowl spread out over several hundred acres.
Much of the telecast sparingly used the innovations predicted or even could muster up basic graphics showing a player's name and score, elements we've come to expect in the 21st century. There were many ill-timed pre-packaged features or studio visits as key players were on the course. Yes, those players were at least viewable on the mostly good Featured Group and Featured Hole coverage, but after NBC's approach to the U.S. Open, the change was jarring.
A full-page leaderboard meltdown for a few early hours, later chalked up to a "global" issue by lead announcer Joe Buck even as scoring worked everywhere else on the property. Gaps in sound for surprisingly long periods were embarrassing and detracted by a strong effort on the sound side of the telecast.
These hiccups were to be expected.
What wasn't expected: the narrow focus on name players and almost complete disregard for so many of the qualifiers who make the U.S. Open different than any other American event. They will be criticized for over-covering Tiger Woods, but the way in which he shot 80 warranted the attention he received. There was a brief interest in 15-year-old Cole Hammer with a package of Hammer fending off questions to make us all feel old. It was cute, but not as fun as seeing shots played at the wild and wacky Chambers Bay, even if they were by people we don't know. One would think the USGA should be about telling the stories of not just the stars, but also core golfers who are getting a rare shot at history.
In defense of the cameramen, who lost a few balls in the air, it's very difficult to see a ball out here. The combination of gray skies and off-color turf is the culprit.
There were certainly some fun shots from the Chase Cam (Chase Car once to Greg Norman), though the ones trying to show green contours seemed rushed.
The announcing was a mixed bag, with good energy and tone early on from all, but the long day appeared to catch up to the crew (though Norman offered some pointed analysis of Tiger late in the day before Joe Buck and Norman hit a wall and sounded exhausted). Curt Menifee seems totally out of his element, and maybe not even aware players don't get to choose their own tee times.
The fear of upsetting the USGA appears to be influencing the commentary, as the normally unrestrained Tom Weiskopf made a strong effort to hide his disdain for the course, only to not fool many viewers. Faxon and Flesch sounded comfortable and authoritative, as did Gil Hanse in a potentially awkward role of golf architecture expert. Former USGA Executive Director David Fay seemed underutilized after a briefly window with Tom Weiskopf, Buck and Norman. Charles Davis is yet another inexplicably bad interviewer while Holly Sonders seems woefully underutilized.Though she did get a nice hug from Phil Mickelson.
Also, six minutes of current Executive Director Mike Davis on camera talking about the course setup, while Phil Mickelson and Rory McIlroy were in key portions of their round, only fuels the perception that Fox is efforting to appease their broadcast partners at the expense of viewers.
Stay tuned for other reviews. In the meantime, one of the more adorable mistakes:
Update on 2015-06-19 04:55 by Geoff
**Reader Michael charted Fox's coverage and shared this...
--Fox showed 57 of the field's 156
--Players never seen in the top 10: Jason Dufner and Joost Luiten
--Notables not seen: Miguel Angel Jimenez, Richard Lee (U of Washington) Shane Lowry, Colin Montgomerie,
Update on 2015-06-19 18:12 by Geoff
**Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times with this review of the good and bad, along with an explanation of the scoring issues.
Later, when the on-screen leaderboard suddenly vanished, Buck quipped: “Of the 74 million people that are here on behalf of Fox Sports, somehow we don’t have our leaderboard. Somebody unplugged it. Once we can find the outlet, we’ll plug it back in.’’
It turns out that glitch wasn’t the network’s fault. Fox spokesman Dan Bell said the scoring system provided by USGA and their technology partner had a breakdown that affected the entire compound, including Golf Channel, TV Asahi and Sky Sports.
The Washington Post's Marissa Payne with this roundup of the social media chatter on Fox's U.S. Open debut.
Update on 2015-06-19 23:55 by Geoff
**Awful Announcing's Matt Yoder reviews the telecast and links to a Tweet by Ken Fang on the backstory of Joe Buck's opening line zinger directed at Johnny Miller.
Two years ago, NBC's Johnny Miler said about Fox,“You can’t just fall out of a tree and do the U.S. Open.... No way they can step in and do the job we were doing. It’s impossible." Today to start Open coverage, @Buck said, "We've dropped out of a tree onto your TV."
Joe said to Sports Business Journal's @Ourand_SBJ, “I’ll never forget what [Miller] said when Fox got the rights,” Buck said. “We haven’t been up in a tree. We’ve been working at it. We’ve been trying to get better at it."