Smith/White Win First U.S. Four-Ball; Fox Has Shaky Debut

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The young guys ruled the stroke play qualifying but geezers and '13 Walker Cuppers Nathan Smith and Todd White won the first ever U.S. Amateur Four-Ball at Olympic Club over Sherrill Brit and Greg Earnhardt.

I couldn't find a game story on the USGA's new look website but there was this highlights video. FoxSports.com ran this AP story.**

**Here's David Shefter's story.

It's hard to say without having been there or seeing the telecast whether the event was a success. Yet given the diversity of age groups, backgrounds and playing styles, the event would seem to have been a home run as a replacement for the U.S. Amateur Public Links.

As for Fox's debut, the reviews weren't pretty.

I wasn't able to view the USGA-Fox Sports debut as the much beloved Mayo Clinic Courtyard Ponte Vedra is equipped with shower rails, easy oxygen tank access to rooms and drool cups to go with your bedpans. But no FS1 and only Golf Channel in the lobby where the nightly motorscooter races can be quite exciting.

However, I heard anecdotes from many of you. My collection of notes were capped off by the day two episode where the final was tape-delayed and Fox's signal was lost for a time.

While this was sure to be a rough start and a lot of people worked hard on the telecast, the beginning to fresh and innovative golf broadcasting appears to have been a struggle.

Judging by Corey Pavin's post round interview of Austin Connelly and Sam Burns, the former U.S. Open champion did not take any interviewing classes at UCLA.

And the live ProTracer-like effect beloved and demanded by fans was well received, even when it followed a divot. Numerous whooshing sound effects were not so popular with you, either.

Regarding the day one telecast, many were shocked that it took nearly one hour and forty minutes to see Holly Sonders, who then was seen very little beyond her first interview.

The Greg Norman-Joe Buck lead team did not inspire either, apparently discussing one player's calves, confusing names and making references to the "long week" (wait until they do 8 hours a day on the U.S. Open weekends).  

Nathan Smith, part of the eventual winning and building a legendary amateur golf resume, didn't get much love or backstory told, I'm told.

For all of this, our friends at Nielsen say Fox Sports 1 earned a .058 (67,000 viewer average). Golf Channel's Live From during the same window and discussing the all important Tuesday proceedings at The Players nearly doubled that with a .095 rating.

However, in Fox's ratings defense, about 4.5 million AT&T cable customers were blacked out by Fox in a dispute with AT&T U-Verse. They got darts instead:


Things turned uglier during the second day telecast as Smith/White opened a big lead and Fox made the decision to tape delay the final match by a few minutes to have more golf in the broadcast window. The USGA Tweeted the outcome while the match had two more holes to play. However, in that time the screen went to color bars:

Eventually, last Monday's U.S. Open media day show was put on Fox Sports 1 as the technical difficulties were sorted out. The USGA Tweeted that it was a "router" issue.

Thankfully, no one tossed over to the media day show by saying, "just a week ago."

The nice folks at Fox, no doubt embarrassed, issued this apology when I inquired later in the evening:

During the telecast we experienced a minor technical issue with our transmission routing system which resulted in a small delay in our coverage. We recognized the issue immediately and worked as quickly as possible to fix it.  We certainly apologize for the delay and are grateful to our technical crew who made sure viewers were still able to see the entire Four-Ball Championship in its entirety.

There is now a @USGAonFox Twitter account mentioned by several Tweeters in their complaints. Unfortunately when I attempted to see if the USGA had tweeted an explanation, the account is restricted only to readers accepted by the account holder. Kind of a like an exclusive country club!

There is good news in this. Fox and the USGA did not have the most embarrassing episode on sports television this day. That goes to Shaq, whose size 22 got wrapped up in a cable during TNT's Sprint Halftime Show.

The clip: