Buck Reflects On Fox's U.S. Open Run, What Kills Him Not To Have Called

Fox Sports’ Joe Buck penned an uplifting serenade to five years of Fox handling USGA events and namely, the U.S. Open.

While he has fond memories of everything coming together for both parties at Pebble Beach, including a fitting Tap Room finish, only one thing really bugs the broadcaster. Not getting to call a Tiger win, or at least, contending U.S. Open week.

Regarding Tiger: We never got to see THE MAN do his thing. (MC, DNP, DNP, MC, T21 in our five years.) And that kills me.

Buck also offers this about golf on TV.

But I wouldn’t trade our five-year run for anything, because of the people I worked with (starting with our producer, Mark Loomis), what we experienced together, what we learned. Here are some quick lessons: Let the players and caddies talk. Less is more. From the field is better than from the booth. And the Fox Sports production-side innovations will become a big part of TV coverage elsewhere. Drone shots and more ball-tracers already are.

While Fox promised a lot and severely under-delivered for the USGA, they did end up bringing the disruptor role that was promised by pushing others into more usage of tracer, drone and maybe someday, more mic’s in the cup to hear conversations on greens.

I would add their hole graphics, which were the most artistically beautiful and useful when they worked, and their placement of cameras to better give viewers a sense of what the player faced along with the scale and details of tee shots. (The Golf.com gang touched on this and more in this week’s Confidential, point 5).

Buck also deserves credit for adjusting his style and stepping up immediately in big situations when he did not let controversy stop him from calling it as he saw it.