Fox Sports Off To Strong U.S. Open Ratings Start

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An excellent start over a very long day on Fox Sports no doubt learning to love these west coast venues.

Here goes, with comparisons to 2012, the last time the U.S. Open was played in the Pacific Time Zone.

Fox (Network), 8-11 PM ET: 2.4/4

Up 71% from NBC in 2014. In 2012 at Olympic Club, NBC drew a 2.07.

Fox Sports 1

U.S. Open Noon-8 pm ET: 1.28

That's up 20% from last year’s comparable first round coverage on ESPN (1.07), down from 2012 at Olympic when ESPN drew a 1.6.

Gary Player Celebrates 50th Anniversary Of His U.S. Open Win By Reminding The USGA To Roll Back The Ball!

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In the 50th anniversary year of Gary Player's career Grand Slam-clinching win in the U.S. Open, Cliff Schrock digs into the archives to look at the clinching years and ages.

Player was at Chambers Bay Thursday to celebrate the anniversary and put his hosts in their place.

Q. Gary, you won that 65 Open at Bellerive, which has been out of the public eye for a few years, but is coming back. Tell everybody a little bit about what kind of golf course Bellerive is. Maybe even mention some of the best holes or your favorite holes and tell us how you think the players are going to fare there, whether it's an easy time or whether you think it's going to be really tough.

GARY PLAYER: When I went there it was the longest U.S. Open course in history. And it was young. And I go back there now, which I went back to be inducted into the Hall of Fame in St. Louis, which I appreciated, and looked at Bellerive and trees, it's just in undated with trees, and this beautiful golf course today. And it's an appropriate place to have an Open. But very few places today in any tournament, due to the mismanagement of the golf ball, which is actually deteriorating the game to a large extent, not in professional golf; professional golf has never been so healthy, ever. But amateur golf, which is the heart of the game, we're getting less players and less players. You can buy a golf course for a dollar today, if you take over the debt, which nobody does, but rounds are down because they're making golf courses longer, they're putting bunkers in front of the greens, they're making crazy undulating greens, and the members hate it, and then they levy you and so they resign out from the club.

So bleak and yet, so true. Go on...

We're desperately running out of water in the world, and the fertilizer and the machinery and then they levy you again. So if they just leave the golf course as they are for the amateur members and cut the ball back 50 yards for professional golf we wouldn't have to waste hundreds of millions of dollars altering golf courses and making them 7900 yards long and increasing the expenses and getting less people to play. We're in dire straits at the moment. If you look at Augusta, from what I've heard, if I'm correct, they're now buying the street on No. 2 and the street on No. 5, and they're making the tee back on the street. Augusta cannot go back any further, they cannot go in the streets. Well, they are. They're buying the streets. So where are we going? And we've never had a big man play golf here, guys, ladies. We've never had a big man other than George Bayer, who played in our time. Wait until a LeBron James and the Michael Jordans and the Shaq O'Neals, and they're coming. Because this is the only sport you can make more money at 80 than when you were world champion. It doesn't apply to other sports, because you finish at 30 years of age. And so where are we going? We saw Bubba Watson at the 13th hole of Augusta hit a driver and a pitching wedge. We saw him hit a driver and a 9-iron over the 15th on a par 5 over the green. So where are we going? It's making a farce of the game. And they're two different games. And our leaders won't adhere to that.

I love old people who don't care anymore, even when they are insulting their hosts.

They insist that it's the same game. Well, go and watch some of these guys play and you'll realize it's not the same game. And so what we've got to do, we've got to go accordingly on the right path and make the right decision. Because if you make the wrong decision, it will be comparable to what happened with Polaroid and Kodak, who are now extinct today. And their executive, their CEO said, I'm reluctant to change because we're doing so well. And his advisors are saying change, and they're nonexistent today. And Steve Jobs did the opposite, he had vision and went the right way, and was highly successful. So the decision our leaders take now has a great determining factor in what happens in the future.

Now, back to 7,900 yard course that's taking almost six hours to play this afternoon.

Fox Sports Begins U.S. Open Coverage On Time, Telecast Also Mercifully Comes To An End

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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:


It's Come To This Files: Back-Up Caddies Retained

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The Guardian's Ewan Murray reports on the falls of Henrik Stenson caddie Gareth Lord and Stephen Gallacher bagman Damian Moore, prompting Stenson to deem the conditions "dangerous."

Murray writes:

Stenson’s caddie Gareth Lord is expected to appear for Thursday’s opening round despite a fall on the 16th hole on Wednesday, which resulted in a heavy strapping being applied to his wrist and a subsequent x-ray.

Shortly afterwards, Gallacher’s bagman Damian Moore fell when walking in rough on the 6th hole and twisted an ankle. Moore’s prospects of appearing for day one at the US Open are regarded as slim after a protective cast was placed on the injury.

The concern for falls was so great that one agency has backup drivers for their loopers.

Rex Hoggard reports.

Mac Barnhardt and Jimmy Johnston with Lagardere Unlimited confirmed to GolfChannel.com that they have retained a local caddie for the week to substitute in case one of their players’ caddies is injured or unable to work.

Michael Greller, Jordan Spieth’s caddie who used to work at Chambers Bay, recommended Brendon Solomonson to serve as the group’s backup caddie for the week.

Video: Chambers Bay Eighteenth Hole Flyover

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The finisher signals the arrival of the much anticipated U.S. Open and few holes are more intriguing than the 18th. While I'm not as fascinated by the alternating par of the 1st and 18th depending on wind or the committee's mood, what does interest is the decision for Sunday's final round. Will a reachable par-5 encourage going for the green in two, or will we see a long, dreary, hard-to-par two-shotter?

Either way, this nice lay-of-the-land hole is marred only but poorly constructed "basement" bunker added for the U.S. Open and hopefully filled in soon. The strategic concept of the bunker is sound, the construction execution lacking because it's so different looking than any other hazard on the course. Not only is the look jarring, it reminds the golfer that this is not a natural bunker, but instead something added later to penalize. A

The final Fox Sports flyover:

Strap In: The 2015 U.S. Open Has Arrived!

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All the talk of scouting, setup options, bad climbs, fescue grass, Fox Sports and the mysterious Chambers Bay arrives Thursday with a long but potentially captivating day of U.S. Open golf.

I wish I could read everything that was written today but we were busy bickering away on the Live From set about the course.

Here's where Jaime Diaz, John Feinstein and I discuss the role USGA setup and the importance of risk-reward golf. And another segment on the USGA's evolution.

Here's where we talk about our picks and you can hear my fantasy prediction of a Rickie-Phil Monday playoff (okay, the match-up possibility, not the idea of a playoff). Speaking of Phil Mickelson, he's not going to be hitting many drivers, which is a big change from his initial assessment when he played here a few weeks ago. Which is more a statement about the firm and fast golf than it is about Phil's game. He's also sounding confident about matching up with the sensiblities of the course, as Sean Martin notes here.

I have a good feeling about the course setup after what I saw last Sunday. It feels like Mike Davis and Jeff Hall will have things playing tough but not insanely so. The water has been pouring at night onto Chambers Bay! Still, here are things to look for indicating things are getting goofy.

Brad Fritsch (1:00 pm tee time Thursday) had a solid set of tweets assessing the course and he covers the buried lede of the week: the fan experience here, which is getting rave reviews until one tries to see golf. This is huge on a number of levels, starting with the prospects of a return to Chambers Bay but also in potentially impacting how the golf is perceived. We may seem some birdies without roars on holes where there should be people. The 8th hole is going to be played in complete solitude, which may be best as no one needs to see what happens up there.

GolfDigest.com's Dave Kindred filed a dandy on the weird viewing experience this week.

And here are Brad's Tweets: