The Open Is Here! First Day Preview & Comment Thread

The Open at Muirfield has arrived and early Thursday is surprisingly breezy out of the west, meaning the first hole is directly into the wind. Combine that with the firmness, the narrowness, the severity of the rough, and it will be long tough day. And as I note in Golf World Daily, the driver will be seldom used all week.

That said, Miguel Angel Jimenez is 4-under through 5!

Your starting times here.

Scoring here.

For Americans, the ESPN broadcast schedule is here.

As for my viewing, I'll likely take in an oddball group for some fun, the McIlroy-Mickelson-Matsuyama 9:44 grouping and then it'll be time for afternoon tea. Cheers!

Comments

[GinGHIN]

Top Tip for ESPN: I bet many viewers would gladly pay a premium for minimalist coverage. All you have to do is point the cameras on the players and show golf shots. Not players getting ready to hit shots, not walking between shots, not lining up putts, not practicing, not flashbacks, not mind-numbing special features, not close up shots of players watching other players. Please, just golf shots with a few screen graphics - maybe score, distance from hole and wind direction. Don't show marking of and putting anything closer than a foot unless they miss them. Maybe open mikes so we can hear what the players are saying. I can figure out the rest. You can give Curtis, Zinger and Rinaldi the day off, thereby saving money and increasing your profits.

[Ludell Hogwaller]

GinGHIN,
Your post is most enjoyable, especially when I read it out loud in my best John Cleese impression, full volume.

[vwgolfer]

ESPN is the most horrendous network in the history of broadcast television.

[Ghillie]

As I've said before, US networks (and cable) seem to think that the last thing golf viewers want to see is coverage of actual golf. Therein lies the essential difference between them and the British covering companies, Beeb or private.

[Chris from DE]

Honestly, the best coverage all day is the condensed coverage shown in the evening. I watched for a few hours this morning and I was going to scream if I had to watch Tom Rinaldi get annoyingly close and ask the dumbest questions to another player.

Azinger actually said today that no one has ever hit a hook from the toe of the club face. He wasn't even joking. He said that. It was one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.

[Ghillie]

Agreed. Rinaldi was depressingly banal.

[digsouth]

Chris from DE-

Zinger needs to spend a hole with me,,,toe hooks for free.

As to enjoying TW walking vs actual golf shots from other players- wait till the weekend if he is in the top 10, when we wll be ab le to see him blow his nose and other interesting things, instead of someone ''QUIETLY CLIMBING UP THE LEADERBOARD (That means going 6 under with no camera on them, and a final putt on 18, finally caught by the awesome producers who noticed the leaderboard) YES- quiet because TV chose to make it that way.

If players are contracted on TV images, and some great (continual top 25) golers get no coverage, this no image of their sponsors, then you nd up with a top player with a NASCAR style shirt getting even more money, and joe goodplayer getting snubbed yet again, with no coverage netting no sponsor opportunities.

It has appened in Golf, stating with Camillo's 2 wins a few years ago, where some of the winners sound like John Gorce reading off his sponsors in a winning interview instead of actually giving a heartfelt interview- and Underall, and Titleist,, ohe and mom and dad, Spith last week, paraphrasing.