TNT's Ridiculously Bad Open Coverage [Non-Spoiler]

[Harry Longshanks]

[Note: I know there is a British Open Thread, but I wanted to discuss this in a thread without spoilers for those of us still watching the delayed broadcast.]


TNT is notorious for it's bad golf coverage. But after Thursday and Friday, I thought things were looking up. Nothing spectacular, but nothing infuriating either.

So what happened on Saturday?

I got up and turned on the DVR to watch the coverage on TNT for the first 2 hours before it flipped over to ABC.

I was able to watch 2 hours of coverage in about 30 minutes because they showed so little golf. The number of commercials seems above average, but what really baffled me was what they showed when they were supposed to be covering the tournament. With players on the course, they showed more filler, talking heads, tips, interviews, and range video than I have ever seen in a broadcast, much less a major. There were times between commercials where they showed only 1 golf shot.

And what was with no on-course commentators? Does ABC not allow them to split time on days with a split broadcast.

Did anyone else notice this, or have I just not had enough caffeine yet this morning?

[Lemay427]

Ya it was horrible. So many stories and commercials...SHOW GOLF SHOTS!!!!


ABC coverage is horrible. NBC needs to buck up when ABC loses the rights to broadcast.

[Gummi Bear]

I DVR'd it also.

I watched it for about 30 minutes before I was so mad that I deleted it.

The programming director there needs to drink a nice tall cup of bleach before covering another golf event.

And another question:

This isn't just a TNT thing, CBS does it as well. What the !@#$%^&* is with the funeral music while they're showing the stats!?!?!? I don't know whether to cry, cuss, or slit my own wrists.

[Harry Longshanks]

ABC coverage is horrible.

I've reached the conclusion that when they say "ESPN on ABC", it's code for "This is going to suck."

[shortgame85]

[Note: I know there is a British Open Thread, but I wanted to discuss this in a thread without spoilers for those of us still watching the delayed broadcast.]

The coverage this morning was the worst I've ever seen. I had only a limited time, 45 minutes, to watch the coverage, from 6:30a.m. until 7:15a.m. I would be surprised if I saw more than 5 or 7 actual iron or tee shots during that time. I did see a fair number of commercials and a lot of useless program filler. The stations coverage on Thursday and Saturday, of which I saw only a little, seemed equally poor. I really don't know what TNT's goal was by producing this broadcast, other than irritating the hell out of the only people who would be watching coverage of the Open Championship at such an early hour ( or, really, at any hour ). I think the producers need to be sentenced to spend a weekend locked in John Daley's RV, as Mr. Daley regales them of Open's past as he smokes, drinks and scratches the weekend away. Perhaps that peculiar and particularly distasteful form of hell would communicate clearly the extreme displeasure their coverage engendered amongst devoted fans.

[Harry Longshanks]

Well, at least ABC seems to have settled into some relatively average coverage. Took them long enough.

[Scratch-Hopeful]

I've reached the conclusion that when they say "ESPN on ABC", it's code for "This is going to suck."

I think the ESPN part covers the sucking part.....

[Harry Longshanks]

I think the ESPN part covers the sucking part.....

Okay, that made me laugh.

Bravo, Scratchy. Bravo.

[cart_racr]

When they brought on the heavy breathing British dude for about an hour today....my head just about exploded. They need to learn to mute the mics of people who are not talking.

[steve8820]

Full agreement. The coverage has been terrible. SHOW SOME GOLF!!!!!!

[themasteroncbs]

Anytime there's golf coverage with Peter Alliss involved you know it's going to be terrible. I can't for the life of me figure out what the appeal is with that old weirdo, but somehow he keeps coming back year after year. Also, I'm not a big fan of Tirico either although he does seem to be at least a little more professional than Dan Hicks.