Fox learns from 'rookie' mistakes covering U.S. Open in '15, vows better broadcast
Fox held a conference call with reporters last week to discuss its television coverage of the U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club.
Still fresh in many minds, however, was last year's Open at Chambers Bay in Washington. Not the golf part, the TV part. With barely any golf experience, it was Fox's first effort carrying a major championship after prying the Open from NBC with a 12-year contract that pays the USGA a reported $93 million per year.
The network drew heavy flak — complaints about player identification, awkward camera angles, lack of expertise, poor ball visibility and more. Much more.
Some viewers likely hated that it wasn't NBC. Joe Buck, Fox's voice of Major League Baseball, the NFL and now golf, had heard it all, and he used the call to to respond.
“I've never been more proud of an event that I've covered on television,” said Buck, who made his golf debut at Chambers Bay. “I've been lucky enough to do 18 World Series, and I've done four Super Bowls and I've done a game to a television audience of over 110 million people, and there aren't a lot of people walking this planet that can say that.
“But going into last year's U.S. Open and coming out of last year's U.S. Open, I've never been more proud of an event that we've covered on Fox. Period. I refuse come on here and apologize for 2015. That's ridiculous. The critics were unkind. That's not a news flash. That's kind of the way of the world. When you start, you've got to earn your position.
“And until you've done it, you have no idea what it takes to do that.”
Although clearly peeved, Buck, who even before the Open said learning golf broadcasting was “like learning Mandarin,” was candid about his own work. He said where he “failed most of the time” was keeping up with the frenetic pace of monitoring the scoreboard while managing the constantly shifting action between tees, greens and everywhere in between.
“There are a lot of moving parts covering golf,” he said. “And you make the mistake of thinking going in that it's going to be slow. It's actually the opposite. It's by far the fastest event when you're sitting in the chair. And until you're sitting in the chair you don't know what it's like.”
Buck acknowledged the rookie mistakes but continued to stand his ground during a brief interview Tuesday.
“How can you not?” take it personally, he asked. “Forget me. I felt I was speaking on behalf of everybody that was down in that television compound working really, really hard to do their very best. There's so little room for trial and error. You can do all the trial you want, but there better be no error in this day and age.”
Ultimately, Buck said, “The thing could've fallen apart 50 different ways 50 different times, and it didn't. It was a great high-wire act, and I'm glad we made it to the other side of the wire.”
Mark Loomis, who produces the U.S. Open for Fox, said, “You learn from it. People don't want to hear the excuses. I don't worry about why it happened. I worry about how to fix it. And I feel we're in a real good spot going into Oakmont.”
Loomis said the technology (including cup microphones, shot tracers, enhanced graphics) is more refined and streamlined, and “we've moved some people around behind the scenes. Things will flow better and be a little more commonplace instead of us going through it the first time.”
Buck said one thing he will do differently is “inject more of the flavor of what going through these guys heads. And I don't mean me talking about it.”
In that regard, another source of dissatisfaction, lead analyst Greg Norman, is gone. The more TV-savvy Paul Azinger moves into the seat next to Buck. Another former pro and broadcast veteran, Curtis Strange, is the new on-course reporter.
“Once we had a year to kind of figure out who we were, we wanted to figure out what would make us better,” Loomis said. “I think we needed a couple of people who had a little more experience, and I think Paul goes a long way to help us there and I think Curtis will, too.”
But the biggest change viewers will notice likely is the course. A “links” course, Chambers was a first-time and controversial choice, scorned by golfers and viewers alike. Rory McIlroy, the 2011 U.S. Open champion, said it was like playing “on the moon.” Oakmont is, well, Oakmont, brutally challenging yet revered. This will be its ninth U.S. Open. No course has hosted more.
“There was a little bit of an unknown to Chambers,” Loomis said. “Oakmont's just a more known golf course. There's a real familiarity there. One of the things we had trouble with last year was the way the ground was kind of brown and shiny. The golf ball doesn't show up real well there. This will be a little bit more traditional.”
Bob Cohn is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at bcohn@gmail.com or via Twitter@BCohn_Trib.
