By: Jim Williams
The Examiner
Sunday – TNT 6 a.m.-8a.m.
ABC – 8a.m. – 2 p.m.
Radio – Sirius-XM
Broadband – PGA.COM and ESPN360
Tom Watson is leading The Open Championship after 54 holes at the age of 60. Sunday on ABC there could be a record audience watching Breakfast from Turnberry. (Note to John Skipper at ESPN, I want credit for that line)
ABC/ESPN could not be happier to have Watson the storyline for the past three days. As I told you earlier this he was supposed to be part of their broadcast team.
Since Thursday when Watson ended day one in the hunt through today when he sat atop the leader board I received email’s, texts, Facebook notes and hundreds of Tweet from fans around the world talking about what an amazing thing it would be if only Watson could win.
As someone who got into the business covering golf in the late 1970’s Watson is a special person. He is one of the nice guys. A man who always has time to talk and even this week was up beat his chances to make the cut. Tuesday when he told me and a number of other media:”I just finished my practice round and I really like the way the course is playing, really want to be playing on the weekend and not broadcasting.”
None of us including his ESPN/ABC colleagues felt Watson would be playing for sixth Open title but there he is 18 holes away from one of the greatest stories in sports history.
Thus far the coverage of Watson’s story by both TNT and ESPN/ABC has been outstanding.
The BBC’s always entertaining Peter Alliss did not hesitate to call Watson’s march just as he saw it:” Tom Watson is the best links golfer in the modern era. He understands how to play these courses better than anyone that I have ever seen.”
So Sunday it will be Watson and Mathew Goggin in the final pairing of the day. He will followed locally by thousands of Scots who love him and millions of fans back here in the states who will be playing songs from the ‘70’s and looking for that green leasure suit.
This is indeed a special story and we will be here to follow it all the way.
I have gotten a great deal of comments on the coverage of The Open so let me see if I can clear things up…
Watching the British Open from Turnberry we see how the winds are blowing the ball all over the picturesque Scottish links course.
Because of the tricky winds the BBC feed that we see on both TNT as well as on ESPN/ABC is without blimp of any traditional above the course coverage.
The BBC has three cranes that are placed around the course and are positioned about 200 feet in the air and another camera in the lighthouse. The BBC has an airplane but it is tougher to get a steady shot from a plane than a blimp or a helicopter.
I hope the cameramen on those cranes get hazard pay.
Kudos to the TNT crew for their great work in what is the final broadcast of The Open. Next year everything moves over to ESPN/ABC.
Nice job done by Ernie Johnson, Baker-Finch, field reporter Bill Kratzert and Jim Huber handling the interviews.
We will talk more about the ESPN/ABC coverage after the final round.
