|
Dissecting the NBC Swing of U.S. Open Coverage with Johnny Miller, Gary Koch, and Tommy Roy
by Troy Rogers
 As
the 2009 U.S. Open Golf Championship gets underway
at the now publicly open Bethpage Black course
in Nassau County in New York, all eyes are on
Tiger Woods, including those of the guys in the
NBC booth and on the fairways who are devoting
16 hours of NBC coverage to The U.S. Open.
Since Bethpage was the setting for an historic U.S. Open Championship in 2002 that saw Tiger Woods punctuate his dominance over the field, former PGA winners-turned-NBC analyst, Johnny Miller and Gary Koch, along with coverage producer, Tommy Roy, have their work cut out for them in terms of not only dealing with U.S. Open coverage challenges on the fairways and greens of Bethpage, but also the weather, which looks like it may be the hidden 19th hole that could make or break the competitive 2009 field.
With the U.S. Open Golf Championship now underway at Bethpage, we sat in on the latest NBC Sports conference call to learn how Johnny Miller, Gary Koch, and producer Tommy Roy are approaching the 2009 U.S. Open coverage, their feelings on how they feel Tiger Woods will fair as compared to winning the Memorial, and the differences and similarities of the 2002 Tiger Woods and the Tiger Woods of 2009.
Tommy Roy, Johnny Miller, and Gary Koch on whether the
rain changes their U.S. Open coverage:
TOMMY ROY: Well, it shouldn't change
the coverage with the equipment too much, other
than it makes it a little more difficult for
the cameramen to follow balls. And if the ceiling
from the rain gets too low then the blimp can't
fly, and we use the blimp pretty significantly
within our coverage, showing shots, particularly
where they end up if they're in bunkers, etc.
But beyond that, it shouldn't change things
much. I do think it'll change the storyline
and add a little bit as the guys have to deal
with the weather. I know when Tiger Woods was
going to school at Stanford he used to, on purpose,
go out and practice in the rain, because he
knew that if he was going to be a champion he'd
have to play in situations just like what we're
about to experience ...
 JOHNNY
MILLER: You know, this course - Gary you
might know this - last year Torrey Pines supposedly
was 7643 yards. But I don't think they ever
played that yardage, right?
GARY KOCH: No, they didn't. That's part of Mike Davis' new philosophy on the set up of U.S. Opens, is to vary the keg round to round and he said basically the same thing here this week, Johnny. The golf course will never play its full potential, over 7400 yards.
MILLER: It will be interesting to see what he does, because there's supposedly going to be like 15mph winds with this weather. So that's a one-two punch ... When you've got the wind and rain, if that is the case, is going to make it very tough. I'm interested to see how Davis sets it up. It won't be as hard to hit the fairway as it could be if they were firm, but they are wide enough. But you're going to have to play good golf, no doubt about that, and I think the weather will make the rough play much more difficult, obviously. And break out the cold weather, the ball won't go as far. So I don't know if Mike Davis will put the tees up forward to offset the cold weather if that's the case or rain. But I think scoring is going to be... Last time they had it here, the weather wasn't exactly wonderful either.
Gary Koch and Johnny Miller on whether they saw anything
different in Tiger's swing at Memorial or from
what they saw earlier this year:
 KOCH:
I certainly thought that his backswing, especially
with the longer clubs, was in a better position
than it had been just a few weeks before the
Player's Championship. To me his swing had gotten
a little on the long side, and certainly right
at the end of the backswing the club was being
laid off slightly and pointing over to the left,
of what I would call his "intended target line".
But at the Memorial, the backswing seemed shorter.
The club was certainly 24 down the target line
at the top, and the one thing that we've seen
from Tiger pretty much all this year, when he
has his practice sessions on the range, his
rhythm and tempo have been quite good. And he's
had a very difficult time continuing that once
he gets out onto the golf course. I thought
that since Memorial he was able to maintain
that same rhythm.
MILLER: As a player, he has to do three things. That would be: Take it to the top and try to pause like he used to do when he was younger and the great year 2000 to 2001, and he seemed like he was a lot further than he was at The Players and he would not get into the squat at the time, like the long-drive champions do, load up those sides and then spring up into it. And in Tiger's case, raise that left shoulder, which blocks it and flips it left. He basically corrected those things and I don't know if he listens to what we have to say.
These are things that aren't anything that I invented, but we sure have watched Tiger on NBC more than anybody else. His whole career, basically I've covered, including even before I was with NBC. I was at the juniors with Tiger and he of course lived in the area I did, Stanford, so I feel like I've seen his swing evolve and I know when he's swinging his best. And the thing with Tiger is he can change his swing quicker than anybody, and that's good news, bad news because he's also able to change it where he shouldn't be. Instead of really getting in a groove and staying there, he likes to tinker around. So I'll tell you right now, he's probably swinging the best I've seen him in quite a while.
Johnny Miller on what he sees is the same with Tiger
from when he won at Bethpage Black in 2002:
"It almost reminds me of the year 2000, if you want to know the truth, and I just got a feeling that all of the work that he feels like he's done, even the comments by announcers saying that he's 'this' and 'that', and then all of a sudden to go from where he was at The Players to when he hit the ball fourteen fairways that last round at Memorial, I think he's in that nice little spot."
Tommy Roy on whether the increased fleet of trucks is
for a heightened television presence or a function
of more production features:
 "It's
a combination of both. We went to Hi-Def and
added more trucks because we need more equipment
to handle the Hi-Def, and here at the U.S. Open
we have 53 cameras. Like I said, we're not only
covering the approaches and the greens, but
there's much more emphasis on driving. So we
need to show those tee shots and we're fortunate
that there's limited commercial interruption
so we can do that, and the fact that golf has
gotten more popular around the world. So it's
not only our trucks and trailers, it's the world
as well, the international broadcasters that
are here."
Tommy Roy on how they approach Tiger Woods and how much
coverage he gets:
"Well, we do show every shot that he hits if he's still in contention. The thing about Tiger is he's still in contention when he enters the final round five, six, seven shots back. Now, when we get the turn in the final round and he's still that far back, then we back off and don't show him pretty much at all and we show the leaders. But up until then he is the story . And again, with the limited commercial that we have here at the Open, we can get those in without short-shifting the leaders at all. If you watch the size of the galleries out on the golf course, it's a microcosm of the way golf fans or sports fans around the country, in fact the whole world at this point, feel about him. They want to watch him. So that's why he gets the coverage."
|
