Rainy U.S. Open a water hazard for TV teams Water floods the green at No. 18 on Bethpage State Park's Black Course during the suspended opening round of the U.S. Open on Thursday. NBC and ESPN have plenty of people on hand, but then the deluge halts play. There were lots of bored television media personnel at the U.S. Open golf tournament Thursday. Just about the entire first round was rained out, leaving this roll call of hired help from NBC and ESPN to report on, well, rain.From NBC, Johnny Miller, Dan Hicks, Roger Maltbie, Gary Koch, Bob Murphy, Peter Jacobsen, Mark Rolfing, Dottie Pepper, Jimmy Roberts, Tim Rosaforte and Bob Costas. From ESPN, Chris Berman, Mike Tirico, Curtis Strange, Andy North, Terry Gannon, Karl Ravech, Scott Van Pelt, Bill Kratzert, Judy Rankin, Tom Rinaldi and Rick Reilly. It was a somber Berman who announced, "No more golf today" at 10:53 a.m. PDT.
ESPN is the loser here. NBC takes over hole-by-hole coverage Saturday and Sunday, so now Berman and Co. are down to one day of measuring the water depth of the fairways and talking about Tiger Woods. We're not sure how much to deduct from ESPN's planned 87 hours of multi-platform coverage after Thursday's rainout. NBC is offering coverage on nine of its channels (including, luckily, the Weather Channel) and even Sirius XM radio was planning 28 hours of coverage -- lots of murmuring followed by . . . more murmuring.
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