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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.

USGA

USGA Championship Committee Chairman Jim Hyler just spoke about the inclement weather conditions and the resulting effects on the course, as well as the golHyler, who said the severe weather likely will not arrive until this afternoon, said they expect to at least to get in the first wave of golfers. While he said that there is quite a bit of puddling on the course already, there are multiple workers on each hole to squegee the excess water.

Hyler said they have moved tees on Holes 7, 9, 10, and 12. (An item of note: when the weather posed a problem here in 2002, they did not move the tees at 10, which rendered about 3/4 of the field unable to reach the fairway). The course generally drains pretty well, according to Hyler, but the most problematic areas will likely occur on holes 1 and 18. Should be interesting to see how the rain affects play today in general and I'm sure we'll get some insight into that as guys finish up; also keep an eye on the winds, which are expected to increase.

Woods, who is currently 1-over par after he followed up his double-bogey on the 5th hole with a birdie on the 6th, decided to go ahead and hit his third shot out of the bunker, which he left to around 18 feet, and mark his ball as standing water was starting to accumulate on the greens.

If you think this is just a short delay, you probably aren't watching the live feed. Standing water on greens, the rough playing nearly impossibly and guys struggling to stay dry and warm all led to the decision to suspend play on Thursday, and some think that golf may be done for the day.