NBC, Golf Channel swing into super busy season
The summer schedule for NBC and Golf Channel is not finalized, though this much is clear: There won’t be another summer like this one, from the number of big events to two premier tournaments that the networks have never broadcast.
“We’re fortunate enough to have a deep, talented bench,” said Mike McCarley, president of Golf for NBC Sports Group.
“We’ve got a 12-week stretch of The Open Championship, the Olympics, the FedEx Cup playoffs and the Ryder Cup. It will be the busiest time we’ve ever had.”
It all gets started at Royal Troon in Scotland for the British Open, which NBC and Golf Channel acquired a year early from ESPN. Golf producer Tommy Roy and Golf Channel executive producer Molly Solomon began making trips to the Ayrshire Coast late last summer. Expect to see more graphics involving wind (the best defence of any links course) and a deeper sense of history of a championship that dates to 1860.
Three weeks later is golf ’s return to the Olympics in Rio after a 112-year absence — the men one week, the women the next week.
That’s what is new for the networks. Then it gets plenty busy with three playoff events in a four-week stretch (New York, Indianapolis and Atlanta), with the Ryder Cup outside Minneapolis right after the Tour Championship (and FedEx Cup) ends.
McCarley said promotion from one audience to the next would be critical.
“The Olympics will bring in a broad audience,” McCarley said. “In a lot of countries, people will be exposed to golf in a way they haven’t before.”
Woods drops out of world’s top 500
Being injured and being idle has sent Tiger Woods out of the top 500 in the world for the first time in his 20-year career as a pro.
It was only a matter of time. Woods hasn’t played since the Wyndham Championship last August and he had played poorly (and sparingly because of injuries) the year before that. He fell nine spots to No. 508 this week.
The last time he was out of the top 500 was on July 14, 1996.
Overnight flight on a slim chance
Nathan Smith has played the Masters four times as the U.S. Mid-Amateur champion. He has played in the Walker Cup three straight times.
The 37-year-old Smith has never made it to the U.S. Open, and he would desperately like to play the next one. Smith lives in Pittsburgh, and the U.S. Open returns to Oakmont on June 16-19.
It hasn’t been a lack of effort, with one story he told last week about the time he tried to qualify in 2007, the last time the U.S. Open was at Oakmont. He was an alternate out of local qualifying and received a call on the Friday that there was a spot for him in the 36-hole sectional qualifying on Monday. But there was a catch. The sectional was in England. “I thought about it for a second and being that it was here, I just said the heck with it,” Smith said.
He flew overnight with his father on Saturday. “You probably know how that turned out — not great,” Smith said. “I’ve had a lot of close calls, but who knows, maybe this is the year.”