July 7, 2011
Transcript of ESPN Open Championship Media Conference Call
ESPN golf host Mike Tirico, analysts Andy North and Curtis Strange, vice president, production, Mike McQuade and John Wildhack, executive vice president, programming acquisition and strategy, participated in a media conference call today to discuss ESPN’s multiplatform coverage of the 2011 Open Championship at Royal St George’s Golf Club in Sandwich, England, July 14-17. ESPN will have live coverage of all four rounds of golf’s oldest major tournament.
A transcript of the conference call follows:
JOHN WILDHACK: Thanks, everyone for being on today’s call. Just a couple of brief comments. I know you want to spend your time talking to Mike, Curtis, and Andy so we’ll let you get to that.
We’re extremely excited about coverage of the Open Championship next week. 37 hours live coverage beginning at 4 a.m. New York time, Eastern time on Thursday and Friday morning. Then 7 a.m. Saturday and 6 a.m. Sunday New York time.
37 hours live on ESPN, on ESPN3 we’ll be streaming holes number 1, 14, 15, 16 and 18. Also on ESPN3 we’ll feature the BBC feed, gives a little different flavor for fans, and also we’ll have a Spanish language feed on ESPN3 as well. All our 37 hours will be available on mobile and tablet devices through the Watch ESPN App.
So, again, the tradition of the Open Championship is unlike any others in the sport. And you take that tradition, you marry it with the innovation that we’ve been able to bring to the Open Championship the past two years, and we can’t do that without the support of Peter Dawson and the R&A. I do want to thank Peter and his team for all their support.
We look forward to a great championship.
Q – Mike McQuade, maybe you could give us a quick opening remark on some of the challenges of taking your operation overseas to do this and maybe some of the technical aspects that the viewers can watch for in the coverage next week?
MIKE McQUADE: Sure, thank you. Good morning, guys. I think I would say more than half the technical crew is already there beginning the set‑up. I think our biggest challenge that’s been well‑documented is trying to present the event to an American audience in a way in which our viewers are used to seeing golf covered.
Throughout the years we’ve become less and less reliant on the world feed from the BBC and certainly last year at St. Andrews we pretty much had control of 75 to 80% of all the cameras out on the golf course, and that number has gone up to about 85% this year.
So we have taken the BBC’s lead on where cameras should be placed and how they should be deployed on the golf course and supplemented that with our cameras in places where traditionally in the United States where you would see them on holes and on tees.
So we’ve really begun to work much closer over the last couple of years to present this, in our opinion, as the biggest event in golf, and certainly the greatest complement of cameras in golf.
You add that with some of the innovations that we’ve come up with, including flying an airplane, which had never been done, there which we started a few years back at Turnberry. And some innovations like ball tracker, which is only done live at this event. We feel like we’re in position to once again present the greatest championship in golf in a way it’s never been seen before.
Q – Mike Tirico, 15th consecutive year hosting ESPN’s coverage of the Open Championship on the 18th tower, what are you looking forward to next week?
MIKE TIRICO: I guess that means I’m officially old now. The excitement for me is this is the first time we’ve gone to a major championship where the Americans are not the dominant story for the American TV audience.
What I mean by that, you go through that whole stretch with Tiger from 2000 to 2008 winning I think 12 of 30 majors. Well, since then, Americans have only won three majors: Mickelson, Lucas Glover, and Stewart Cink at Turnberry in ’09.
So we knew that was coming. It was the story line going in the U.S. Open when Europeans were 1, 2, and 3 in the world, and another player outside of that group ends up winning the U.S. Open in dominant fashion and really opening a lot of eyes around the world in golf.
So we really see the American story here, for the first time since we’ve been going over to the, as can the Americans get back into the mix at the top of golf? They certainly think they can.
One or two guys could be in position to do that. But I think that’s a very different matter to what we’ve seen over my 14 trips going over. I think it will be very interesting to see how that plays out this week, for sure.
Q – Andy North, you have a lot of experience in the Open Championship. What do you look for for next week?
ANDY NORTH: I think the thing that I enjoy so much about the Open Championship is that it’s played under conditions that the American player does not get a chance to see very often, and the American audience doesn’t get to see hardly at all.
It’s going to be very bouncy. They haven’t had rain there for nine weeks. They’ve been in a drought stage. There probably won’t be a lot of rough. It’s going to be firm and fast and bouncy. You see good shots that end up in bad places. You see bad shots that end up in good places. It really tests the player’s patience and his imagination.
I think those are some of the areas that I really look forward to this championship.
Q – And Curtis, your opening thoughts?
CURTIS STRANGE: When I think about the Open Championship this year, I think it’s all about Rory McIlroy. I think what he did at the Masters was surprising. I think what he did at the U.S. Open was maybe even more surprising coming back from that. And he’s done so well in the last four majors.
But how well can he do when he goes into this major in his home, basically his home territory, as a clear‑cut favorite at 22 years old? I’ll be anxious to see how he handles that along with, I think, another guy who is going to be, like I said, at the top of the list of favorites with Lee Westwood.
As Mike said, the favorites are overwhelmingly Europeans. But Rory McIlroy is the story of the day right now, and I’ll be anxious to to see how he does. I’m looking forward to it.
Q – Curtis, you brought up Rory. How do you expect him to handle these expectations? Obviously the spotlight is going to be totally on him probably as much as it’s ever been in his career now.
CURTIS STRANGE: I think what we’ve seen from Rory in these last two majors, one they’ve been at the far sides of the spectrum. One was huge disappointment at the Masters, and the other has been just the on opposite at the U.S. Open, and he’s handled them both with class and confidence and maturity.
I just think he’s such a mature young man, and I expect nothing but the same from him this time around. Now, how does he play here, we’ll have to wait and see.
But as far as leading up to it, it looks like he’ll be comfortable. It looks like he enjoys the center stage. You know, he certainly has the game to ‑‑ every bit of the game to go ahead and play well this week. Winning is another story all together. But to play well and be part of the story, I expect him to be there.
Q – Do you and Andy feel that the comparisons to Tiger and what he did are fair or what? I mean, they’re inevitable that they’re going to be out there.
CURTIS STRANGE: Just have to slow down a little bit. This man is 22, he’s played wonderful golf the last couple of years. But let’s not compare. To me apples and oranges to what he did at the U.S. Open, to what Tiger did in 2000 at his U.S. Open, I think they’re completely different.
I think Tiger’s was a better performance just because he won by 15 on a much tougher golf course. That said, Rory still lapped the field at this U.S. Open. He was clearly, clearly the best player in the field when you watched all four days. Let’s give him time. My gosh, let’s don’t put added pressure on him because he’s got enough pressure already.
ANDY NORTH: First of all, I love his game. I think he is the real deal. He’s got a wonderful golf swing. He has learned how to handle the tempo of playing in a major championship. He’s working with Dave Stockton and that’s really going to help his putting and his mental approach to putting.
I think, as Curtis is saying, this is an unbelievable talent. He’s a great player. Will he win five majors, will he win 25 majors? We have absolutely no idea. But the guy will win more major championships. He is that type of player.
I’ve never liked comparing guys. But at the same time, the things that he’s doing right now, you have to think that he’s got a chance to be one of the great, great players.
Q – Curtis and Andy, last time we went to this venue, Ben Curtis won. He was hot off the Hooters Tour. He was 396 in the world, and it was his very first major. I’m just wondering if you could each comment on where you think that ranks in the upset annals at the grand slam events, and I have another one after that.
ANDY NORTH: Obviously, any time long shots win major championships and beat the top players, you just have to say those are unbelievable upsets. But in golf, as we know, a guy gets it going. He gets on a golf course he feels comfortable with, he plays golf. You just have to shoot a score and sometimes your score is lower.
He did some amazing things that week. He got the ball up and in and in from everywhere, and you have to do that to win major championships, and he did better than everybody else.
CURTIS STRANGE: I couldn’t agree more. I think it’s even more of an upset when you combine that with playing it on and upsetting on links golf, which at his age had not played ‑‑ I don’t know if he’d ever played on links golf. It was a big upset, but low score wins, and he did it.
Made a great putt on the last hole. He made a great putt on the last hole, and I really don’t think he knew it was to win. So you can add that to the equation. It was a big upset, but it happens. It happens.
Q – As a completely unrelated follow‑up, Northern Ireland’s got back‑to‑back U.S. Open winners. That is a country with a population of Nebraska. I’m wondering whether when you guys were growing up in Wisconsin and Virginia, whether there was anybody that you looked to that was winning on the TOUR at that time that you sort of said to yourself, if he can do it, I can do it? Because it looks like the Northern Irish sort of looked at Harrington as a trailblazer and said to themselves why not me?
ANDY NORTH: We were fortunate that we grew up in a time when golf was first coming on television. So you had the Palmer‑Nicklaus player scenario to watch. You looked forward to watching those guys play in big three matches or whatever it was on television and you dreamed as a kid that you’d have a chance.
I think we all had people growing up that there might have been an older kid at the club that looking back now wasn’t much of a player, but he was better than you were, you know. You thought that he was a heck of a player and you aspired to be that good or you saw a guy win a city tournament or whatever.
I think there was always, at every level you play golf, there is somebody older and better that you look to. And it might have been many, many different players.
There was a group of older guys ‑‑ older guys ‑‑ they were probably in their 30s and I thought they were older guys. They played golf pretty much every afternoon at the club that I was at. It was the time of the day that juniors weren’t allowed to play. You could play before a certain time and after a certain time. And they’d let me go out and ride around and watch them play.
I watched them play a ton of golf and learned an awful lot watching these guys play golf. Those were the kind of things that helped every younger player believe that he could be a better player.
CURTIS STRANGE: When you come from a smaller country like Northern Ireland and you have Harrington do what he’s done in his career, I think it’s magnified. It was such a big, big accomplishment for him to win his three majors.
Yeah, I agree with Andy and everything he said. It’s just so different now with all the media and the 24/7.
Q – I wanted to get your thoughts on the quirkiness/frustration factor of Royal St. Georges. The ideas that good shots become bad and bad shots become good? When you’re playing that course or that type of course, is it really something that you have to kind of bite your tongue and swallow?
CURTIS STRANGE: I think that’s all part of learning how to play links golf. And it’s not so much physical, it’s mental as well and learning how your shots will turn out. Playing the golf course as much as possible. Learning the nuances of that particular golf course and learning the balances.
You have to accept the fact that what you think was a perfectly played shot will not turn out as well as you would have liked it to because it has to be played more on the ground. And that is the difference in our golf and their golf, links golf. Is it has to be played more on the ground. When you hit the ground, it’s unpredictable there.
It’s pretty simple from that standpoint. But mentally you have to take into account that what you thought was going to happen might not happen. It might end up 40 feet from the hole instead of 10 feet. In our golf over here in the States at the U.S. Open at Congressional or wherever, that just doesn’t happen. When you hit a fine shot, it goes exactly where you thought it should go, not the case over there in Britain at links golf.
There are some that are more patient than others. And there are some that, you know, Tom Watson to me was the best at it. He could accept ‑‑ he had a lot of patience, and could accept the nuances of links golf.
ANDY NORTH: That’s what makes the Open Championship so much fun for the viewer particularly, to have to see these great players get frustrated. Hit shots that they think are pretty good, and it ends up in a pot bunker and four shots later they’re just getting on the green. That stuff happens in a heartbeat over there.
To me it’s always been if a player plays well the first time he’s gone to an Open Championship and played links golf, it’s totally blind luck because you have no idea how you’re going to react.
I think so much links golf is understanding you’re going to play it in a lot of different conditions. You have to understand that and having prepared on the golf course properly so that when you do have wind changes, you understand that Nelson bunkers or hill‑ups or whatever are going to come into play that weren’t there at all in your first two or three practice rounds.
You have to understand the golf course has changed dramatically too as you play during the course of the week.
Q – As a follow‑up the line’s been credited to Nicklaus that the Open Championship courses get worse the further south you go. Is Royal St. Georges more quirky, more frustrating than the others in the rotation?
ANDY NORTH: I think probably from a history standpoint and the romantic part of playing the Open Championships, it’s one of the least romantic and has the least history compared to the St. Andrews and the Troons, and the Birkdales, those type of courses.
So I think just from a player’s standpoint, there is not the love affair there that some of the other places, just because of the lack of the history
.
CURTIS STRANGE: I think they all have their own characteristics. I think they’re all similar in the aspect that it has to be played on the ground, and a lot of your shots are unpredictable.
I don’t know. I think they’re all pretty much similar, I really do. It’s still links golf. The wind blows, the weather’s not the same as it is over here in the States, and the greens are always a little slower. There are certain characteristics that are common to every Open site.
Q – I’m sorry to ask a Tiger‑related question when he’s not there. But I’m just curious if jack’s record of 18 majors is looking more unattainable now that be it did maybe a few years ago?
ANDY NORTH: There was a time that we thought he’d win 25. Everybody’s talking about, hey, Jack’s record’s not even going to be close. So much depends on how he comes back from this injury. If he comes back healthy, I think we’ll see a Tiger Woods closer to the Tiger Woods we believed should be.
If he is healthy and he does have the zest for playing, which I think he will, you know, he’s going to have still 40 more chances, good chances to win major championships. So I think he’s got a great chance to catch jack or pass him.
CURTIS STRANGE: I think you answered your own question, is it more unattainable than yesterday, and yes, it is. It doesn’t mean it’s unattainable. It’s just the waters have been muddied.
The key is here the injury. How does he come back from it? But there are other parts of this that are unknown. Does he have the same fight and enthusiasm that he had years ago? He’s 35 years old. He’s going to be pushing ‑‑ might be 36 when he comes back.
Who knows when he’s going to come back. He’s basically been away from the game well over a year now. I know he’s played some events. He was under the gun at the Masters. But basically he’s been away from the game.
He’s dealing with family life at home, which we all deal with when we get into our 30s, kids at home and everything changes. So he’s dealing with all of that right now.
It all depends on how he reacts to all of this is how well he comes back and plays. Then you throw in it the injury. We just don’t know. We really don’t know. He certainly doesn’t tell us anything. So we’re here to speculate, and right now we don’t know.
Q – Beyond him do you think the changing like golf ‑‑ it just seems there are so many more guys winning, is it almost like we’re passing the time when one guy’s going to dominate in that regard?
CURTIS STRANGE: We thought that would be the case before Tiger came along that we never thought we’d see somebody dominate like Tiger did again. So whenever we say that, it’s going to happen again. It might not happen tomorrow, but there will become a special athlete that again comes long and dominates the best in golf.
Who knows, it could be Rory. But until then he was special and he still is.
ANDY NORTH: I think if you look at the history of our game, there seems to be a player that comes along every 10 or 15 years that is that dominant player. It was Tiger. Before Tiger it was Norman, before that it was Watson, before that it was Nicklaus, before that it was Palmer, before that it was whomever.
So every time we think it’s not going to happen, somebody else comes along, you know, in a 10 or 15‑year basis after that.
We’re going to constantly have great players come along in this game and win majors. Can they ever dominate like we saw Tiger dominate where a guy wins 6, 7, 8, 9 tournaments every single year over a long period of time?
MIKE TIRICO: I thought Curtis made the good point. The answer was in the question. We’ve gone a long stretch here where Tiger hasn’t won. The longest stretch he’s had without winning a major. So the clock does start to tick and the number of majors run out.
I do think the fact that players are in better health and are more conscious of working out and staying younger, you can see players win into their 40s more often than the shock of Nicklaus winning at 46 in ’86.
So Andy’s right, the number of majors that healthy Tiger has a chance to win. But no doubt the script has changed. And when you see how many guys have won their first major here in the last three years, I think we have eight guys in the last 11 or 12 majors that have made it their first major championship victory. A whole different ballgame. More guys out there that they think he can do it and know they can do it. So it’s tougher to get to that record for all the reasons mentioned, not just one.
CURTIS STRANGE: One other thing, if I could, is that Tiger has ‑‑ we’re talking about all these other players because Tiger’s been away. I think when Tiger’s playing, he’s playing well. These guys don’t have the stage or the room to get up on that stage because Tiger has dominated so much.
He’s not only given them the stage that we get to know these young players, but he’s also given them the confidence about being away, to get up there and win events. So that in itself has elevated the rest of the field, and he knows that. He knows that.
The only guy out there ‑‑ the only guy out there that looks like he has a chance to really, really do well is Rory with his swing and his whole game.
Q – The British Open obviously because of the weather and because of the links course layout presents the most logistical nightmare, I think, from a production standpoint. Mike, could you speak to how from a production standpoint you tackle the weather and the wind and the logistics? Is it also a challenge for the commentators?
MIKE TIRICO: I can tell you over the last 15 years, especially the last three or four with Mike (McQuade) running our operation heading over there, it’s become a lot easier. I used a line back in ’98 or ’99, since is that was the only major that we were involved with at ABC, felt like we played our major with rented clubs.
We went over and used the BBC as everything, and sprinkled in a little bit of our own equipment, and that’s changed significantly here in the last three years with ESPN broadcasting the Open Championship, and Mike’s been a key driver in that. It was his idea to get that plane going and the aerial coverage to make it look more like the golf that everyone sees the rest of the year at home. So that’s helped for what we do.
But there is no doubt that from what you pack to the hours you put in, and we’re on air at 4:00 a.m., which is, I think 11 or 10:00 in Hawaii, whatever the time difference is, and you’re on until pretty much 13, 14 hours later. They are the longest days of the longest week of the year, but it’s also the best week of the year for those of us who get to work this because of the uniqueness, how different it is, and the fact that this has been going on for almost 140‑plus years, the 140th Open with a few missed in there.
So logistical challenges are fine, but I don’t think anybody at home cares about that. We try to do the best we can, and thankfully we’re supported to make it a little bit easier for us.
MIKE McQUADE: I would say the challenges are especially wind and cameras on cranes and airplanes and cloudy skies. The biggest complaint we always hear is following the ball. I think we’ve addressed that. We made great strides last year in doing that.
I think the other part of it is with the added cameras, you actually get to see the player. You get to see their face. You get to see their expressions. You’re seeing them much closer than you’ve ever seen them before.
As far as the rain and the wind, I do believe that if you don’t expect that to happen when you’re going to the event, that you probably went to the wrong event. So everyone knows that going in.
I also think, echoing what Mike says, it is hard to compare having to be all of us having to be on and on our game for that long a period of time, especially on Thursday and Friday when your audience is coming and going during the course of the day. They may only get to see two hours at a time, and you have to be at your best.
So we’re very aware of those times during the course of the day when our audience is growing. And we’re making sure that we’re catching them up on what they’ve missed and giving them an idea of what they’re going to see in the next few hours. So I think those are also challenges that we face in ask around the event, that I don’t know that everyone really talks about is just the duration that you’re on and when your audience is at its highest.
Especially with Tiger not playing, knowing when your audience is at its highest becomes a little more tricky.
JOHN WILDHACK: The other thing I would add on the production side too is last year was the first year that the Open Championship was done in HD. And I credit Mike and his team because we worked hard with the BBC, and we worked hard with the R&A to get the BBC to basically get everybody to embrace HD, and really the results were transformational.
So if you take what Mike was talking about, more of our unilateral cameras. We control 85% of the cameras and get more close‑ups and that type of thing, then you add in the HD element to it, it was really transformational last year in terms of the production approach to the Open Championship and how it had been done heretofore in the States whether it was by Turner or by ABC.
So we kind of looked at last year as at the start of a new era as to how the Open Championship would be presented to the U.S. audience.
Q – Curtis, you had a couple of years there where you were playing really well. You took a pass on the Open over there, and I know that you’ve since said that you thought that was a mistake. I guess the question is your game seemed pretty well suited for Open Championships, and I’m wondering in retrospect whether you even regret it more now that you go back there and do the broadcast?
CURTIS STRANGE: Yes, I do. I admit that. It’s the biggest mistake I’ve made in my career. I didn’t have anybody really telling me, not that this is an excuse, but I didn’t really have anybody telling me to get my butt over there and play because it is the oldest and grandest championship in the world, and it really is.
With that said, when I first went over there, I didn’t get a good taste of links golf. I was an American playing American golf, and I think it’s true with a lot of players. I just learned to appreciate it as the years past, and next thing I knew, they were past.
I thoroughly enjoyed it my last three or four times over there, but it was too late. You said it, I wish I had gone, but I can’t take it back now.
Q – I guess as it turns out this is one of the places that you missed in the rotation. Have you ever hit a shot there or will you when you go over there?
CURTIS STRANGE: No, I haven’t. ’85 is what you’re talking about. I didn’t go, and that was the controversial year. It should have been. It was a mistake on my part. But I have not played there.
When I was with ABC, we did Curtis’s Open Championship over there, so I know the course as far as that’s concerned. But I have not played there, and I will not play there, no. We don’t have time to hit a golf shot. We go over there and hit the ground running. It’s a long week for everyone.
MIKE McQUADE: We keep them very busy during the course of the week.
Q – Mike, the Perfect Path, how much will you use that? Is that new technology or is that sort of a tracer type technology that we’ve seen?
MIKE McQUADE: Perfect Path will be used. It’s not new technology. We’d like to think that we continue to tweak it, and that will be used on three different holes during the course of the week.
Q – On Putt Zone, how do you decide which greens to use that on?
MIKE McQUADE: We talked about ‑‑ you talk about preparation of doing an event. We’ve already, and again, now that the trip is around the corner ‑‑ we’ve already been over there. I believe they’ve gone three times now the technology group has been over there three times to look at the greens and to size up the greens. For that you’re looking at the greens with the best slope.
We certainly ask our analysts what they feel most comfortable with. We go over there. We look at past results from Opens there. We’ve looked at 2003 and the greens and how they putted, and that’s how we came up with and chose the holes.
Q – The enhanced telestrator, how is that enhanced?
MIKE McQUADE: It’s ORAD is the technology. You’re probably familiar with it on majors in tennis. That’s where I first got our taste of it. They use it on Monday Night Football as well.
We’re diving into the deep end of the pool here. We’re going to figure it out as we go. We feel that it allows us quicker and more detailed telestration on specific shots and strategic awareness, if you will, or strategic first guessing, if you will. So that’s how we use it.
Q – Both Andy and Curtis, you guys both skipped the Open in your prime. If I’m not mistaken, Andy, I don’t think you played it the years you won the U.S. Open. I’m just curious. This wasn’t that long ago and yet you weren’t the only ones to do that. What has changed about the Open that would really make that hard to do today for a top player? Was it just the travel, the lack of a first, what are the factors that keep you from going?
ANDY NORTH: Let me jump in on that one first. There were a lot of different circumstances why I didn’t go. I struggled with back problems through a lot of years there. The week before the British Open was the tournament in Milwaukee which was my home tournament. So to go over there on short notice didn’t work very well for me.
The fact that back in the middle ’70s, you literally had to finish in the Top 5 to break even on the trip. So from a business standpoint and for me looking at it, even though it was this great event, it made more sense for me to play Milwaukee and maybe not go over, and you do a couple of corporate days and it was a much better financial and business decision.
That’s changed so much. The moneys have changed. Everybody can afford to go over there now. It was some bull headedness on my part in ’85 for not going. It’s a long story, but, you know, we had some disagreements, and I decided not to go.
Like Curtis, I enjoyed it playing over there much more toward the end of my career when I really did appreciate what links golf was all about. I would have loved to have gone over and played more, but it just wasn’t a good business decision for me early on in my career when I was exempt.
CURTIS STRANGE: I echo ‑‑ I’ve already spoken to this, but I echo what Andy said. Everybody’s circumstances are a little different. I was a little bit later than Andy. It wasn’t so much the money thing, but it was, I had Kingsmill the week before. And to go over there Sunday night and get there Monday, you have to go earlier than that. To have any chance all of playing well.
I agree with Andy, we all get a little stubborn. I say tongue‑in‑cheek, kind of half serious, I didn’t go a couple years because everybody was telling me I had to go.
But it was different. It was different back then. I think the exposure of the media, the elevation of all of the golf is so much bigger now than it was back then. I don’t think you see anybody skipping now.
Q – Curtis, was there some media criticism at the time? Was it anything that ‑‑
CURTIS STRANGE: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Maybe Bubba Watson might skip this year, I don’t know. Do you think? Yeah, there was criticism, and rightfully so. It was my bad, and that’s the way it is.
Q – Dottie Pepper said on Golf Channel last night that American golfers were too soft, entitled and pampered and that players from other countries outworked them. I was wondering if you agree with that? Does the criticism hold for American men as well as women golfers? And do the European players work harder and longer than their American counterparts?
CURTIS STRANGE: I don’t know if I’d go that strongly with those words. But I think without talking about the American kids so much, you have to remember that international players come from different backgrounds and from around the world. And they come from government funded programs as well.
This might be your only chance to really get on the American Tour. This might be your only one chance to succeed in this game that you so dearly love, so you have a hunger and you have a drive that is second to none versus the Americans. They come through the college system.
There is debate on whether the college system is good or bad for progressing a golfer. They go through college for two, three, four years that really doesn’t promote individualism.
You are completely pampered in college, as we all are, as you were in college. You had no responsibility other than just a little bit of studying. Then you’re hit in the face with the real world, whereas the foreign players and international players, they start that maturity at a very young age. They all turn pro much earlier. Very few of them go to college, if they do, they go to college in the U.S.
There is a whole different set of circumstances and everybody’s different. But I’m not going to say that we’re pampered and we’re soft because if somebody’s driven to be the best he can possibly be, money’s not going to change or college isn’t going to change that at all. But I do think that the international players are more driven because this might be their only opportunity to succeed.
MIKE TIRICO: I think it’s a broad generalization and a bit overstated. We weren’t saying this when we had the run of Daly, and Lehman, Justin Leonard, Mark O’Meara, Tiger, Duval, Ben Curtis, Todd Hamilton, Tiger a couple of times win the Open Championship. That’s not all that long ago. That’s just in the last 17 years, okay.
So we’ve had a lot of American players not only win this major but win most majors. This is the first stretch that we’ve gone five straight majors without an American player winning.
Does that mean the whole system needs to be thrown out and it’s a bunch of pampered players? I think that’s overstating it.
I think there is an observation in there that has some great parallels to what goes on in Europe. The European Tour is far different. You don’t play many tournaments in the same country. You are by and large going country to country on a weekly basis, thus the travel, thus the friendships, thus the camaraderie.
European golf was in a very low spot other than the Ryder Cup for a decade or so. Now it’s come way back up here with a lot of people on top of the world rankings. You go Donald, Westwood, Rory McIlroy, Kaymer, and McDowell winning last year’s U.S. Open. So it’s part of the cyclical thing.
I look at it this week a little like Andy and Curtis were talking about from their playing days, which of the American players embrace and work hard at understanding what it takes to win this major championship? Because it is different. It is very different, and you see practice rounds for major championships change.
You go to a golf course at the U.S. Open on a Wednesday afternoon, it’s a ghost town. Nobody’s out there practicing anymore. They’re trying to stay sharp for the week. Well, if you don’t get over here until Sunday for the British, because of the wind and all the other elements that are in play, you need those practice rounds, and we’ve seen that over time serve guys well.
So I think this is a week that you have to change and adapt a little bit for this major championship. So maybe the younger group of American players, which is our better group right now, might not have that blanket success that the group did a decade or so ago.
But to say American golfers are pampered because we have a run with the top European players going, I think that’s a little overstated at this point. Let’s come back and see a five or six‑year trend of Europeans at the Top 5 in the world rankings. Then maybe we can make a more broad observation that has some stickiness to it.
ANDY NORTH: I’d be happy to weigh in on this. I’ve been a little outspoken the last four or five years of the way Americans handle sports in general, not just golf. You have generations of players where you don’t have kids playing in the park. You don’t have leaders.
We’ve talked to a lot of basketball and football coaches and the recruiting of high school athletes, and they said there are some unbelievably talented kids. But there are not enough leaders because kids haven’t had to be leaders. The parents make all the decisions for them. They drive them around, they do everything they need to do for them. I think that affects building champions.
There are tons and tons of great players. At some point in time a player has to decide do I really want to be a champion or do I want to have a great career and make a lot of money and be comfortable? There are some decisions that you have to make, and some of them are turning down lots of money to go play in some events that you don’t want to go play in. Traveling around the world, doing some things you need to do to make yourself a better player.
There is some of that missing in our society right now. This is a society thing. This isn’t just a golf thing.
Q – If I could follow up for a second. You were talking about the hunger and the drive that you need to succeed. Michelle Wie is taking a lot of heat this week from Annika and from Dottie for not focusing more on her golf and winning more. Does she deserve the criticism she’s getting?
ANDY NORTH: Here’s a young lady trying to finish college. How can you rip anybody for trying to finish your college degree? I would suspect when she’s completely done with her studies, that she’ll throw herself into golf more. I would hope she would, at least.
Q – Mike, I know last year at St. Andrews the wind caused some is serious issues for that big Strada crane that you guys have. First of all, is the Strada crane going to be back this year at Royal St. Georges? Where is it going to be located, if it is back, and is the wind a concern for you guys after last year?
MIKE McQUADE: Wind is always a concern. The crane is back. It’s positioned at a corner by ‑‑ I think it’s 12 and 13, in a corner there. I don’t have it in front of me.
One of the things we’re actually experimenting with, and we hope to become a reality, is we have working with our emerging technology group here at ESPN, we’ve developed a portable weather station that we’ve ‑‑ we’ve developed five of them.
We’ve put them out in strategic spots along the golf course to measure the wind speed, the wind direction and temperature. We’re hoping that that gives the viewer a better understanding and sense of which way the wind is blowing specific to that area of the golf course and specifically to a hole.
As we found out last year, Andy would be walking the course and he’d be telling us, well, the wind is blowing in one direction, and some of the readings we were getting was in the exact opposite direction. So we’re really making it a much greater emphasis this year and pretty much all of our technology to make sure that wind is accounted for and everything we’re thinking about. Whether it’s the Putt Zone, the Perfect Path, or just talking weather.
The wind may be blowing 25 miles an hour out towards the outer portion of the golf course, and it may only be blowing 10 miles an hour on the inner half of the course.
Q – Will that information and data that’s driven from those be displayed graphically during the telecast?
MIKE McQUADE: Yes, it will.
Q – Lastly, any other noticeable cameras that you’re excited about, Bunker cams or ultra slow‑mos?
MIKE McQUADE: We have the ultra‑mo camera which is fairly standard fare now in most sports. I think some of the robotic cameras are what we are hoping will really take our ‑‑ that’s the thing that we’ve added this year. We’re hoping that that will give us a more intimate look at play at a hole, at a player, and also provide us with some different angles for replays of big moments and key moments.
I think that’s one of the areas we’re looking for. I would say from our overall philosophy from this year to last year, as it relates to cameras, is getting more intimate. Seeing more faces, especially at this event where you’re going to be introduced to Louis Oosthuizen, and what does he look like? And that’s one area where I thought we did okay last year, and we’ll be better this year.
Q – How dominating yet disappointing was Greg Norman’s 1986 season when he led all four majors, but the only one he won was the Open Championship?
ANDY NORTH: I think you can look at that two ways. For a guy to have a chance to win all four major championships in one year is spectacular playing and really a great testament of what kind of player he was in that year.
To be disappointed and not win two or three of them and only end up winning one, I’m sure at the end of the year he was disappointed and looked back at the year it was and was it as successful as he wanted it to be.
But I think we’ve watched these great players we’ve been lucky to watch, and Tiger particularly, that he’s got a chance to win every single week.
You take a good, solid TOUR player and look at how many chances he really gets to win a tournament in a year or how many chances in a player’s career that you get a chance to win a major championship. Even for great players like Curtis, who was the number one player in the world, that doesn’t happen that often. We’ve been jaded into thinking that this is easy to do.
Just to get yourself in position at a major championship and go down the last four or five holes and have a chance to win, I mean, that’s an accomplishment that so many players never get a chance to do.
So to put himself in those kind of positions, that was an a amazing feat on Greg’s part. Yet at the end of the year I’m sure he was very disappointed.
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