Open Coverage: Final Comment

"I try to be semi-humble. If I started going around saying how good I was, everything would go wrong." Johnny Miller

Reader Alan Abbey sends in a (final) word on the Open coverage and it isn't pretty:

This year's US Open was a terrific tournament staged on a great golf course and produced a very worthy champion. However, one sour note was NBC's television coverage of the tournament, it appeared that coverage of the actual tournament was a mere sideshow to Johnny Miller reminiscing incessantly about his win at Oakmont in 1973. While Miller's win was obviously a brilliant performance, one couldn't help but be turned off by the excessive fawning, self-congratulation and downright arrogance indulged in by Miller and to a lesser extent, the other talking heads in the commentary box who did nothing but distract from the magnificent viewing of the on-course action. Humility is clearly not a word Johnny Miller is familiar with. Let's hope the excellent CBS team can take over coverage in the near future.

Alan, your note arrived the same day I said this to a fellow editor: "One of the unexpected benefits of this year's Open were the features on Johnny Miller." And I named two that were terrific, Rich Lerner's on Golf Channel and Bryant Gumbel's on HBO. As for the coverage itself, it didn't strike me as overly Millerized, but, okay, I can see how it might hit you that way, especially if you aren't a Miller fan. Still, 63 in the final round of the U.S. Open is still 63 in the final round of the U.S. Open and they'll be talking about that one when you and I are long gone. I can't believe CBS wouldn't have made a big deal about it as well. But I hear you. And as Miller has said several times, Hall of Famers have Hall of Fame sized egos.

--Bob Carney