Golf

U.S. Open 2016 viewing guide: Coverage schedule and how to watch live online

Fox is back for their second ever major golf broadcast, and things should be much, much better at Oakmont.

Jun 15, 2016, 9:00 PM UTC

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So much of major championship golf, and even week-to-week PGA Tour events, has become about the broadcast. We dissect, live critique on social media, and either embrace or strongly reject the way the game and a tournament are presented to us. There’s been a lot of shuffling in recent years over which networks have the rights to which events, and the most dramatic change occurred with the U.S. Open.

FOX made its golf debut last year at the 115th edition of the U.S. Open and, to put it mildly, it did not go particularly well. The bar was going to be impossibly high -- this was their first attempt so the critics were just waiting to pounce. And they gave them plenty of fodder with uninspired analysis from their lead man Greg Norman, graphics mishaps, poor interviews, and a generally inhospitable and weird venue making things even more challenging.

This year Fox is back for their second swipe of a monster 10-year, $1.2 billion deal to carry the USGA’s events. Norman is gone, replaced by Paul Azinger, a veteran broadcaster with a golf mind that plays extremely well for TV commentary. He’ll partner with Joe Buck in the main booth, where Brad Faxon and Steve Flesch will also occasionally jump in to join the party to keep things moving during what are some interminable days. Buck was recently defiant and defended last year’s broadcast against the widespread criticism and panning that came down during and after Chambers Bay. All that baggage from Year 1 aside, this 2016 edition should be a huge improvement thanks to the venue, personnel changes, and the heat from their debut which probably forced them to get better.

Even if it was a struggle, Fox did bring some technological improvements to golf broadcasting last year and they’ll do that again this year. This is their one big event, so they splurge on just about everything. We get ProTracer more than any other time all year, and not just on tee shots. They also mastered audio in their first year covering golf, putting mics in the holes and all over the venue to pick up the on-course conversations between players and caddies. Those are two sweet spots for the modern golf watcher -- the player-caddie deliberations and ample ProTracer. You do that and get out of the way, then most people will be happy (except maybe on Twitter, where they’re always angry).

While there will probably be dramatic improvements and changes on the TV side, the streaming offerings are relatively static and are the same reliable coverage we get at every U.S. Open. They are, of course, now a Fox production too but it’s still the same amount of supplemental coverage. There will be two featured groups streams, so you’ll be able to see every shot from the handful of superstars in the field. Those come in handy right out of the gate on Thursday and Friday when they’re out on the course a couple hours before the TV window. There’s also a featured holes stream running all day as a third option. All of the TV coverage will be simulcast via Fox Sports Go, which seems like an obvious and intuitive thing but we just had a PGA Tour event (the Memorial) shown on tape delay and without a live simulcast stream option.

So the coverage options are more than adequate this week, which would make sense -- this is a major! But that’s not how it goes at the season’s first major, where the green jackets of Augusta actually try to restrict TV coverage and the live streaming windows. It was a huge concession and a progressive move this year for them to offer featured groups streams from the very first hole. Now we’re back in the 21st century with the U.S. Open.

Here are all your options for the week (all times ET):