Sky bring Open coverage into new age but ad-breaks hamper

Those of us up in time to catch the first of the 53 much-heralded hours of Open golf being broadcast live on Sky Sports were rewarded with some early amusement. The initial comic relief – the kind of thing that’s funny because it’s happened to somebody else – was provided by Colin Montgomerie.

Ubiquitous on the station for whom he regularly works in the buildup to the tournament, much had been made of Monty being granted the honour of hitting the first drive at Royal Troon, the course where he learned the game. Having narrowly missed the fairway with that one, it was his second and third shots that prompted the first early morning giggles.

After sending his approach into a deep bunker you would expect him to have spotted at some point during the many thousands of rounds he has almost certainly played at Troon, Monty failed in his first attempt to extricate himself from the sand before conceding defeat and playing what he would later describe as his “shot of the round”, out the side door, to leave a tricky up-and-down for a double-bogey six.

It was hardly the start he had envisaged and a wonderfully clear Scottish morning briefly looked in danger of being enveloped by an incoming red mist. Mercifully, the Scot held his nerve to recover and go round in level par before adjourning to the commentary box for his second shift of a busy day.

Precluded from playing by injury, Ian Poulter was also lending his expertise and did not have to wait long to make an impression. “There’s nobody better in the game around the greens than Luke Donald, he’s got an incredible touch,” he observed, as his compatriot stood poised over his ball on the fringes of the fourth green. The fates duly tempted, Donald proceeded to demonstrate the touch of a high street bag-snatcher and leave himself well short of the pin. “Thanks Luke,” grumbled an uncharacteristically sheepish Poulter, as his fellow guests Paul McGinley and Butch Harmon struggled to contain their glee.

Having stepped into the breach after the BBC ended their long association with the R&A a year early, Sky hold the rights for all four majors and the Ryder Cup. In his mission statement, the satellite channel’s managing director, Barney Francis, announced “exciting plans to take coverage of the Open to the next level across our TV, mobile and digital outlets”. With the curmudgeonly commentator Peter Alliss now absent from live commentary after a BBC residency behind the microphone stretching back nearly 40 years, it could be argued that any hour of coverage that passes without an anecdote involving a retired colonel playfully goosing a waitress in some provincial clubhouse has already been taken “to the next level”. Nevertheless, Kirsty Gallagher was on hand to explain the full range of levels to which Sky have taken this staple of the British sporting summer.

As well as Sky’s dedicated Open channel, additional coverage of holes 6, 7 and 8 can be found “behind the red button”, where featured groups of big-name players also lurk. Everything is also available on the companion app, revealed Gallagher, who also invited us to keep up to date on Sky’s live blog, mobile app and website. For golf enthusiasts who find themselves in the unfortunate position of being unable to devote themselves to endless hours slumped in an armchair, the whole shebang is also available on Sky Go.

As regular cutaways to the tufty raised sand dunes, pale cloud-flecked sky and darker blue waters of the Firth of Clyde proved, the sports channel has been gifted a location of outstanding beauty at which to make their Open bow and have complemented these natural assets with no shortage of technological doohickies including overhead “wire cams” and several comparatively subterranean equivalents offering a worm’s eye view from which to catch the early birdies.

As the first threesomes were introduced by David Lancaster, one of two new official first-tee starters tasked with filling the spats of Ivor Robson, much of the focus remained on the Sky studio overlooking the first green, where David Livingstone had the fairly straightforward job of steering good-humoured and informative golf chat between Harmon, McGinley and Poulter, who took turns to join Sarah Stirk for analysis at the obligatory touch-screen monitor.

It is not the only gizmo they have borrowed from the football department, having press-ganged some or possibly all of the Open field into filming those introductory profiles where players walk towards the camera, look down the barrel and occasionally smile. The touch of a button resulted in a life-sized Jordan Spieth, Shane Lowry and Justin Rose materialising in front of Stirk and Harmon, a feat made all the more impressive considering the three men in question were simultaneously limbering up on the practice ground.

For all these bells and whistles, there is little new here. Sky have long been covering golf and doing so well, while remaining constantly hamstrung by the frequent ad-breaks assorted presenters and commentators feel repeatedly compelled to stress will only last “one minute”. With so many of those interruptions used for in-house self-promotion, one can’t help but feel Sky might better endear themselves to subscribers by cutting back on their efforts to advise us on how best to “watch the shows you love” and broadcasting more of the show we’ve paid through the nose to see.

(Guardian service)