Shot chart from NBC Sunday Open Championship telecast - 2019

I tracked the strokes televised by NBC during the Sunday round of the Open Championship. I started tracking at 8am ET to provide a comparable time period to the other majors I have tracked. NBC televised 389 strokes during the tracking period. This total includes 46 shots that NBC aired as part of its Playing Through feature during 13 of the commercial breaks. The last putt dropped at 1:09pm resulting in a rate of 1.26 strokes per minute which was down slightly from the 2018 Open, but was up over the previous two 2019 majors.

NBC showed strokes from 23 different players during the tracking period with eight golfers being covered for at least 23 strokes. Those eight accounted for 85% of the televised shots. NBC televised every stroke from winner Shane Lowry and all but one from runner-up Tommy Fleetwood (skipping only a tap-in on hole 11). That final pairing accounted for 45% of all televised strokes. Third place finisher Tony Finau was only covered for eight strokes. The highest finisher not shown during this period was Robert MacIntyre who was part of a tie for 6th.

I also counted the number of televised strokes by hole during the tracking period. Hole #1 (43 strokes) was featured most frequently by far as no other hole received more than 27 shots. On the flipside, the 15th hole was covered for just 10 televised srokes.

This is the sixth year that I have compiled these televised shot charts. For comparison to prior majors, see this summary table which contains links to all of my shot charts since 2014.

Here is the complete shot chart (including the highest finisher not shown during the tracking period) followed by the hole-by-hole breakdown:

Player	Shots shown	Finish	Pairing
Tommy Fleetwood	73 (of 74)	2	1
Shane Lowry	72 (of 72)	1	1
Brooks Koepka	41	T4	2
Rickie Fowler	38	T6	3
Justin Thomas	28	T11	11
Lee Westwood	27	T4	4
Jordan Spieth	26	T20	6
JB Holmes	23	T67	2
Jon Rahm	10	T11	5
Danny Willett	9	T6	4
Henrik Stenson	9	T20	6
Tony Finau	8	3	5
Justin Rose	8	T20	3
Patrick Reed	3	10	11
Matt Kuchar	3	T41	7
Matthew Fitzpatrick	2	T20	12
Stewart Cink	2	T20	25
Dustin Johnson	2	T51	18
Tyrell Hatton	1	T6	13
Ryan Fox	1	T16	23
Ernie Els	1	T32	21
Dylan Frittelli	1	T32	8
Mikko Korhonen	1	T63	18
Robert MacIntyre	0	T6	17
others	0
total	389

Note: The Pairing column reflects the tee time groupings in reverse order, so 1 = final pairing, 2 = next-to-last, etc.

Hole number	Televised shots
1	43
2	22
3	14
4	19
5	22
6	16
7	23
8	22
9	14
10	27
11	23
12	27
13	18
14	16
15	10
16	21
17	25
18	26

Shot chart from NBC Sunday Open Championship telecast - 2018

I monitored the strokes televised by NBC during the final round of the Open Championship. I started tracking at 9am ET to provide a comparable time period to the other majors I have tracked. NBC televised 383 strokes during the tracking period. This total includes 30 shots that NBC aired as part of its Playing Through feature during 10 of the commercial breaks. With the final putt dropping at 1:57pm, the rate worked out to 1.29 strokes per minute.

NBC showed strokes from 21 different players during the tracking period with seven golfers being covered for at least 22 strokes. Those seven accounted for 84% of the televised shots. NBC televised 45 strokes from winner Francesco Molinari which was only the fourth highest total. NBC devoted air time to 65 strokes from Tiger Woods and spotlighted the final pairing of Jordan Spieth and Xander Schauffele for 58 and 55 shots respectively. The highest finishers not shown during this period were three of the players who were part of a tie for 12th.

I also recorded the number of televised strokes by hole during the tracking period. The 18th was featured most frequently (39 strokes) followed by hole #1 (35 shots). On the other extreme, the 9th hole received only nine televised shots.

This is the fifth year that I have compiled these televised shot charts. For comparison to prior majors, see this summary table which contains links to all such shot charts since 2014.

Here is the complete shot chart (including the highest finishers not shown during the tracking period) followed by the hole-by-hole breakdown:

Player	Shots shown	Finish	Pairing
Tiger Woods	65 (of 71)	T6	3
Jordan Spieth	58	T9	1
Xander Schauffele	55	T2	1
Francesco Molinari	45	1	3
Kevin Kisner	40	T2	2
Rory McIlroy	35	T2	5
Kevin Chappell	22	T6	2
Tommy Fleetwood	10	T12	6
Justin Rose	9	T2	7
Matt Kuchar	7	T9	5
Phil Mickelson	7	T24	19
Eddie Pepperell	5	T6	19
Tony Finau	4	T9	9
Webb Simpson	4	T12	4
Alex Noren	4	T17	4
Zach Johnson	4	T17	6
Erik Van Rooyen	4	T17	10
Jason Day	2	T17	27
Bernhard Langer	1	T24	18
Julian Suri	1	T28	23
Sean Crocker	1	T47	15
Cantlay/Moore/Olesen	0	T12
others	0
total	383

Note: The Pairing column reflects the tee time groupings in reverse order, so 1 = final pairing, 2 = next-to-last, etc.

Hole number	Televised shots
1	35
2	20
3	20
4	18
5	23
6	24
7	19
8	12
9	9
10	16
11	19
12	19
13	21
14	26
15	19
16	19
17	25
18	39

Shot chart from NBC Sunday Open Championship telecast - 2016

I tracked the strokes televised by NBC during the Sunday round of the Open Championship. I started tracking at 9am ET to provide a decent comparison to the other majors I have tracked. The final putt was at 1:30pm so the tracking covered 4.5 hours.

NBC aired all but one stroke from winner Henrik Stenson (skipping a tap-in on 12th) and all but two from runner-up Phil Mickelson (bypassing tap-ins on #2 and #5). With those two separating themselves from the field, NBC focused heavily on that pairing. In fact, NBC devoted a whopping 56% of all televised strokes during this period to the Stenson/Mickelson duo (who didn't even tee off until 35 minutes into the tracking).

NBC televised only 224 shots during this period which worked out to 0.83 strokes per minute. This was a sizable decrease from the ESPN shot rate of 1.23 that I measured from the 2015 Open Championship and the lowest rate for any major that I have tracked. The lack of competition from the rest of the field clearly contributed to the low rate. NBC chose to aggressively spotlight the drama and excellence of the lead group (and take numerous commercial breaks) rather than fill time with relatively meaningless golf action from the rest of the pack.

For comparison, refer to the shot tracking data I compiled for CBS from the 2016 Masters and Fox from the 2016 US Open, In that Masters post, you can find links to the shot charts I did for the 2014 and 2015 majors.

NBC showed a total of 24 golfers during the tracking period. The highest finisher not shown during this span was Soren Kjeldsen who tied for 9th.

Here is the complete shot chart:

Player	Shots shown	Finish	Pairing
Phil Mickelson	63 (of 65)	2	1
Henrik Stenson	62 (of 63)	1	1
Rory McIlroy	14	T5	11
Andrew Johnston	13	8	2
JB Holmes	10	3	3
Bill Haas	8	T9	2
Sergio Garcia	7	T5	5
Dustin Johnson	5	T9	8
Steve Stricker	4	4	3
Tyrrell Hatton	4	T5	7
Jason Day	4	T22	15
Lee Westwood	4	T22	22
Darren Clarke	4	T30	20
Zach Johnson	3	T12	9
Emiliano Grillo	3	T12	11
Haydn Porteous	3	T30	13
Tony Finau	2	T18	4
Kevin Na	2	T22	8
Thomas Pieters	2	T30	14
Jordan Spieth	2	T30	26
Jim Furyk	2	T59	26
Thongchai Jaidee	1	T22	14
Rafa Cabrera Bella	1	T39	16
Rickie Fowler	1	T46	24
Soren Kjeldsen	0	T9	4
others	0
total	224

Note: The Pairing column reflects the tee time groupings in reverse order, so 1 =  final pairing, 2 = next-to-last, etc.

Shot chart from ESPN final round of Open Championship telecast - 2015

I tracked the shots shown by ESPN during the Monday round of the Open Championship. I started tracking at 9am ET and ended when the final putt was holed in regulation play at 1:50. ESPN showed 358 shots during this period which worked out to 1.23 strokes per minute - a sizable increase over the ESPN shot rate of 1.01 from the 2014 Open Championship.

This was also a higher shot rate than I tracked for CBS from the 2015 Masters and Fox from the 2015 US Open, but trailed the rate that NBC showed during the 2015 Players. The Masters post contains links to the shot charts I did for the 2014 majors.

ESPN showed only 16 golfers during the tracking period, focusing primarily on 8 players who were shown for at least 23 shots. With Jordan Spieth in contention for a third consecutive major, ESPN covered all but four strokes from his round. The highest finishers not shown during the tracking period were Justin Rose and Danny Willett who were both part of the tie for 6th place.

Note: ESPN obviously showed all 49 strokes from the playoff, but I didn't count those in the tracking in order to provide a truer comparison to other tournaments.

Here is the complete shot chart:

Player	Shots shown	Finish	Pairing
Jordan Spieth	65 (of 69)	T4	2
Louis Oosthuizen	51	T2	1
Jason Day	50	T4	2
Marc Leishman	43	T2	3
Zach Johnson	40 (*)	1	7
Adam Scott	26	T10	6
Sergio Garcia	24	T6	4
Paul Dunne	23 (#)	T30	1
Padraig Harrington	15	T20	3
Jordan Niebrugge	8	T6	4
Ashley Chesters	4	T10	14
Luke Donald	3	T12	22
Anthony Wall	2	T12	11
Hideki Matsuyama	2	T18	12
Matt Jones	1	T30	15
Ollie Schniederjans	1	T12	25
others	0
total	358

* includes a shot from hole 2 (before the tracking period) which ESPN showed on a highlight package during the tracking period

# includes two provisional strokes televised by ESPN on hole 2

Note: The Pairing column reflects the tee time groupings in reverse order, so 1 =  final pairing, 2 = next-to-last, etc.

Shot chart from ESPN Sunday Open Championship telecast

I tracked the strokes shown on ESPN during the final round of the British Open. With the lead group teeing off at 9:40am ET, I started the tracking at 9:00 to provide a similar time frame to the shot charts of the Masters and US Open from earlier this year.

ESPN showed all but one stroke by winner Rory McIlroy, skipping a tap-in putt on #3. ESPN televised all but 4 shots for each of Rickie Fowler and Sergio Garcia. Partway through the front nine, the network settled into a pattern of focusing almost exclusively on that trio who occupied the top three spots on the leaderboard for most of the day. During the tracking period, ESPN devoted 72.5% of the on-camera strokes to these three and spent a lot of air time showing them walking at the expense of other golf action. The only other player to be covered for more than 9 shots was Dustin Johnson.

ESPN showed a total of 269 strokes during the tracking period which ended at 1:26pm. This worked out to only 1.01 shots per minute which was noticeably less than the Sunday coverage of the other majors. ESPN showed only 18 golfers during this period and covered more than one stroke for just 12 players. The highest finisher not shown was Charl Schwartzel who tied for 7th.

The complete shot chart:

Player	Shots shown	Finish	Pairing
Rory McIlroy	70 (of 71)	1	1
Rickie Fowler	63 (of 67)	T2	1
Sergio Garcia	62 (of 66)	T2	2
Dustin Johnson	19	T12	2
Adam Scott	9	T5	4
Victor Dubuisson	7	T9	3
Robert Karlsson	7	T12	5
Angel Cabrera	7	T19	18
Jim Furyk	6	4	5
Shane Lowry	5	T9	14
Marc Leishman	4	T5	8
Phil Mickelson	4	T23	18
Edoardo Molinari	1	T7	3
Graeme McDowell	1	T9	7
Francesco Molinari	1	T15	15
Matteo Manassero	1	T19	4
Jimmy Walker	1	T26	8
Thomas Bjorn	1	T26	26
Charl Schwartzel	0	T7	6
others	0
total	269

Note: The Pairing column reflects the tee time groupings in reverse order, so 1 =  final pairing, 2 = next-to-last, etc.

History of British Open on US TV (1962-present)

The British Open (more properly titled The Open Championship) is the oldest golf major, but has the shortest history on US TV. However, by 2010, the tournament with the distinctive yellow scoreboards was getting the most network TV coverage in the US of any golf major.

For many years the networks holding the US TV rights would televise the tournament primarily using video feeds from the British Broadcasting Company (BBC). For the entire decade of the 1970s, all US TV coverage was on tape delay. The Open also lagged far behind the other majors in moving to HDTV broadcasts.

For detailed TV schedules and announcers by year, see my complete research on British Open TV history over at 506sports (free registration required to view).

<EDITED on 7/17/2019 to bring this up to date as of the 2019 tournament>  

Chronology of British Open TV coverage

1961 - ABC had planned to provide taped coverage of the Friday 7/14 final round on Wide World of Sports the next day, but ABC scrapped those plans when the Friday action was rained out. At the time, the British Open was scheduled as a 3-day event ending with 36 holes on Friday. The 36-hole finish took place on Saturday with no US TV coverage.

1962 - ABC provided taped coverage of the Friday action on a Sunday edition of Wide World of Sports with Jim McKay narrating. ABC would do the same but on a next-day basis on Saturdays from 1963-1965.

1966 - The Open changed to a 4-day format with the final round on Saturday. For the first time, ABC televised the event live. The network provided 1.5 hours of coverage via Early Bird satellite of the Saturday round with McKay and Byron Nelson calling the action.

1968 - Chris Schenkel worked alongside Nelson for the telecast which covered the final 4 holes.

1969 - ABC increased to 3 hours of live coverage. This was the first time the Open was televised in color in the US.

1970 - After 4 consecutive years of live telecasts, ABC regressed to late afternoon tape delay coverage of the Saturday final round and would continue this throughout the 1970s. ABC also reduced its coverage to 1.5 hours. Dave Marr joined the ABC crew. On Sunday, ABC added tape delayed coverage of the 18-hole playoff.

1972- ABC expanded the tape delayed coverage to 2 hours and this would remain the case through 1979.

1975 - ABC added coverage of the Sunday 18-hole playoff on tape delay. ABC started using Peter Alliss from the BBC on the Open. Alliss would split time on the BBC and US TV networks on Open coverage every year through 2015.

1980 - The Open shifted to the modern Thursday-Sunday schedule. On Saturday, ABC carried 1 hour on tape delay, but the network provided 2 hours of live coverage on Sunday. This was the first live coverage of the event on ABC since 1969.

1981 - ABC provided 1.5 hours of live coverage on Saturday for a weekend total of 3.5 hours.

1982 - ESPN provided 11 hours of coverage of the Thursday and Friday rounds. Jim Simpson and Lou Palmer were among the announcers during the early years of the ESPN coverage. ABC increased to 2 hours on Saturday. Jack Whitaker joined the ABC team.

1984 - McKay did not work the Open as ABC kept him in the US to prepare for the upcoming Los Angeles Olympics. Whitaker anchored the ABC telecasts. ABC increased the Sunday coverage to 3 hours.

1988 - Due to heavy rain, the final round was delayed until Monday. ABC added 1.5 hours of tape delayed coverage of the Monday finish.

1990 - ABC expanded to 4 hours each day on the weekend. Roger Twibell anchored the ABC coverage.

1992 - Brent Musburger took over as the ABC lead announcer with Steve Melnyk as lead analyst.

1993 - Peter Jacobsen worked as lead analyst for ABC, but Melnyk would resume this role again the following year.

1997 - Mike Tirico took over as the ABC lead announcer.

1998 - ABC installed Curtis Strange as its lead analyst.

1999 - ABC moved the Saturday coverage to ESPN around 11:30am so that ABC News could follow the search for the missing plane of John F. Kennedy Jr.

2000 - ABC increased to 4.5 hours on each weekend day.

2001 - ABC expanded to 5.5 hours on both Saturday and Sunday and would continue this schedule through 2009.

2003 - TNT took over the Thursday and Friday rounds. Ernie Johnson and Bobby Clampett anchored the TNT coverage which also used some of the ABC announcers. TNT also started providing 2 hours of early morning coverage on both weekend days prior to the ABC air-time.

2004 - ABC installed Ian Baker-Finch and Nick Faldo as co-#1 analysts.

2005 - Paul Azinger joined Faldo as ABC co-lead analyst. Faldo made the cut in the event and joined the ABC coverage after finishing play.

2006 - Tirico filled in on TNT for Johnson who was undergoing chemotherapy.

2008 - ABC added Tom Watson to its TV team after Faldo left for CBS. Watson played in the event, but missed the cut. Baker-Finch took over as lead analyst on TNT.

2009 - Watson had again been scheduled to join the ABC weekend telecasts. However, he never made it to the broadcast booth as he not only made the cut, but nearly won the tournament.

2010 - ESPN took over the entire tournament. This marked the first time that a men's golf major was exclusively on cable in the US. ESPN began the Thursday and Friday coverage at 4am ET and stayed on the air for a scheduled 11 live hours both days. Tirico and Azinger remained as the lead announcers. This was also the first British Open televised in HDTV.

2014 - ESPN shifted its Saturday coverage to start at 5am ET after the tournament moved tee times earlier due to an ominous weather forecast.

2015 - ESPN started the Saturday coverage at 2am ET to show completion of the second round (but that was soon halted for wind). The third round was moved to Sunday. ESPN added Monday coverage of the final round.

2016 - NBC took over the rights and combined with Golf Channel for 49.5 hours of scheduled live coverage - a record to date for any golf major. This marks the first major for GC which came on the air at 1:30 am ET on Thursday and Friday for a total of 14.5 scheduled hours both days. Dan Hicks and Johnny Miller anchored the NBC telecasts.

2019 - Paul Azinger takes over the NBC lead analyst role replacing the retired Johnny Miller. 

Total scheduled US TV time for the British Open by year

Note: I am not including added coverage (such as playoffs) in these numbers, but I did mention these cases in the above chronology. I am also not including taped highlight shows, but am including original tape delay coverage. The hours represent live coverage except where noted.

1962-1965:   at most 1.5 hours (ABC) - covered on tape as part of Wide World of Sports
1966-1968:   1.5 hours (ABC)
1969:             3 hours (ABC)
1970-1971:  1.5 hours on tape delay (ABC)
1972-1979:  2 hours on tape delay (ABC)
1980:            3 hours total with 1 on tape delay and 2 live (ABC)
1981:             3.5 hours (ABC)
1982:             15 hours (11 on ESPN, 4 on ABC)
1983              14 hours (10 on ESPN, 4 on ABC)
1984-1989:   15 hours (10 on ESPN, 5 on ABC)
1990-1999:   18 hours (10 on ESPN, 8 on ABC)
2000:             21 hours (12 on ESPN, 9 on ABC)
2001-2002:   23 hours (12 on ESPN, 11 on ABC)
2003-2004:   30 hours (19 on TNT, 11 on ABC)
2005-2006:   31 hours (20 on TNT, 11 on ABC)
2007-2009:   30 hours (19 on TNT, 11 on ABC)
2010-2011:    37 hours (ESPN)
2012:              36 hours (ESPN)
2013-2015:    37 hours (ESPN)
2016:             49.5 hours (35 on GC, 14.5 on NBC)
2017:             49.5 hours (34.5 on GC, 15 on NBC)
2018:             49 hours (34 on GC, 15 on NBC)
2019:             48 hours (33 on GC, 15 on NBC)