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<\/p>\nPORTRUSH, Northern Ireland \u2014 There was a vacationer relaxing by the sea in Gothenburg, Sweden. A barista working somewhere near the Rock of Gibraltar. A semi-truck driver in Peru, Ill. An electrician in Toronto. A man mowing his lawn in Little Silver, N.J. Letters from Hawaii and the Caribbean. Dispatches from Des Moines, Iowa, and St. George, Utah.<\/p>\n
All on the same channel.<\/p>\n
All listening to the same voices.<\/p>\n
Each tuned to Open Radio on Thursday, delighting along with hosts Marcus Buckland and Sue Thearle and snickering with a band of on-course voices. Each sent an email, saying hi, telling their story, declaring their rooting interests. All over Royal Portrush, fans did the same. With one ear on the course and the other on the broadcast, they sent their emails, chiming in from the grandstands and ropelines.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s something about this broadcast. Those who\u2019ve heard it know it. Some kind of fanciful combination of event (The Open, golf\u2019s most time-honored tradition), stage (ancient links courses) and style (brisk, cheeky, vividly descriptive) that bridges present and past and maybe even makes you feel something.<\/p>\n
My first Open Championship was last year\u2019s trip to Troon. Geoff Shackelford, the golf writer and course architecture authority, suggested I be sure to grab an earpiece radio and tune into the broadcast. Sure, I said, not realizing I\u2019d soon feel like Moonlight Graham stepping off the diamond and onto the gravel.<\/p>\n
Of all media, radio comes with a romance that\u2019s all its own. The sound of a fading era. Live storytelling. Voices using five senses to feed one of yours. It can be intensely personal. Like everything else, though, such things changed over time. Audio has evolved, from dials to streams, and broadcast styles have moved along like everything else.<\/p>\n
But then there\u2019s Open Radio. The broadcast, produced by International Management Group, is a marathon spanning nearly the entirety of all four days of tournament play, stopping for only two 30-second breaks per hour. Thursday\u2019s broadcast began at 7 a.m. local time and concluded at 9:32 p.m. For close to 15 hours, Buckland and Thearle swapped in and out as lead \u201cpresenter\u201d while 11 on-course commentators and analysts, mostly working in tandem, called feature groups, all working 36 holes, just as they\u2019ll do again Friday, all while a group of a half-dozen producers direct the show. Thursday, without straying or fatiguing, the show moved constantly from one moment to the next, calling as many live shots as possible instead of reporting what had already happened. The result felt like a carload of passengers white-knuckling along a winding road, loving every turn.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe listeners are part of the team,\u201d Steve Tebb, Open Radio\u2019s producer, told me Wednesday, sitting in a makeshift booth along the 18th fairway. \u201cIt\u2019s like you\u2019re telling stories over a beer, reflecting on the day at the pub. There\u2019s an intimacy and loyalty. We have human stories, we love to work together and \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Tebb stopped, shook his head, then continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike Robert,\u201d he said, \u201cmy friend who is giving me the finger right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the opposite side of the glass, Robert Lee, the former longtime European Tour player, smiled with a middle finger in the air.<\/p>\n
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Paul Eales, left, and Robert Lee. They and other analysts walk 36 holes a day to share every detail with their listeners. (Oisin Keniry \/ R&A via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Lee often works in television for Sky Sports but prefers the whimsy and artistry of radio and the small family feel that makes this broadcast so peculiar.<\/p>\n
\u201cGolf works really well on the radio, and if you\u2019re listening, you can stay really immersed, and you get the smells and the bells and the sights and the sounds through your ears,\u201d Lee said. \u201cIt\u2019s using language. Language makes life interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Open Radio, that tee shot did not simply roll on that hill. No, it \u201cscampered down a hog\u2019s back.\u201d<\/p>\n
That putt? It wasn\u2019t tapped. It was \u201ctickled in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seeing Cameron Smith push a tee shot left, Buckland reported the Aussie as watching it with \u201can accusatory stare.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the sixth hole, along the Irish Sea shoreline, commentator Rupert Bell compared the build and contours of colleague Brendon de Jonge to those of Giant\u2019s Causeway out in the distance.<\/p>\n
A player\u2019s opening tee shot? It\u2019s secondary to a full description of what he\u2019s wearing.<\/p>\n
The weather? It\u2019s as much of a character as any player.<\/p>\n
Matt Fitzpatrick, after dunking a chip shot on Portrush\u2019s dastardly par-3 16th, did not emerge smiling. He came upon the green grinning with \u201cthe boyish looks of a Yorkshireman,\u201d per analyst Sophie Walker, a former Ladies European Tour (LET) player.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Because the broadcast is owned and operated by the R&A, which opts not to include any advertising or presenting sponsors, all of this unfolds without interruption or distraction. Just one line after another, free of commercialization and clutter, all via a variety of accents. Altogether, it\u2019s as pure as Irish whiskey, or uisce beatha in Gaelic, \u201cthe water of life.\u201d<\/p>\n
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