SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France – The Ryder Cup began at 8:10 a.m. local time on Friday morning, which meant the first tee shot was in the air at 2:10 a.m. on the east coast of the U.S. A number of diehard U.S. golf fans were up late (or early?) to take in the coverage and excited for what was to come.
What! pic.twitter.com/r3Y8YKzQj3
— Brendan Porath (@BrendanPorath) September 28, 2018
Time for the best event in Sports.#rydercup
— Garrett Johnston (@JohnstonGarrett) September 28, 2018
Who among us is gonna get up at 2 AM to watch the Ryder Cup? Show yourselves, degenerates.
— Bunkie Perkins (@BunkiePerkins) September 28, 2018
Wake up boys and girls. We got some work to do. It all goes down in just over an hour for The Man and PReed. Be there. #RyderCup
— Tiger Tracker (@GCTigerTracker) September 28, 2018
But once the first groups were off, the chatter on social media took a negative turn: many were dismayed by the number of early commercials.
Hey @GolfChannel, with a whopping 16 players on the course I’d really expect to see more than just the greens on these holes, ya know? #RyderCup
— Ben Grehan (@MizunoBen) September 28, 2018
In case anyone was wondering, from 3:05 to 3:45 @GolfChannel ran 28 ads and 1-2 minutes of flyovers/promos/not live golf.
In that time, they showed 33 golf shots, 13 of which were putts.
World number 1 Dustin Johnson was not shown once.@NoLayingUp @gfordgolf @tdemers7
— Robbie Vogel (@RobbieVogel14) September 28, 2018
It’s terrible. For those of us streaming on @NBCSports app, we get the same commercials every time too. pic.twitter.com/DwYNloxfj6
— Will Wente (@WillMoney11) September 28, 2018
Show more golf shots you <expletives deleted> #RyderCup https://t.co/KPGRrttra4
— One Bearded Golfer (@1beardedgolfer) September 28, 2018
This is NOT what I woke up early for. Hey @GolfChannel, some of us have to go to work later today! ? https://t.co/mierD4mqJb
— Ben Grehan (@MizunoBen) September 28, 2018
Every time the Golf Channel gets a nice run of commercials going, they interrupt it with 4-5 minutes of putts and bunker shots. Annoying.
— Tim Cowlishaw (@TimCowlishaw) September 28, 2018
We got up at 2AM for this. I don’t think Golf Channel factored in that we’d all be EXTRA cranky about the commercials.
— Michael Sneeden (@michaelmsneeden) September 28, 2018
Hey @GolfChannel, we want golf!
— Scotty McCreery (@ScottyMcCreery) September 28, 2018
You get the idea. Even ESPN’s Scott van Pelt found himself catching heat for the commercials — even though he works for an entirely different network.
Things I’m not in charge of: commercials, shot tracer, team uniforms. So, you can direct your outrage accordingly.
— Scott Van Pelt (@notthefakeSVP) September 28, 2018
According to rumblings here in the press center, coverage is expected to be lighter on commercials late in the day, once more viewers are awake to tune in. You can see the complete TV schedule here:
