FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, June 15th, 2021

NBC SPORTS’ DAN HICKS, PAUL AZINGER, JIM “BONES” MACKAY AND TOMMY ROY PREVIEW 2021 U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

“It’s going to be as much of a Tiger-hype with Phil as you could possibly think with any other golfer.” – Dan Hicks on Phil Mickelson

“I don’t care if they’re playing on the moon next week, he’s going to come in feeling very bulletproof.” – Jim “Bones” Mackay on Mickelson

“If you’ve earned the right to play in this championship, you’ve earned the right to be shown on TV in a meaningful way – it’s the DNA of the U.S. Open.” – Tommy Roy on Showing All 156 Players During Coverage

NBC Sports Presents More Than 45 Hours of Live U.S. Open Championship Coverage from Torrey Pines Golf Course Thursday-Sunday Across NBC, GOLF Channel & Peacock; 100-Plus Hours Including Featured Groups

GOLF Central Live From the U.S. Open Provides More Than 40 Hours of Live On-Site Pre- and Post-Championship Coverage; Continues in Primetime Tonight at 7 p.m. ET on GOLF Channel

STAMFORD, Conn. – June 15, 2021 – NBC Sports play-by-play commentator Dan Hicks, analyst Paul Azinger, and on-course reporter Jim “Bones” Mackay, as well as producer Tommy Roy, previewed the upcoming 2021 U.S. Open Championship at Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego, Calif., on a media conference call last week.

Following are excerpts from the call. Click here for a full transcript.

Tommy Roy on NBC Sports’ presentation of the U.S. Open: “The goal as usual is to show all 156 players in the field. My feeling is that if you’ve earned the right to play in this championship, you’ve earned the right to be shown on TV in a meaningful way. So we look forward to following up on all the stories of golf’s longest day and the guys that fought to qualify for this event. It’s the DNA of the U.S. Open.”

Dan Hicks on Phil Mickelson: “It’s going to be as much of a Tiger-hype with Phil as you could possibly think with any other golfer is this Mickelson-hype going in, because obviously he’s got all the runners-up, the record six runners-up in the U.S. Opens and this would complete the Grand Slam.”

Jim “Bones” Mackay on Mickelson: “He’s coming off this amazing PGA Championship win. I don’t care if they’re playing on the moon next week, he’s going to come in feeling very bulletproof, in my opinion.”

Hicks on calling Tiger Woods’ tying putt on the 72nd hole and victory at the 2008 U.S. Open: “In the world of golf, the Tiger thing has topped them all. You can go back to what we have done at a number of championships and events through the years. Brookline in ’99 was off the charts. So many other events that I’ve had the privilege of doing, all the Olympics, but the Tiger thing was just, I still can’t believe it.”

Paul Azinger on Bryson DeChambeau: “Bryson’s coming into this U.S. Open having kind of really made his mark on the game as the cutting edge guy with just going to try to overpower courses with technology and all that. He’s blazing a trail and he did it at Winged Foot. He laid a marker in the ground with respect to power. But I think the misnomer is everyone thinks it just came strictly off the tee, but Bryson’s power was shown from the rough, a pretty thick rough. I am really curious how the USGA is going to respond to that — are they going to grow the rough up here at Torrey Pines maybe a little deeper than it was?”

Hicks on his ‘expect anything different’ call of Woods’ playoff-forcing putt in 2008: “You’re trying to enhance the moment. You really have no idea when you’re doing it that it’s going to live on that, in the way it does. But it’s neat to have the opportunity to enhance the moment and it’s really cool to have it live on decades afterward and still hear about it.”

Roy on technological details that will be featured during coverage: “We have more cameras on the 6th tee, 88 in all, for our 4D replay device than we had in the entire golf course in 2008. So that’s right, 88 cameras on that one tee box. You throw in all the tracking, tracing technology, the virtual graphics, double coverage from the sky with a plane and a drone and a menagerie of specialty cams. We’ve got a ‘scorpion crane,’ ‘rat cams,’ a ‘frog cam’ in the pond at 18. It’s a veritable wild kingdom out there.”

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NBC Sports presents comprehensive live coverage of the 2021 U.S. Open across NBC, GOLF Channel and Peacock, beginning this Thursday through Sunday from Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego, Calif. Click here for more details.

Over the course of the week, more than 30 on-air talent will provide live coverage, including featured groups, studio and news coverage across NBC, GOLF Channel, and Peacock.

In total, NBC Sports will provide more than 45 hours of live U.S. Open championship coverage Thursday-Sunday – reaching 100-plus hours of live coverage from Torrey Pines including featured groups and featured holes coverage.

NBC Sports will surround the 2021 U.S. Open with more than 40 hours of live studio coverage on GOLF Central Live From the U.S. Open this week on-site from Torrey Pines. Coverage continues in primetime tonight at 7 p.m. ET on GOLF Channel. Click here for more information.

—NBC SPORTS—