As Jordan Spieth begins his quest to win the third leg of golf’s Grand Slam on Thursday in The Open at Scotland’s St Andrews links course, his group will be highlighted on ESPN3’s “Featured Players” feed for his entire first round. ESPN3 is offering golf fans four options for a second-screen experience during ESPN’s live telecast of The Open.
The ESPN3 Featured Players feed will start at 4:20 a.m. ET on Thursday, just before Spieth tees off at 4:33 a.m. (9:33 a.m. local time in Scotland) in a group with Dustin Johnson and Hideki Matsuyama. Spieth has already won the Masters Tournament and the U.S. Open this year, the first two of golf’s four majors.
After Spieth’s round is complete, the Featured Players feed will shift to the group of Phil Mickelson, Henrik Stenson and Matt Kuchar, which has a 9:34 a.m. ET (2:34 p.m. local) tee time. For more details, visit ESPN MediaZone.
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — The ESPN3 second-screen experience for ESPN’s coverage of The Open, golf’s oldest major, continues to grow in popularity among fans and that’s music to the ears of Trey Wingo.
Wingo, known best to ESPN viewers as the host of NFL Live, is in Scotland to again be one of the hosts of the “Featured Players” feed on ESPN3. While watching ESPN’s live telecast of play from St Andrews on television, fans can supplement their viewing from a choice of four ESPN3 feeds on their computer, smartphone or tablet.
“The first time they ever did this back in 2005, it took four hours to be able to get one video clip onto a phone that you could watch,” Wingo said. “And now to have it be able to stream live really is an amazing thing.
“It’s just part of a whole process of trying to get to wherever the sports fan, or in this case the golf fan, is,” he said. “If you can’t be at the television, if you’re commuting on a train or you’re on a bus somewhere, you get a chance to watch The Open as you go into work. I think that’s really cool.”
Not only does Wingo enjoy the opportunity to do something different, he also enjoys the company he keeps, working alongside ESPN analysts Curtis Strange, Andy North, Tom Weiskopf and others.
“For those of us of a certain era that grew up watching Weiskopf and Nicklaus and Andy North and all those guys, and you see them in one light, and then you get to work with them and it’s a totally different dynamic,” he said.
“At other events, whenever there was a rain delay, Andy and Curtis and all of those guys would just get rolling telling stories about things that went on on the Tour,” Wingo said. “It was just a lot of fun to listen to some of the stuff that went on behind the scenes.”
ESPN’s coverage from The Open airs for at least 13 hours a day for the first two days of the event, making long days for the announcers and crew. But Wingo has no trouble keeping his energy level up.
“For me, that’s easy because it’s so enjoyable,” he said. “They are long days and certainly there’s a lot of hours of research that go into it, but I love golf.”
Live four-round coverage begins Thursday at 4 a.m. ET from golf’s oldest major.
