For Rich Lerner, Golf’s Longest Day(™) began at 8 a.m. The Golf Channel‘s lead studio host won’t be home until after midnight, when Lerner still plans to eat a “full dinner,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. Lerner, like his colleagues and viewers, has just as big an appetite for qualifying golf, and today, the “open” spirit of golf’s U.S. Open provides.
The morning began with Lerner’s “feet up, BS-ing” with fellow on-air talent and producers, he says — the “coffee is flowing.” But soon it is time to tee off on 10 hours of exclusive live coverage of final U.S. Open qualifiers from 10 separate sites, from Purchase, New York to York, Ontario. (Yes, you can qualify for the United States Open in Canada.)
From his climate-controlled spot in the Stamford, Connecticut studio, Lerner will quarterback the action, passing off to 11 separate reporters in the field. If that seems like a forced cross-sport analogy, blame Lerner. Today is the NFL Draft for golf, he said, both in terms of witnessing amateurs become pros and the behind-the-scenes scrambling by dozens of Lerner’s colleagues in HQ’s war room. (The Versant-owned channel’s coordinating producer Matt Hegarty is head coach here.)
“This is one that we really look forward to, because this is one is part of our DNA,” Lerner says while on a writing break. “This one says we are all about the sport of golf and nothing else in a way that no other day does.”
