Germans have no time for British Open

BONN, Germany - Here I am, in this pretty, former Cold War capital, not too far from the edge of Europe, and probably a two hour flight from Carnoustie. Can I get any coverage on television? Nope.

It’s almost like a badge of honor that Germans will tell you they give not a crap about the British Open. On Germany’s two main sports channels, it’s all afternoon coverage of the Tour de France. During the “shoulder” periods during the day - i.e. morning and night - it’s soccer. This morning I futility tried to find some British Open coverage, only to be thwarted by a few taped soccer matches from last year.

Now this sport we love - golf - certainly is in the running for being, generally, one of the most boring sports to watch on television. But the Tour de France? Certainly watching a tangle of bright jerseys and metal making its way up a seemingly never-ending hill isn’t much more exciting. And the Tour lasts for a whole month. We can’t break away from the action for a few hours each of the next four days?

Of course, why would the Germans care? They don’t have a countryman contending at Carnoustie. The only German golfer you (or I) can even name - Bernhard Langer - is in Milwaukee, trying to steal the U.S. Bank Championship from a field as thin as John Daly’s chances to win another major.

The nearest thing they could root for, on the grounds that German is his mother tongue, is Austrian Markus Brier, who’s at 3-under and set to tee off soon. But Germans have complicated feelings about their small neighbors to to the southeast.

So, in this respect only, I’m stuck here in Bonn. Lovely weather, a nice river by which to sit, excellent wine…and no golf.

(A person in my position is forced, then, to rely on “real time” scoring and promises of “live video” at PGA.com, which is something of a cruel, inconsistent joke - at least on my computer).