Three o'clock in the morning and even this night owl is questioning his sanity. Is anyone else out there watching? Does tracking the Tiger warrant such late-night, early-morning madness? Am I over-golfed; from watching, not playing! Why do the Sky Sports people talk as if they are the ultimate authority on the sport?

Well, I suppose Sky do give us more live coverage of golf than anyone else - and by a country mile at that - so they are probably entitled to a degree of smugness. But, still, there are times when you find yourself yearning for the way that the BBC cover the sport. For one thing, you just know that there are others watching, and you know they aren't relying on any host broadcasters to provide the pictures.

The fog apart, Thursday night's opening round coverage of the 100th US Open from Pebble Beach was, to put it mildly, a bit of a disaster. The disruption caused by the fog didn't help; but even apart from the heavy focus on Tiger Woods, as you would expect from an American broadcaster, the lack of continuity was a real turn-off, with viewers getting only brief glimpses of different players. It was almost a case of the American television director getting a player's downswing and moving on to pictures of seals in Carmel Bay, or fluffy white clouds or seemingly endless ad breaks.

To be honest, I felt a little sorry for the Sky people, even if they have got loads of cash. If they were doing the job themselves - as they do week in, week out on the European Tour - we'd have been given a far less stuttered introduction to what presenter David Livingstone had described in his introduction as the "true world championship". The R&A, who run the British Open might think otherwise, or did Livingstone's views have something to do with the fact that BBC (and not Sky) have television rights to that particular tournament?

Sky had got the ball rolling nicely on Wednesday night with the Golf Extra programme which brought us a nice insight into Pebble Beach along with a parade of one player after another discussing the history of the course and the championship. Woods told us how he'd first played the course as a 13-year-old when he'd visited the region for his brother's wedding and dad Earl forked out the $125 green fee for him to play the public course.

One piece of the programme, however, seemed a little incestuous when Howard Clark - whose surname gained an extra "e" courtesy of the graphics people - was interviewed by his former tour chum Richard Boxall.

These days, Clark acts as an oncourse reporter with Sky and Boxall was enquiring how the various European players would do. Only thing was, Boxall was keen to answer the questions himself. Discussing Darren Clarke and Padraig Harrington, Boxall's initial question was followed by his own response about how they "come from Ireland and linksy golf courses and I think personally it will help them". Which didn't leave a bemused Clark with much to say himself.

Back in the studio, tour player Tony Johnstone - who is known to have a strong opinion - was wondering about the set-up of the Pebble Beach links. He recalled last year's British Open at Carnoustie to make his point. Johnstone, who hadn't qualified, claimed he "watched the first 15 minutes and didn't watch again until Jean Van de Velde was playing the last", adding: "The R&A made a cock-up (of the set-up) and no-one's admitted to it yet."

Strange thing was that, by Saturday night, there were similar enough comments being passed about in the Sky studio overlooking the 18th green at Pebble Beach where Livingstone was joined by Tiger Woods' coach Butch Harmon, a man who talks a great amount of sense. The previous night (or should that be morning?) we had been left with Harmon and Livingstone talking in the dark. "Tiger thrives on the theatre," Harmon had informed us at that ungodly hour (for us, not them!).

So, the following night it was interesting to discover that most of the other players in the field weren't quite as keen on such theatre and the wind that was blowing in off the Pacific Ocean was making most of them appear like mere mortals.

The scores were "astronomical, gigantic" we were told by Harmon shortly after his man Woods had teed-off in his third round. "It's going to be a battle of wits, the man who has the most patience is probably going to shoot the best score," added Butch.

Livingstone, who'd been slagged off by Woods in a pre-championship interview for hitting four balls into the Pacific when playing the 16th hole at Cypress Point recently, was keen to tell us that the USGA had created a "torture chamber" for the players. "This is exactly what they (USGA) wanted," replied Harmon. "They wanted a hard, fast golf course . . . whether they're going to be happy with the results or not remains to be seen."

Apparently, surveys show that television viewers do indeed like to see the top players struggle - obviously a macabre lot - and, as the winds gusted in off the Pacific, we were treated to the sight of the game's top players making right eejits of themselves. We saw Colin Montgomerie move the ball about two feet with two shots out of the rough and even Woods wasn't immune from being brought back down to earth as he suffered a triple bogey at the third when his ball was buried in the strange rough that surrounds bunkers on the course.

No doubt, they were feeling a little queasy - just like viewers any time the host broadcasters opted to use what they called a "cabin cam", which was a camera placed on a boat out in the bay. Only thing was, the sea was so rough that viewers were in danger of feeling sea sick.

For the weekend, Sky Sports were taking their live footage from NBC who, Ewen Murray told us, were in "a league of their own". Maybe - if you were an American. Murray's fellow-commentator Bruce Critchley seemed to have his finger more on the pulse when he bitched about the lack of coverage of the European players who were comprising the main challenge to Tiger.

A case in point was the number of times we saw Padraig Harrington in live action - in fact, during a third round in which he manoeuvred his way into tied-third position, we saw the Dubliner on only three occasions: his approach to the first, his recovery chip at the 10th (where he double-bogeyed) and, finally, his superb approach to the 18th and his subsequent two-putts for a finishing birdie.

We were reduced to watching the tickertape scoring, the teletext button or the occasional references to him to really know how he was doing. However, Murray did tell us that Harrington was "a player who has really come of age in the past nine months".

One man who was certainly getting the coverage he deserved was Woods. Earlier, Critchley had said of the course's demands that it was "the same exam question all the time - if you pitch it on the green, how do you stop it?" One of the few players able to answer the question was Woods and, on late Saturday night/early Sunday morning, we were treated to every single one of his shots.

Murray was quick to tell us that it was the "finest case of course management" that he had ever seen on a golf course and Critchley told us that Woods was "at his peak, a seriously impressive golfer".

So you could understand the satisfaction felt by his coach Butch Harmon, who was back in his twosome with Livingstone in the box over the 18th green. "He looks like he has been out for a round of golf with his pals," observed Livingstone as we saw Woods in the recorder's hut making sure that he was signing in all the right places.

"He's made the USGA feel like they've set up the course the right way," said Harmon. And we wondered, not for the first time, were we privileged to be watching the greatest golfer that the world has seen?