Pic Stream goes through growing pains on USGA Open site

My first U.S. Open was 2002, at Bethpage. I paid my way in and had a blast. My first working Open was 2004, at Shinnecock. I and a colleague were each granted writer and photo passes, pretty nifty coup for a small-town website (BuffaloGolfer.Com – I was not yet with TravelGolf.com)

These days, unless you’re with one of the biggest biggies (N.Y. Times, Golf Digest, you get the pic), you don’t have a shot at those precious photo passes. Instead, the USGA will supply a set of images from which to choose. It’s great if you miss a shot and need back-up, but lousy if you want to have your own series of images, which all of us do.

In 2011, the USGA has added Pic Stream to its Open website. Pic Stream is a timeline of images that tell the tale of the golfing day. At 10:23, this happened, while at 12:08, that took place. I ran Pic Stream in both Firefox and Internet Explorer and discovered that this particular functionality is having growing pains. It didn’t load nor work in Firefox and needed a jump-start in Explorer. Not exactly the way you want to debut a cutting-edge functionality. More on this as the week progresses.