The Sony Open in Hawaii produced the longest, most dramatic championship playoff in its 53-year history Sunday, but the Golf Channel’s “A” team was nowhere to be seen.

Well, unless you count Jerry Foltz, an on-course commentator for 20 years, going back to his production roots and manning a camera in a tower on the 16th hole.

The tournament served up its finale for the ages and the Golf Channel, struck by video and audio production workers from the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees on Sunday, responded with, well, a makeshift performance.

The on-site announcing crew was sent packing due to reduced audio capabilities, leaving the work to a crew 4,737 miles distant at Golf Channel headquarters in Orlando, Fla.

Similarly, analysts, including Maui’s Mark Rolfing, a 30-year staple of TV golf tournaments in the state, were not used due to reduced audio capabilities. Reports from Waialae were pretty much limited to post-match interviews by Todd Lewis.

The broadcast went on and completed the nearly five-hour distance, but it wasn’t the Golf Channel quality we’re used to or what the occasion demanded.

Maybe, given the time element, tournament partners Sony and the Hawaii Tourism Authority, which had just announced a new $2.1 million marketing agreement through 2022, were fortunate to have a broadcast at all given the missile drama Saturday and Sunday’s strike. And, they seemed to take it that way.

But this day held promise for so much more, beginning with the postcard weather and concluding with the fact that the six playoff holes, where Patton Kizzire finally held off James Hahn, allowed the tournament to go well beyond the shadow of the NFL’s Minnesota-New Orleans playoff game that ended earlier.

With what was said to have been a contract unresolved despite a nine-month negotiation process, it did not have to end up like this for a tournament that needs all the breaks it can get.

That led to angles for hand-held cameras being, at times, partially blocked or awkward. There were fewer platform cameras, the void filled by a heavy reliance on shots from a fixed-wing aircraft.

The result was probably more shots of Diamond Head and the shoreline than ever televised in one tournament, possibly soothing to the HTA.

Meanwhile, spectators took advantage of the paucity of cameras by taking up residence in some of the unused towers.

Some viewers tweeted their displeasure with the overall video.

“What a camera angle for Brian Harman’s eagle on 9,” a viewer tweeted with a screenshot of the back of a playing partner.

Jason Fischer @iowastate_jay tweeted, “Meanwhile at the @SonyOpenHawaii, @GolfChannel coverage looks like it is being shot on an iPhone from the edge of the green. 50% being the backs of caddies.”

And Dylan Dethier @dylan_dethier tweeted, “Golf channel right now is kinda like when CNN films Trump playing from behind some bushes.”

“I thought, given the circumstances, that they (the Golf Channel) did a fabulous job,” Rolfing said.

Rolfing’s only appearance was confined to an interview recorded the day before.

“I’m not sure that many (viewers) missed me,” said Rolfing who returned to Maui, where he watched the remainder of the telecast.

To be sure the show did go on at Waialae, but it had the potential to be so much more.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.