(Photo: Reuters / Jonathan Ernst)Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy celebrates after his winning putt on the 18th green during the final round of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland, June 19, 2011.
Rory McIlroy came away with the big prize at the U.S. Open on Sunday but it wasn’t McIlroy's historic win that had some people tweeting and blogging, but rather NBC Sports’ peculiar decision to omit “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance.
The reading of the pledge was part of a patriotic video to open NBC’s coverage of the golf championship.
As a group of children in a classroom delivered the reading, the phrase “under God” was noticeably absent.
Instead they read this abbreviated version: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, with liberty and justice for all.”
Angry viewers took to their Twitter pages to air their thoughts, with one user calling NBC “scumbags.” Others threatened to boycott the network altogether.
An NBC commentator later apologized to viewers for the omission.
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“It was our intent to begin our coverage of this U.S. Open championship with a feature that captured the patriotism of our national championship being here in our nation’s capital for the third time.
“Regrettably, a portion of the pledge of allegiance that was in that feature was edited out.
“It was not done to upset anyone and we’d like to apologize to those of you who were offended by it.”
The U.S. Open, an annual open golf tournament, was held at the Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md.
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