It is Tuesday of U.S. Open week, which means the Golf Channel is well into its 45,026 hours of live coverage this week.

And why not? If golf is all you do, you throw everything into covering the U.S. Open.

The Open should add more ratings power to what already has been a big year for the Golf Channel. The network has posted five straight months of record growth.

At this point, all Golf Channel has to do is put out a standard press release, changing only the date and the number of months of consecutive growth.

“Sounds good to me,” said Golf Channel president Mike McCarley.

Why is Golf Channel having as much success as Tiger Woods in 2013? Well, some of it has to do with Woods. He elevates everything in golf TV.

However, there’s more. Here is my Q/A with McCarley in which talks about programming, Brandel Chamblee, and his lunches with Arnold Palmer, one of the founders of the network.

How often do you get together with Arnold Palmer?

We’ll have lunch from time to time. If you ask a question, he’ll give you an answer. As a guy who is the founder of the channel, and pretty much the biggest name in golf, he’s got great advice. But he’s also very careful to only give advice when he is asked for it. He does not weigh in on things unless I ask him to.

You cherish the time you get with him. What you see is what you get. We’ll be at Bay Hill for lunch, and somebody will come over for his autograph. He always has time for everyone.

He’s told me the history of this place and some of the decisions they had to make. It’s just terrific to be with him.

What is driving the ratings?

The programming philosophy is getting back to a pure and more authentic form of the game. At its base level is show more live golf. Whenever you can, show live golf.

The ratings success is due to a lot of things.There are micro aspects. One thing that people haven’t picked up on is that we changed the commercial breaks for live golf. We cut them from 3 minutes on average to 2 minutes to 2:15, somewhere in there. (NBC golf producer) Tommy Roy and I had a long conversation. The average time between golf shots is about 2:15. So instead of going from a tee shot to a commercial to a taped shot of his approach shot to a live shot of him putting, you’re going from a tee shot to a live approach shot and then follow him into the green from there. The flow and pacing is more of what you would see at a live event if you were there.

Those small little format changes are helpful.

How about the programs that the Golf Channel has developed beyond live golf: Morning Drive, Feherty, Big Break, The Haney Project? What has been that impact?

In this business, there’s a scorecard every day. Your viewers are telling you what they want. You can adjust to what they’re responding to. Feherty was a 30-minute show; now it is a hour. Haney was 30-minutes, now a hour. We’ve gone seven days a week with Morning Drive, and it has evolved into all aspects of the game, not just pro golf. That’s been important.

We had great feedback on our re-airing of the 1971 U.S. Open playoff at Merion. Jason Dufner was one-man promotional machine for us. He was tweeting about it and telling his followers.

The kind of feedback we’re getting is reassuring that we’re on the right path.

What about Brandel Chamblee’s rising popularity as a must-listen studio analyst?

The role of a studio analyst is to have well-informed and strong opinions. Brandel studies and prepares as much as anyone in the business. He’s like a coach preparing for a game. When it comes time, he’s able to deliver a well-informed opinion. He can argue either side of an issue. He probably should have been a trial attorney. He also can communicate it in an interesting way. It probably has a little bit to do with the Texas twang. He has the homespun feel. But beneath the twang is a well-researched opinion.

We have developed a niche for him where you want to hear his take. Whether you will agree with it or not, it’s always well informed.

What about the Tiger Woods impact on your ratings? He’s having a big year.

Without question, Tiger always helps drive ratings. Tiger does move the needle. It’s the combination of Tiger and some of the young stars coming up. It’s exciting to see the emergence of young stars as personalities.

Thanks to Comcast’s ownership, how has the branding of the Golf Channel on NBC impacted your network?

Here’s an example. When we signed Michael Phelps (for the Haney Project), we did the deal on a Saturday morning and he was swimming that night (in the Olympics). That would not happen without NBC’s Olympic connection.

The brand consistency has definitely helped. Our viewers tell us that consistency is important – one of the first pieces we put into place once the companies came together was a common look for golf on Golf Channel and NBC. The audience sees the same logo, graphics, commentators with NBC Sports’ unique approach to storytelling and commitment to quality production shared on both networks. We have seen a significant lift when switching audiences from Golf Channel to NBC and NBC to Golf Channel compared to similar circumstances with other networks in golf.

The day our email and switchboards light up are the days that golf is being played and viewers can’t find the tournament on Golf Channel; it seems to be the first place they look. We know the audience feels very comfortable moving between the two networks.