We hear it every year from Yanks watching the British Open in the U.K. or Canada: The BBC’s coverage is better than U.S. TV’s — this year on NBC and NBC-owned Golf Channel — because it’s treated as TV, as if folks tuned in to watch live championship golf.

Early yesterday morning, Tim Dahlberg, covering the Open for the Associated Press, tweeted, “BBC showing golf and little except golf. Golf Channel showing talking heads, fluff and little else from the British Open.”

Thursday’s first-round U.S. coverage included some live golf, some that appeared to have been dishonestly presented as live, and lots of needless interruptions — a lengthy feature showing David Feherty’s train trip to the course, canned hype to encourage us to watch what we’re trying to watch and computerized putt-tracking as if all putts will be hit on the same line at the same speed.

Yesterday, after NBC/GC returned from commercials — one a come-on to watch this year’s Open, another to watch the Presidents Cup on NBC/GC in September — we still didn’t see live golf.

Instead we saw another panoramic view of the seaside site — we get it, we get it! — then a picture of an old map of the grounds, which Dan Hicks explained is an old map of the area.

Next, three ostensibly live shots before the screen was covered by a graphic for a GC post-round show, which Hicks explained would be seen after the golf. Golf? What golf? Where?

And with the Open being played right there, for crying out loud, did we need Nick Faldo’s long, on-camera interpretation of the bland post-round interview NBC just conducted with Rory McIlroy — before leaving for commercials?

Why didn’t NBC advertise its plan to minimize live coverage with such interruptions?

Live U.S. TV coverage of almost every sport is covered the way a blanket can cover a TV. It’s the kind of coverage that limits the view, frays the nerves, defeats TV as an invention and betrays the advertised promise that we’ll be allowed to watch.

There seems to be no critical or credible leadership at any network to maximize TV as a visual medium. Quite the contrary.

Consider the most common complaint I’ve fielded since this column began in 1982: Broadcasters who just won’t shut up, every play leads to, is worth forced discussion, analysis, opinion, explanation and debate.

The list is endless: ESPN “Sunday Night Baseball” analysts, Aaron Boone and Jessica Mendoza, FOX baseball analyst John Smoltz, Jon Gruden, Jesse Palmer, Harold Reynolds, Al Leiter, Gus Johnson, Cris Collinsworth, Moose Johnston, Kirk Herbstreit, Kevin Harlan, Jay Bilas, on and on.

Don’t allow viewers a moment’s sensory rest.

It’s apparent that no network employs a coach with the credibility and authority to at least encourage them to cut it out, to allow some of the pictures to tell some of the story, especially the conspicuous. And no network aspires to stand out as the one that treats viewers as smarter than stupid.

Brings to mind Rick Barry’s NBA analyst days with CBS. He said they told him, telecast after telecast, he did a “great job” — right up until they told him he’s fired. Turns out they didn’t like his work.

That was in 1981. Nothing has changed.

Managers lined up against common sense

Reader Pat Iossa has a question: “If one was managing a team to lose the game, how would pitching decisions be different from what we now see?

“If a manager had a lead in the eighth and brought in a pitcher who put the opponent down, one, two, three on 10 pitches, what decision would that manager make in the ninth if he wanted to maximize his chance to lose? Leave that same pitcher in or take him out? It’s insane!”

Now that David Robertson is back in the Yankees’ bullpen and Joe Girardi has them “lined up” the way he wants, another question:

If Robertson is to become Girardi’s seventh-inning man, is there any chance he’ll pitch in any other inning? If he’s as “on” as few relievers can be — if he throws just three seventh-inning pitches that produce three easy outs — will he still be pulled for Girardi’s eighth-inning man?

Of course he’ll be pulled!

Most managers have similarly lost their baseball minds, abandoning winning instincts for pre-scripted, preposterous junk-science formulas.

You’re not a doctor, you don’t even play one on TV, but how would you treat this:

Sunday at the Mets, the Rockies led, 11-4, in the seventh. If you’re Colorado manager Bud Black, a former MLB pitcher who succeeded on his smarts — “a crafty southpaw” in Old Baseball English — what would you do?

1) Save your better relievers. Bring in one you’re not yet fully sold on to see what he does. If the Mets hit him, pull him.

Or …

2) Stick with your “all lined up” order, have three relievers throw one designated-inning each, regardless of circumstances.

Not only did Black go with No. 2, at 13-4 he stuck with it, using two more relievers, one for the eighth, one for the ninth. He used three “by-the-book” relievers when, at 13-4, one should’ve done it.

The next night, Black used five relievers in a 9-6 win against the Padres. The next night he used four in a 9-7 win. If his bullpen by then was reasonably bushed, it began when he used two relievers to protect a 13-4 lead.

Francesa calling the kettle black

Mike Francesa has branded Michael Kay “a liar”? That’s rich. Francesa’s career-long stock-in-trade has been his self-serving, caught-in-the-act dishonesty, something that went untouched in that ESPN “30 for 30” on Francesa and Chris Russo, reducing a documentary to a whitewash.

Reader Carl Orent has a suggestion: Batters are allowed only two re-fittings of their batting gloves per at bat. Three re-fittings and yer out!

Why would anyone with an active sense of right from wrong spend a dime to watch two relentless misanthropes, Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor, fight? Where’s the rooting interest?

Reader Garry Wilbur: “Watching [Wednesday’s] Cubs-Braves on MLB Network. Fourth inning, already three replay challenges, two on bang-bang plays, none overturned. Gonna shut it off, take the dog for a walk.”

Hey, Randy Levine! See all those people seated in every good seat all around the park during Wednesday afternoon’s Yanks at Twins? Those were people, paying customers.

Would things have been different had the Mets negotiated a per diem deal with Yoenis Cespedes?

Reader Bobby Grochowski is the first to report that the NHL will no longer list goals as goals, but as blown saves.