That strange sound you are hearing is coming from golf fans who have already heard. Half of them are weeping and cursing the United States Golf Association, and the other half are cheering it for striking a deal with Fox Broadcasting Company.

This deal will see multimedia coverage of the U.S. Open and other USGA events change hands for the first time in well over a decade, effective 2015 and continuing at least through 2026.

For the last 19 years, American golf’s national championship has been broadcast on NBC and for the last 32 years, sports media giant ESPN has also broadcast portions of the event — largely Thursday and Friday live coverage, of late.

This means that one of golf’s most polarizing pundits, Johnny Miller, will likely no longer be a major voice, along with NBC stalwarts Dan Hicks and Jimmy Roberts, of a championship he won in 1973 at Oakmont Country Club.

Miller’s detractors will be relieved to no longer hear him talk about his U.S. Open exploits, especially the final-round 63 he shot at Oakmont to win his lone title in the event, as well as his sometimes overly frank delivery. His supporters will lament the loss of his sometimes brutal honesty and on-sleeve opinions and insights, which have often helped give viewers an inside look at what the world’s best golfers are going through as they are confronted with what is arguably the toughest golf course setup anyone experiences all year.

The makeup of the Fox golf broadcasting team is unknown at this time. Theoretically, some elements of the current NBC coverage cast could migrate, but exactly whether and to what extent that is true remains to be seen.

Also disappearing from NBC and ESPN broadcasts will be the likes of the U.S. Women’s Open, U.S. Senior Open and any coverage of the various amateur championships the USGA conducts. Fox will take dominion over all of them, bumping total coverage hours up from 90 to approximately 146 across all USGA championships. The coverage of amateur events alone will more than double, from 30 to 76 hours.

The announcement of this deal comes at a somewhat odd time, falling the week of the PGA Championship. For the USGA to break this news while the Professional Golfers Association holds its biggest annual event seems strange, even petty, to some.

To go a step further with this line of thinking would make one wonder if the USGA is spiking the proverbial football, punishing the PGA for the resistance it and the PGA Tour initially put up against the recently confirmed ban on anchored putting strokes, which the USGA initiated in conjunction with the Royal & Ancient Golf Club, which administrates the game overseas.

The announcement comes less than two weeks before Fox opens its 24-hour sports network Fox Sports 1, which will look to compete more directly with the likes of ESPN and NBC Sports Network for coveted viewership and advertising dollars. Fox Sports 1 goes live August 17 across the United States.

In 2015, Fox Sports 1 will add golf to an initial list of live sports offerings that include NASCAR, UFC, UEFA and Champions League soccer and NCAA football and basketball. Parent company Fox Broadcasting Company is reportedly paying upwards of $100 million for the rights to all of the USGA’s golf assets. That figure would more than double the $37 million NBC/ESPN combined rights contract amount in place through 2014, further enriching a USGA war chest that is known for its considerable size.

Many details of the implementation of this relationship remain to be seen, but if you like Johnny Miller — or if you love to hate-watch him — be sure and get your fill in 2014 during the Pinehurst No. 2 back-to-back U.S. Open and U.S. Women’s Open.