Let’s start at the beginning, at least in terms of your television career. When did that kick-off and when did it end?
I started at the 1989 Ryder Cup at The Belfry. I worked there for the USA network and my last telecast for CBS was at the end of 2019.
It actually happened quite by accident. Until 1989 the PGA of America hadn’t charged a rights-fee for the Ryder Cup in the U.S and, when they did, the major networks all passed on it. They couldn’t make any money from it. USA was a cable network just getting into doing early-round coverage of the PGA Tour. They paid $250,000 for the right to cover the ’89 Ryder Cup.
To do that they needed announcers. They had Ben Wright, Gary McCord and a football guy called Jim Simpson. But they needed one more, to go on course, which turned out to be me only because I was over there anyway coaching Mark Calcavecchia, Ken Green and Bernhard Langer. That was how I got started.
From there, USA developed a relationship with CBS and I was hired as USA’s lead analyst after that Ryder Cup. That led to me working with the legendary producer, Frank Chirkinian, at CBS. In 1990 I did a few events for them and in ’92 they hired me full-time. So, I was on television for three decades.
How much did it change in that time?
Unbelievably. Chirkinian used to produce and direct because the shows were much slower and had a lot fewer commercials. But when Tiger came along in ’97 the rights-fees exploded and the tour did that multiple-times over the course of Tiger’s career. As a consequence, the networks had to get the money somehow, which is why today’s telecasts are so inundated with commercials. Today’s shows are a lot messier.
So, we can blame Tiger for all the TV commercials?
(laughs) You can actually ‘blame’ Tiger for a lot. He is both the best thing that has ever happened to golf and, in some cases, the worst thing.
The PGA Tour has used Tiger as a hammer to bludgeon its partners. They had Tiger so the tour’s business partners had to do all sorts of things. There was no recourse either, no partnerships per se. Not that I could see. They had arguably the most visible sportsman in the world and they rode him and ‘putting him away wet,’ as the old saying about horses goes. There was no questioning what the Tour did.
As a result, the Tour never felt an obligation to improve its product. They had a formula and they stuck to it. As far as the PGA Tour was concerned.’ growing the game’ meant growing its own income and its own dominance.
How would things have gone had there not been a Tiger?
Golf is a niche sport. It always will be. Regardless of Tiger’s brilliance, it is never going to be a mainstream sport on television. Not in the U.S, anyway. Had he not been around, that false hope would never have been dangled in front of us and people wouldn’t have been trying to make it more than it really is. There would have been no constant need
