No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 333: Joe Buck

Episode Date: July 22, 2020

Fox is no longer bringing us the US Open, and we're all pretty bummed about that. Joe Buck joins us to talk about the strides Fox made over the years, what it was like to break into golf coverage, and what this five year journey has been like for him as a golf junkie. We try to make sense of what went down behind the scenes, we breakdown what he learned from the analysts he worked with, and what he learned about covering golf. Really appreciate Joe's perspective on these topics, and hope this isn't the end of his appearances on this podcast.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yeah. That's better than most. I'm not in. That is better than most. Better than most. for some kind of podcast talking about the fallout of Fox losing the US Open contract or giving up the US Open contract, however you wanna look at it. Joe Buck is today's guest.

He is able to speak on some of those items and able to not speak on some of them, but from, you know, I kinda wanted to hear from someone of his perspective. On what it was like to cover golf with Fox last five years, how it changed, what it's like to jump into this sport and try to cover it, and he's got great perspective, great answers on everything. I am admittedly, there's a little bit of mutual admiration society that you'll see later

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Here is Joe Buck. So I'm seeing four rounds of golf on your gin for all of quarantine. And everyone tells me you're a golf junkie that can't be right. Are you saying begging? Are you not entering scores? What's going on here? I haven't put anything in. I figured, you know, with the whole flag sticks in the cup and the styrofoam and the whatever.

Okay, I think I'm going to wait till next year. Right now I suck anyway. So I've gone from playing in the finals match at my club championship last year to barely hanging on for dear life right now. So I'll just chalk this up to a bad year no matter any way you look at it and pick it back up in 2021. That's kind of my plan right now. There's still like six months left in this year. You know, you can turn it around a little bit. Yeah. Well, I will. here's the deal. I played in Tahoe. I played horribly. I hit the ball so good on the range to the point where Peter Jacobson, who has worked with my friend, my coach, Mark Miller, who is from, well, now Austin, but originally Houston played at A&M, has been a

teacher for me and a great close friend forever. He also worked with and for Jacobson. So when we were out in Tahoe, Peter sat behind me as I hit balls. And it's like, ah, this is, I mean, what are you like a plus handicap? And I probably have never had three better range sessions in my life and then gone out and fallen flatter on my face wanting to play so well that I lost all sense of reality and you know, that's just golf. So I'm just this is just a bad year. I could have six months left

I could have 80 months left and right now if it still says 2020 It's a bad year and I'm going to chalk it up to that. Well, you know, it's all relative to sucking, I guess, to tomorrow. A phrase there, but what is your handicap? What do you normally play to? What do you feel like you should be, I guess, in what actually are you? I last year played as a two point something index. I think right now I'm a five point something index. And I played a Tahoe feeling like I was a 15 point

something index. So whatever all that adds up to right now, I just, I played today, I'm in veil as we speak and had four birdies and shot 78 and that's probably not that great for for the way I've usually played but come off Tahoe. I'll tell you I went three days without one birdie so I was really thrilled and at the same time really pissed off that I spent three days trying to compete with all these guys

and couldn't get anything in the hole and today they all fell in. So that's just life. I'm not complaining. Everybody's got bigger fish to fry, including me, so all good. Well, what did, when you guys were traveling for Fox events, did you, how hard are you working to cram in golf, any kind of golf in the area, either at the courses that you guys are covering or anything that's nearby? I hear you're kind of at least one of the ring leaders in making some of that happen. Yeah, well, it's Shane Bacon, first of all.

Shane Bacon and Joel Klaat. Thank God, Joel came aboard and it was another guy that we could go play with. But I kind of took my cues from Shane, but I, yeah, I'm a big fan of going in Hidden Balls. And I loved that I was working with and friends with Brad Faxon and Paul Azinger, obviously, played in Greg Normans' event with Greg Norman when we first started back in 2015 at the Franklin Templeton Scotty McCarran is one of my close friends and just a blast to play golf with.

And on and on and on. And so when you have those people around you and you are obsessed with the game of golf, you'd be an absolute moron not to pick their brains and go out hit balls. And I just turned it into free lessons every day. We did a lot of that. I would say over the last year, we probably didn't do as much as we did at the beginning, but that was because I was coming in

and really bearing down, especially for the US Open, and really didn't feel like playing a lot of golf until it was over. And then for the women's open or other events we did, I would get in, do it, get out, go back home. I've got twin two-year-old boys and just the whole roller coaster of all that with pregnancy and then birth and then little kids kind of drove me

to get in, do my work and get out. So that was kind of where I was as we wound this whole thing down. And to answer a question before you ask it, I had no idea that Fox was tapping out of the golf business until, I think the world found out. So it's a shame, but I know we're going to dive into it, but I'm glad we did it. And I wouldn't exchange any of it for anything

in the world in my career. It was one of the best five years and most important five years of my career, at least learning wise and figuring out kind of a new discipline on TV and crafting it around a sport that I love to play and just can't get enough of.

Well, that's pretty assuming of you that I wanted to talk about, you know, Fox and all that. I was just, I'm happy to talk about my golf game. All you want, you can text my wife. She will give you the emoji with the, the little face rolling its eyes because she's so tired of hearing me talk about my golf game. I'm happy to do it, but I don't think anybody cares. Well, yeah, that's kind of where I guess he answered some of my questions right off the

bat there, but were you gearing up and preparing still and talking with your team before all this happened and kind of ready to roll for, you know, not just the USAM was coming up even sooner than the US Open. I mean, it was really honestly that stunning to everyone involved. And there was no inkling to anyone on the team that this was going to happen. It went out the same way it came in. I remember being at a football seminar when the deal happened and my boss Eric Shanks came up to me and said we finally kept something quiet at Fox. There's going to be an announcement later today and I know you're going to want

to be a part of what's announced and I really want you to be a huge part of it and just kind of walked away and I had no idea what he was talking about and then it was announced that Fox got the USGA package for whatever the number was a billion dollars or 1.1. I was so excited because it was just something I never thought of. I never thought in my wildest dreams about doing golf on TV. I just want to play it. I want to watch it. I want to enjoy it. And then it was like, man, this could be a lot of fun. And the same way when it went out, there was no like back channel talk, there was no, oh my gosh, you know, what if this happens or there were no whispers, and then all of a sudden it was just announced.

And that's fine. I mean, I come to you as somebody that appreciates your podcast and now doing a podcast of my own, realizing how good yours is and that people listen to it in the world of golf. And I think that's great. And I come to you as a guy that's like really happy

looking back on five years, on one hand relieved that it's, sorry, that it's kind of off my plate on the other hand really sad that it's gone but at no point bitter or mad or regretful or any of those words. I just look back and I think we grew so much and we started at ground zero and got to something like to be able to walk away on last year's US Open of Pebble Beach. Feels really good. But yeah, I just I had no idea that it was that it was going to leave this year or for the years to come. Yeah, I mean usually there's just some kind of rumor, right?

And the more we learn about, you know, sharing news and stuff, like we just for kind of rumor, right? And the more we learn about sharing news and stuff, like we just, for the most part, we wait for stuff to come out. Even if we hear something, it's like, you just can't, you know, you have to be so buttoned up on all your facts to be able to break a news story. And I heard it, not EP.

And I'm not surprised by that now hearing, you know, from Bacon and everyone that just they had no inkling that this was coming. But can you help me fill in the blanks here as to why it happened? And I know some of these questions I'm going to have today are related to you specifically, and some are related to Fox and decisions

that you weren't necessarily making. But I think you can provide some perspective on it. But my understanding and guess is that Fox wanted to be a player in the new rights deal for the PGA tour when they signed up for this USGA contract. And when that ended up not happening, maybe it didn't make sense for them to continue on with this USGA deal. Am I at least on the right path there?

Is there anything to that? I don't know. I wish I could answer. I don't know. I really honestly believe that there have been an opportunity to get more. I always kind of heard, like with the four mentioned back channel stuff, that they were interested in getting more, and obviously that came and went. I personally believe that without COVID-19, and without the new world that we all live in, that this probably wouldn't

have happened for a number of reasons. But the easy ones to point to are, the no Olympics NBC has a gap. The US open gets pushed back to September. We've got daytime football, especially on a Sunday, even on a Thursday. We have nighttime football. And what looked to be maybe a one-year solution became a solution that lasted the rest of the contract. That's really the only thing that I can make sense of it with. So I don't know about wanting more golf, but I do know that in the sound so polyanna and stupid, but I do know that everybody is really proud of what we did and the idea of doing more was exciting to everyone and getting better at it and progressing and pushing

and trying to do new stuff. And that's kind of what Fox has always been about. So I'm not sure that people saw that initially, but they did eventually. And that makes me happy. You know, when this was announced, I was honestly kind of stunned at the reaction. You know, just on Twitter and I think golf.com ran a poll when it was something like 73% of people were happy to see Fox go. And I remember thinking like,

I said, if we ran a similar poll, I would, first of all, I would hope that the results would be drastically different. I seriously have a hard time believing that people didn't like the way you guys did golf. I think a lot of people convinced themselves very quickly that they were gonna hate it forever. That first year certainly did no favors.

And I think you guys have been very upfront and almost apologetic or at least self, you know, aware of the struggle, but you, you know, picked yourself up off the mat and really turned things around. I'm not just blown smoke up, you're asked by saying that, but I can see how other people would maybe prefer other networks, I can understand that.

But I honestly can't see how people didn't appreciate the way you guys covered golf and the things that you were willing to try. Not all of it was successful, but man, you guys brought innovation to the whole industry. I think that's very fair to say. I think that's the best compliment that Fox golf can get is that we jumped in, we were in it for five years and a lot of the stuff that we tried, and I say we had nothing to do with it,

people that were working in the technology and the things tried have been picked up by other networks that have been doing it forever. So that's part of it. I don't know about the polls, I don't know the online stuff, I don't really, you know, the online stuff. I don't really, I don't know. I don't really care about it.

I do know that people that I talk to get it because I do know that they understand how hard it is to do golf. You know, I remember back when Fox got the rights and Johnny Miller, you know, everybody at NBC, they were so mad and bitter. And I get it. It took a big chunk of their golf calendar away, or at least one of the crown jewel events away, and he said, you know, you just can't fall out of a tree and do the US open. And I remember reading that going,

well, how dare he, you know, but he was right, you know, you can't do it and get better at it until you do it. And that's just kind of how TV is. You have to get in there. You have to find out what works. You have to find out what doesn't. And you have to get reps in and improve. And I would say that from where we started and how we went about things to where we ended, it was a great five year run. and how we went about things to where we ended. It was a great five year run. How it's judged or what average fans think or whatever, until you've sat there and done it, and I didn't know before I did it. Until you've sat there and done it, you have no clue. So it is not easy to do,

and I'm proud of the progress we made, and everybody on that crew, I mean, they're going to be friends of mine for the rest of my life. I mean, I made some of the best friends in this business doing this golf package from Mark Luma's on down. So, I don't know. It's got a good feeling to me. And I say that knowing that it was not ideal to lose the package for a lot of people on our golf coverage, but man, it was a hell of a lot of fun. Yeah, and that's where you guys don't reap the benefits of this, but in my opinion, I think a lot of people's opinion, you guys forced other networks to change. You guys, I remember that first time at Aaron Hills when Ricky, I think, is hitting a shot out of the fescue, and the the Pro Tracer popped out of that one.

And I think to that point, I believe I could be speaking wrongly here. I definitely not to the volume that it's currently done, but that was the first time I'd ever seen Pro Tracer that was not on a stationary hard camera. And I remember then from there on out, it was like, okay, well now Augusta's got Pro Tracer. And that's what I think is gonna be missing now

that things just kind of get limited down to To two networks, but I mean gosh it was People some people didn't like the audio the you know the the microphones in the cups and you guys took that feedback And people didn't even notice when you know the ball stopped making a sound when it went in the cup Because you guys put the mics there not for the sound of the ball going in the hole But it was to hear the actual guys and the audio from the actual green. Yeah, that was, that was kind of like a byproduct of what was going to be this innovation to hear the ball actually go in the hole.

And then all of a sudden it was like, God, they're getting unbelievable audio that people have never heard. It's kind of like what they're trying to do now. The Keppga had a problem with putting mics on players. You almost don't need it. If you have, you have these boom mics anyway that are out by the caddy and the player and then you've got these mics in the cups and it's, it was just unreal. The frustration, the happiness, the conversations you heard with caddies, guys talking to themselves when they missed a putt, they thought they should have made or were going to make, you know, again, that that is Fox pushing it forward. Now, again, I say all the

stuff and it seems self-serving, I have nothing to do with that. I really don't. That's that it could I could be talking about in BC or CBS or ESPN or whatever, I have zero to do with the technology end of that. So I almost say that. I'm proud because I've worked at Fox and so I was in my mid 20s and I love being there. But I have zero hand in that. So when I look at the coverage now and when I compare it to what was there before and you're way more aware of that and we're way more aware of that before I was. I go, you know what, if you sit back and you look at some of the things that people in our production and of things did, man, it was valuable. And the same happened in 94 when Fox came in with football. There was no Fox box as we call it or score on the screen and clock that was ticking down and you know it's

different networks jumping in that force change that make it better for everybody and that's kind of how I look at this time for us at golf and again not me hosting I don't care about that. It's about the production and the things and that that part of it, I could not be more proud of our crew from Mark on down. They did a hell of a job with a lot of people going, oh, it's Fox. I can't believe Fox is doing golf and whatever, but I think if you step back and look at the bigger picture, I think it was in the end good for television coverage of the tour. For sure, and that's exactly why you just touched on exactly why I thought you was in the end good for television coverage of the tour. For sure.

And that's exactly why you just touched on exactly why I thought you would be the best person to have this conversation with. We thought about trying to get in touch with Loomis and having him on to talk about it. But you can speak to being up close and personal as to seeing all of the work and the innovation on the production side while exactly what you're saying. It not being you directly, so it's way easier for you to give, give praise to those guys than it would be for, you know, Mark to talk about all the things that he helped lead and innovate and stuff like that.

Yeah. I mean, it almost, it almost felt every week that we would show up to the US open or really any event that we covered. But it was like, by the end, I had on my screen saver, I don't know, I don't know, golf week. I really honestly don't, who put, you know, here are the reasons why Fox is golf coverage is the best on TV. I don't even know who wrote it.

But I saw it and I captured it in my screen and it was my screen saver, the headline, because I wanted to be reminded of, because, you know, when you're front and center and Mark and I took the bulk of the heat and the arrows and then you get to that after Pebble Beach and it's like that, you know, that felt good in this business, but I almost feel guilty

when I would show up and it was like, we're having drone shots and drones hanging out the cliffs of Pebble Beach and that little robot camera that was rolled around at Chambers Bay. I mean, it was as a golf fan, I kind of got lumped into some of that. And you almost feel guilty because people work in their asses off to make this as great as we could make it. And you get lumped into it as you feel like, man, I had nothing to do with that.

I just put on my tie and sat there and talked, you know, as best I could about what was going on. And, you know, I'm just proud of, I'm literally proud of everybody else on the crew, much more so than I am myself. Now, you know, I'm proud of where I got to. I'm proud of the comfort that I found as the host and as somebody that sat there behind that desk, but that's more personal. And that's something that I had to work hard on and get better at and whatever. But as far as golf on Fox, I feel like it's everybody else, not me. Well to that, what did you have to work hard on?

What did you, what do you feel like you got better, better at specifically? My God, I could give a seminar on this. I think the main thing is, as I listen back to the first couple of years, I fell into the traps that I warn young broadcasters about when they get into the business. And that is, you can do all the research you want. But all that stuff is history. You're there to cover this event, not something that's happened in the past. So while I felt the need to always prove how much I knew about golf, or how much I knew about Justin Thomas,

or how much I knew about the golf course, or how much I knew about the history of the US Open, you're trying to cram that in. And I was always trying to cram that in in little tiny windows There's it's not like doing baseball. So I even like doing football. The funny thing is and you and I've talked about this before golf moves way faster when you're doing it Then it feels like when you're sitting at home watching it on TV. So You're just jumping from green to green or shot to shot and you don't really have time for all that other stuff. That should be baked in. You should assume people know that you know

that because that's part of your job. But I was wanted to prove that I knew all that stuff. And once I kind of just eliminated all of that and just covered the gulf and talked with Paul or talked with facts or talked with whomever Curtis whoever was down on the course about what that shot was like about what that player was facing about what the conversation was about that we just heard between player and caddy and forget all the other stuff there's time other stuff. There's time for that. Absolutely, there's time for that. But that happens around the action. When you're in it, you've got to cover the shots

and you have to deliver what the beauty of golf is about that dead silence before the club gets pulled back and somebody makes a shot. And it's either, you know, for the most part on that tour, really great or they just hit a bad shot. There's not a lot of mediocre. There's some mediocre in that. But if you're seeing it on TV, it's probably going to be a really great shot or something that's not that awesome.

And setting it up, what the golfers looking at and then recapping really fast before you go to the next shot is what it's all about. And I was so trapped in the junk that I didn't have the heart of what golf was really why I love golf and why it's hard and why these guys are so good. And I think I finally got there. I turned my phone off. I turned everybody's comments off. I had a lot of people working for me in and around the golf course. And once I eliminated all that and just watched the golf, it was a hell of a lot easier because you start, your mind goes in all these different directions.

And you forget, you know, what you've just seen and what should follow. And so you're piecing all these different holes together. And eventually, I figured out, let's just watch the golf. Let's just cover what we're seeing, talk about what the shot is, and talk about if that shot was executed or not, and go from there. And once I got there, man, it was a blast. And then I started looking forward to being at every event,

instead of being like, oh man, I hope I do okay. And that was started looking forward to being at every event instead of being like, oh man, I hope I do okay. And that was, that was a really, you know, that was a really big turning point for me. A quick break here to talk about our friends at Pinehurst. We haven't talked about them in a while. We haven't forgotten about them. Look, if you're like us, you've probably had some travel canceled. Maybe you had a golf trip canceled this year. It is not too late to book a package, a tea time, whatever you would want to do at Pinehurst. I started to think about

this actually. How many US open golf courses can you show up at and get a tea time and go play where the pros play? I know Tore you can out west, but that's, you know, not in the cards for a lot of people in the east and they don't have nearly the depth to offer like something like Pinehurst does. They have, of course, the newly renovated number four, of course. The short part, three course done by Gill Hans, the called Decradle. They have the Fisseldew Pudding Green. The accommodations are improving year after year. The food is excellent. The village is excellent. If you haven't been to Pinehurst, I'm telling you, you have to go see it for yourself. And if you have been, you know already exactly what I'm talking about.

They got great offers on their website. So swing by Pinehurst.com and take advantage of just the many, many offerings they have there. We've loved working with them and just saying all this out loud. I know we have a trip plan there this fall that I'm going to have to miss. I'm trying to squeeze in one personally for myself, just selfishly, some, sometime before this fall. So thanks again to Pinehurst and let's get back to Joe Buck.

I'm curious as to what golf after five years of doing this, what golf fans are like compared to football or baseball fans or other sports you do. And do you feel like like they were warm to you or do you feel that you feel welcome? I know it's a big hurdle kind of getting in the living room with golf fans, but I was just wondering if you could compare and contrast that to other sports you do. Yeah, that's a good question. I don't, you know, it's obviously different because I've talked about with you and I think I've talked about with everybody including the person that delivers my mail at home. When you do postseason baseball or you do a big football game, but mainly baseball, you're showing up when people care the most because it's the big games. It's October. And, you know, you're not there representing either side. And all your long fans have heard

their broadcasters do the game from their perspective. And now all of a sudden they're hearing somebody get excited for the other team hitting a home run. Instead of hearing that person, you know, feel like you feel like pissed off that your guy just gave up a big home run that just changed the scoreboard. So that's kind of over here. And then and then there's golf. And it's like you almost have to really prove that you belong. And I think that only comes over time. So you know, I think at least person, I can only speak for myself, but I always felt like kind of the interloper. Somebody who does other sports, somebody who plays a lot of golf,

somebody who's way more obsessed with his golf swing than it should be. Somebody who appreciates how hard the sport is, somebody who enjoys, like hell, I've influenced my life doing TV and sports on TV, but I'm not a familiar voice covering it. So it's hard to crack into that. I've done the other stuff so long.

Football since 94 and baseball since 96 and 22 World Series and a bunch of Super Bulls and then you just kind of get stripped down to, hey, prove yourself in golf. And it's hard to do that when you're only doing a handful of events every year. And for the US Open, you shut down on that Sunday, on Father's Day, and then it's okay to see you next year. It's almost like that, and that feeds that whole, hey, you got to prove all that you know. And it's hard not to fall into that trap. So was

I, were Twitter fans warm to me? I don't think Twitter fans have ever been warm to me for anything. But I don't base my self-worth on Twitter. I have to know that I do the job that Fox wants me to do. I represent the network as best I can. I've done it for a long, long time, but the stakes really high. And when they can find somebody better to do it, than me, then they will. And I'll get tapped on the shoulder,

and I'll go away, or I'll go somewhere else, but as far as Twitter, I could not care less about trying to please that crowd. Because for the most part, you really just hear the negative. And when we lost the right, sold the rights back to NBC or however it's termed, then all of a sudden people are coming out of the woodwork. Man, I really enjoyed you doing golf,

or man, I really enjoyed Fox covering golf. It's like, well, where have you been for the last five years? All I've heard is the negative, but that's just kind of life on social media. I can't. If I based myself worth on social media response, I wouldn't ever open my mouth again. Yeah. It's the people that are generally in support will sit quietly and, you know, not along on their couch and not necessarily feel the urge to make their feelings public more so than people that get their get to all in a hissy fit over

or anything like that. I forget if this was and not these last two things I promise will be the end of me fluffing you here, but if forget if this was on the pod or not but I asked Paul Azing or I was I was like, man, I don't understand like why people, you know, maybe are really hard on Joe Buck and he just said something that was like, man, when Joe Buck's doing an event, it's a big event. He does Super Bowl's and World Series. Now he's coming to do golf. That should be, when you hear his voice on TV,

it's a big event. I was kind of like, yeah, you know what? A lot of people are missing out on this. And I think, one of the things that, right after we did our podcast, right before the 2018 US Open, I was stunned because we have a very complicated relationship with the PGA Tour and TV networks, just because we're often very critical relationship with the PGA tour and the TV networks

just because we're often very critical of these things, but you and I still haven't met in person and we had just talked on the pod and that's it. And you had texted me short, like, while you were sitting in the booth on live on the air, just asking if you were laying out enough. And I couldn't believe that. I was like, after all, like the crap we're getting

from all these different directions for being too hard. Here is somebody that's ready for feedback and wants to perform really well for golf fans. And I just wanted to get that story out there for people to have heard that. I think I've referred to it before, but I felt like people should have heard that. Well, I've been out fluff you back.

I think when I tell young people getting involved in this business and it has nothing to do with golf, just as a broadcaster or as a talk show host or as an online writer or whatever it may be, I tell them do your best to turn social media off because you're going to hear mostly negative. You're going to hear from fans who think they know more. And in some cases, they may very well know more than you, but you're the one sitting there with the headset on.

You're the one sitting there talking when the red light goes on. You're the one going through highlights, you know, in the case of golf and piecing somebody's round together and then jumping ship and going to somebody else's round and then making sense of something else that's going on over here. There's a lot of moving parts to this. And find my answer to that there's a lot of moving parts to this. And find my answer that is find a handful of people that you trust. Find somebody who's opinion matters to

you. And for me, that started with my dad and my mom. And now, you know, my dad's been gone for almost 20 years now, but my mom continues to this day being my number one sounding board and critic my wife, my kids who are 24 and 21, not my two-year-old twins, put the older daughters and they will give me honest feedback. And then with regard to golf, you were somebody whose opinion I wanted to get even while I was doing it. And that's, I think, a good thing. I don't think that's, I think finding somebody whose opinion matters to you and trying to be better as you're graded by that opinion is a smart way to go about it. And then that helps drown out what is just kind of the random shots from on the hillside or from Twitter or from whatever,

who have no idea what they're talking about or in some cases do, but just don't like you or whatever it might be. So yeah, I'm always trying to get better. I'm always trying to get feedback, I'm always trying to get feedback, but I'm trying to get better and get feedback from people that I trust. And then that's the best way I can say it.

Well, kind of for a more specific question here. I wanna know what it was like working with the USGA. And it's a unique relationship, right, between the broadcasting partner you guys are paying a significant amount of money to the USGA for the rights of broadcast hit. But you're in a sense in a partnership and an organization that is,

a lot of people have not been very shy on criticizing over the years. So when you're televised in a golf tournament and something goes wrong, you have two really strong instances that come to mind for me. Of course, the ruling around Dustin Johnson in 2016 at Oakmont and then some of the pin positions and the course conditions at Shinnecock Hills and Twins.

No, no, no, whole locations, whole locations. Oh, God. See, I don't, I don't. Pins, pins are for bowling. You don't have to do this anymore. I stick. No, that's right. I'm kidding.

I know. I go out of my way now to say, Hey, I'll meet you at the driving range. It's you go to that sand trap. You take a left. It's near the first t box, which is the first t is about 430 yards from the pin. 430 yards from the pin. That's why that's something to talk the rest of my life. It's all right. So I'll hold for the USGA question. If you can tell us, what are the weird broadcasting rules then? I think you just went through like five of them,

but I don't really know what they actually are. Well, we got a glossary at Chambers Bay of terms, the approved terms and the terms that were forbidden. And I don't know that this is really talking that out of school. I think you know it's no different than doing the masters I would assume and then freaking out if you say that you know the crowd instead of the patrons. I mean it just at some point it just sounds awkward to me. You know if it's patrons patrons patrons and the same goes for the USGA and I'm sure the RNAs like this in some way,

although I've never done any events for them, you know, they want you to talk in their language. And so it is the practice T, it's not the driving range. It's the preferred term is T in ground, not the T box, certainly. It can be shortened to T if you are so, you know, crazy and wild if you want to call it the T. And then, you know, you go through, it's not, it's a bunker, which is great. It's not the, it's not the pen location, it's not the pen,

it's the whole location or the flag stick, it's not the pin. So I just remember the first couple of years, I was so crazy about trying to get all this stuff right, it almost halts your speech because I've played golf since I was 20, you know, I will say to, you know, get on the T-Box and hit the ball. Or I'll meet you at the driving range.

So whatever, but it's their rules. So that's good I mean, I'm I'm all about that. I try to make everybody happy when we're doing an event whether it's the NFL Major League Baseball USGA or you know the bullwriters association of America. I if I'm on their air so to speak or I'm doing one of their events You always to them to do it as best you can the way they want you to do it. That said, when stuff happens, I think you have to be honest. And I've never been more proud of our production

and our honesty when the Dustin Johnson situation was going on at Oakmont, and Mark Lumas putting up tweets from other players. They were astonished that nobody really knew the score down the stretch of a US Open on Sunday. I was getting texts from coaches from other sports that I cover saying, I remember one from an NFL head coach. It said, this is amazing. This is like a referee coming up to me after a two-point try telling me, we'll let you know if the two point conversion was good or not after the game.

And that put it all in perspective for me. I've never done an event where you don't know the score. That's the number one thing you have to be aware of. But that being the case, golf has its rules. And you have to abide by them. And they are the governing body of it for golf here and that's fine. I mean, I don't have any bitterness about that, but I think we were as honest as we could be within the confines of a deal with the USGA and you know, you just go

on about your work and you have to hold your head high and be, you know, it's not me, but if it's fax and erasing or Greg Norman or whoever, they've earned their stripes and they can have an opinion, that's how they made their name, that's what they have dedicated their careers and their lives to. So if they have an opinion that comes from a good place,

say it and I think we were really good about that over the five years. Certainly got better at it after the first year. And I think we were as honest as we wanted to be every chance we got. Yeah, and that's, I asked that because I never really thought about it as it was unfolding, right? It never felt like Fox was trying to carry the USGA's water in any way when things were maybe not going right. Now remember, just asking the questions, they had the rules officials or who,

I forget who it was exactly in the booth, I know Bacon was interviewing them in 2016 at Oakmont, asking them about the ruling and to explain it, they were covering the issue without being overly harsh or going out of their way to explain it, it's, they were covering the issue without, you know, being overly harsh or going out of their way to be harsh. It was just, this is the current situation here's what it is. And I was just curious if you had gotten any pressure from them at any time on, you know, not bringing up prior instances where US opens hadn't gone well or anything else like that where they were, maybe a bit strict on you on what you could or couldn't

say. Yeah, I mean, I think you have to be smart about it. You're trying to make everybody's trying to make everybody else look good. It's a partnership that, you know, certainly we all thought was going to last for 12 years, but I'll give those guys a lot of credit. Those men and women, you know, the year at Oakmont, Jeff Hall came in and sat in our booth and answered questions and I'm sure it wasn't easy because it was confusing and tough to answer pointed questions for everybody. And my Davis was always unbelievably kind and open with us. I mean, I don't know what else you can say other than, I don't feel like we ever really held back and I feel like they were up front with us and you can not like the rule in or you could not like not knowing what Dustin Johnson stood going down the stretch at

Oakmont but they came in and answered questions and that's that. I mean that's the best you can hope for and they delivered on that. So you know I hope they look back at their time with us and they know that we were there, you know, I hope they look back at their time with us and they know that we were there trying to promote the game and trying to really push and do the best job we could, production wise and announcer wise and all that commentary and trust me, I have a lot of pride. And I have a lot of, I have a lot of self worth

and I worked really hard at it. And I can say that about everybody on our crew and we did our best. And crew. And we did our best. And I feel like we did our best. They did their best. And I look back on it as five years that were a hell of a lot of fun and really eye opening. And hopefully, you know, they look back on it

as a hell of a lot of fun and eye opening too. Well, I want to pick your brain on what things you see in other sports broadcasting that you think could, some kind of comparable thing that could be useful in golf broadcasting. And one example we've been kind of throwing around here lately is broadcasters will sit with quarterbacks or, you know, coaches even during the week and kind of go through game plan and have just a meeting that is I would, and that's a question for you, I would imagine is extremely helpful

when you go to talk about their strategy or some of these things, do you see something like that in golf? Like, hey, why is golf broadcast increase not doing something like blah, blah, blah, and is that a good example of something that you think would be really helpful? Yeah, I think it'd be great,

but there's no real, I don't know what would have to happen because I don't know the business that part of it who can direct these tour players to do anything that they don't really wanna do. You know, with the NFL, we sit down with who we give the PR director a list and say, hey, we wanna talk to, pick a team, the Patriots over the years,

Bill Belichick, Tom Brady, Teddy bruski back in the day and A corner or an assistant and and they they do they have to do it, you know some guys are more revealing than others But at least you have some personal contact and you can ask a question and you can gauge how they answer the question Aaron Rogers and You know whoever with the green Bay question. Aaron Rogers and, you know, whoever, with the green Bay Packers or Kirk Cousins before, you know, he's at a rough stretch and now you're still talking to Kirk Cousins and they come in and they give you their side of it.

I think it not only benefits the broadcast, you're I think it benefits the player. I think it benefits, you know, you hearing from them what's been going on and when they sit down and give you their time, Man, you know, you really feel like you want to stick up for them in some way. And Major League Baseball is the same way. We talked to managers before World Series games. We talked to, you know, whoever in the lineup, pick a guy, pick the starting pitcher for the next game. Talk to them about what their game plan is, but the PGA tour is different.

And so I think a lot of the times guys that are broadcasting and relying on their own relationships with certain players. You know, for me is kind of the outsider coming in, and I look at a guy like Jason Day, who was unbelievable to me. Graham McDowell, amazing. He impolter, fantastic.

But I don't know Tiger Woods. I mean the biggest the biggest player in the sport. Yeah, I interviewed him one time at Chambers Bay. Thank God he did it. I was honored to get the talk to him, but for the most part I felt a little bit removed from that, but I know facts didn't and Paul didn't and if they had a question, they walk right out to the practice team, not the driving range and watch them hit balls and ask the player themselves, hey, what are you trying to do? Or what do you like about this golf course? What whole sets up well for your eye or whatever it might be? But it's all kind of informal because they really can't demand

that these tour players do these production meetings like we get in other sports. Is it like the NFL contracts just allow, you know, demand is a strong word I think, but it's like the players are basically have to do those kinds of things and they do they come with pretty good energy when you do sit down with them. Yeah, I'd be, yeah, they do,

because I think most of them realize that you know, they're sitting in a room with Troy Ackman and they're gonna tell him you know what they plan to do and and it's background information There's no gacha and I think sometimes they like talking to people outside the organization, but somebody on the media side that that you know Is not gonna go run and and tweet something about what they said or make it into a bigger deal. You can take what they say and make it almost your information and you're not there to quote anybody. So, yeah, they get it. And I think most of them enjoy it.

And the ones that don't eventually, you don't ask for them. Those guys get weeded out and then you go to certain teams and you go, hey, you know, let's go to our old standbys, but let's throw in a wild card here. Let's let's talk to a guard or let's talk to, you know, outside linebacker, whatever and get to know them and most of the time you walk away going, man, what a great guy and you you understand what they're trying to do. You maybe know a little bit more about their history and it helps you tell their story better on national TV. I don't see that how that hurts anybody. Yeah. I feel like, and you can maybe speak to this. It feels like announcers are forced unfairly if so to do a decent amount of guesswork, right, about, you know, what a what a guy might be thinking on strategy or something like that. And I think

that kind of background information would be extremely helpful. I'm curious and I'm shameless Brad Fax and fan, but I'm curious what is some examples of specific stuff you learned, either about golf, mostly about golf, I wouldn't say about broadcasting, but things you learned from other analysts you worked with, is there anything like kind of light bulb going off moment of like, whoa, I never thought of anything that way.

Well, I think of all the guys just because I was with facts along this. And I've had facts down at a member guest or pros and just thing with me down a cabo. And I consider him a great friend. But yeah, most of the time it has nothing to do with broadcasting. I'm selfish. So I have facts try to help me with my putting or Or, you know, I have azinger try to help me think my way around a golf course or, you know, Macaron talked to me about how to maximize power off the tee or whatever it might be. So just understanding how these guys think, I think is really valuable because it's certainly

different than I think, you know, going up to to the first tea, whether I'm playing with three buddies or I'm playing in some stroke play thing. At a country club or I'm playing in a member guest that's not apples to apples. That's not even in the same ballpark. So I like to know how these guys think. And it took me about three years to figure out what Paul really meant when he said, you know, if you can't miss it left, how would you ever miss it right? Like I could not for the longest time wrap my head around that. I was like, what? What I don't even know what that means.

Like what does that mean? If it can miss it left, how would you ever miss it right? And then it started to dawn on me. And just kind of the way that these players set up. And I think for somebody like me, it's been a one or two handicap or probably now five trending to a 20. I'm trying to maximize every shot

and the way they take something off or put something extra on or whatever they're doing with a specific shot or how they're, how a whole sets up to their eye, easing or telling me, you know, a blind shot's only blind once. And I think about that every time I come up to a blind t-shot or whatever, it's only blind once. And I can hear him saying it or chipping, you know, the leading edge, pay them a visit, or chipping, you know, the leading edge, pay them a visit. Whatever it might be. So, I just took all that stuff in and I probably applied it more to my own thinking and my own game. Then I ever applied it to anything when I was broadcasting. I kind of let them take that. I was willing to just set it up.

I feel like in baseball and football, I can kind of analyze a little bit because I've seen so much of it, but in golf, not so much. I feel like I set it up and just let them go and enjoyed what I was hearing and then set up the next shot and went about my day that way. I didn't hear anything you just said because all I'm thinking about is how could you miss it right if you can't miss it left?

I'm still trying to wrap my brain around that. I mean, it's like literally it's a riddle that The Joker couldn't come up with and yet somehow, you know, like if you can't miss it left Right if if there's just trash down the left side or there's a lake down the left side. There's out of bounds down the left side down the left side or there's a lake down the left side. There's out of bounds down the left side. You got to take that side of the of the fairway over out of your head. Well then how can you end up missing it right? Does that make sense to you at all? I mean it took me three years to you. Okay. All right. Good. I think it's yeah. Gosh, I was thinking of it of a different way because basically a lot of you know a lot of professional golf is around eliminating one side of the golf course. And so if you build a golf swing that you can't miss it left, then you swing with so much

more confidence that you barely miss it right when you do miss it. Right. That's, that's the point. So however you want to explain that, but he just says it. And I think sometimes he figures that most people are going to, it took me three years. And that's exactly what he's saying. But it's, it just kind of goes around and around in my head. So I, I don't know, maybe I'm just not that smart.

Can we just kind of get that out there and we'll go from there? No, I mean, the, the, the little bit of time I've spent around both those guys, I got a, I was fortunate enough to get a putting lesson from facts. And then there was two things that stick out to me the most. He just asked me to do this first. The first thing we did was like, hey, find me a dead straight putt and mark it like with a little sharpie on the green.

And I was like, well, first of all, I don't want to put a sharpie on the green. Second of all, I have never done this before and I couldn't do it. I like, it was lined up. He's like, your convince is just, he would just question me on it. Like, your convince is straight.

And by the time I would go to answer it back, nope, that's not right. And I move it around a bunch of times. And that helped me with green reading a lot. And then I was talking to him a bunch about, oh, you know, I'm permuda. I feel really good right now. But like past pal, I'm in Ben, I'm really struggling. And about the third time I mentioned that, he's like, okay, why are you talking about

grass so much? It's just about your putting struggle. Like the grass doesn't really matter that much. And that really helped me a lot too. So I would just imagine like five years around guys like that that you've picked up on so many little nuggets and things that they've said that have to just stick with you either while you're playing golf

or anytime you see golf being played. Exactly. I mean, that's how I now watch golf. I never even understood. I before we got into it in 2015, I didn't even understand the mechanics of calling golf. And how when I watch Augusta, you know, the masters and Sergio Garcia tees off at 11 and now it's shot, shot, shot, shot, shot, shot, shot. And now all of a sudden Sergio Garcia's second shot pops up at 11. Well, okay, obviously this is taped, but I never really cared. I just wanted

to watch the event. And I know and I never understood this part of it. The hardcore golf fans want to see live shot, live shot, live shot, live shot, live shot as much as they can. The hard thing is you're trying to tell a story and you're trying to make sure that everybody's involved in the story as much as they can be while you're piecing these shots and these holes together. So I never really cared about that. I never worried about it. And then all of a sudden, when we're doing it, that was the hard thing for me.

It's like, wait a minute. Okay. Now we're going back to speed second shot. Okay. It's just, it's hard mentally because I'm so focused in on what's in front of me. You almost wipe away in other sports what's already come and gone. Well, you can't do that in golf.

You have to remember how speed got to where he is. You know, let's say down the right side and the rough. In baseball and football, until you start doing recaps, you're just doing what's in front of you and what's to come. Well, in golf, you gotta go, okay, well, last time we saw a spieth, he was on the tee, and oh, that's right, he blocked one right.

And now he's in the right rough and now it's his second shot, but in the meantime, you've seen two-three other players play their next shots, you got to go back in time and it's got to make sense. And so it's just an entirely different way of thinking when you're sitting in that chair. And that's why I have the utmost respect for Jim and Dan and Mike and got anybody that's done this because until you sit there and you try to put that together mentally and you're looking at your own scoreboard and how that all pieces together and you're matching that against the shots that you're seeing live and on tape and it is, you know, it's sometimes

it's six, seven hours of intense concentration and you know, baseball footballs, three hours basically and by the time you're an hour four and you're trying to put this stuff together and remember all this stuff, it was a new way of thinking on air live for me. And that's why I'm so glad I did it because I learned a lot doing that. And I think it made me better in the sports

that I cover on a more regular basis. During, you know, when you travel for other sports, I guess what's the best sport to travel for in terms of fitting in a good amount of golf and do you have like your go-to spots in different cities that you frequent? Well, the only reason why I got into golf was because I was doing day-to-day baseball with a cardinals. I played a little golf, a little bit of golf as a kid and then when I was in the minor leagues for two years of Louisville, the candle was lit. And then I was 21 doing the cardinals.

And when you're in Houston for three days, Mike Shannon, my broadcast partner, my dad too, but mainly Mike Shannon would set up golf at River Oaks. And then you go to San Francisco and you're playing Olympic and you go to Chicago and you're playing Medina and you go to, you know, just right on down the line. And, you know, I used to joke that Mike Shannon, my long time broadcast partner with the Cardinals could set up a better tour around Major League Baseball than Tim Finchham could set up because you show up with a bag of autograph balls. Now you've

got to play at the crack of dawn. You get out most of the play, most of these places before any members are out there. So the the pros not getting in any trouble, but I remember one time being at Olympic. Probably shouldn't have said the name of the course, but whatever. And it was not too far in front of a US Open that was going to be played there. And the T times your members were limited. And we showed up. My partner, Mike, was friends with a guy who was a past president there. The first T is right outside this huge pane of glass on the back side of the pro shop.

And I got to the first T and I was like, I don't have any balls. So I ran into the pro shop. And I got to the first tee and I was like, oh, I don't have any balls. So I ran into the pro shop. And I was system pro whoever it was, was looking out at our group on the first tee. And he's just kind of talking to nobody in particular. And he goes, I don't know who the hell these guys are, but I'm so sick of seeing them at this golf club. And he turns around. I'm like,

uh, hi, could I buy a sleeve of balls and he's like, just take him, whatever. And he was equal parts frustrated and embarrassed. I heard him say that, but that didn't slow mic down. That didn't slow us down. And so we would sometimes play before a late afternoon game and even try, if it was an early afternoon game sneak over there and try to play before dusk. And that's when you fall in love with the game. And so the answer, the question is easy. The answer is day-to-day baseball. That's why Smolts, I mean, I think at the end of his career, he only played baseball so that he could go play golf all over the country. And you know, it's you play golf all day, take a nap, whatever, get on the team bus, go to the ballpark for the game that night, go to the bar, have a drink, go to bed, because you're getting up at the crack of dawn and go play golf all day the next day and do it

again. And you do it for the entire summer. So that's where I fell in love with playing golf. And that is easily the best sport to call if you want to play, if you want to play that sport. That was, that made me want to get back out. It sucks not being able to travel right now, but that made me want to get back out in the road and start playing some other golf courses. But what's your pantheon of golf in person golf experiences that you've had? What's your pantheon of golf in person golf experiences that you've had? Well, I mean Augusta for a billion reasons is awesome. I think if I was going to play one golf course for the rest of my life, it'd probably be Cyprus and I've been fortunate enough to play there a handful of times and it just never disappoints and it's got everything. It's got

forest golf, it's got dunes golf and it's got ocean golf. I just think it's awesome and it's got everything. It's got forest golf. It's got dunes golf and it's got ocean golf. I just think it's awesome. And it's pretty bare bones and you want a great golf experience. That's as good as it gets except if you go to San Francisco, the city of you can play San Francisco golf and it's insane or you can play Chicago golf club and it's unbelievable and pine and all these other places. But you know, people ask me what's your favorite and I would that's my answer Cypress is the number one place that I've ever played that I've been lucky enough to play and and it's just got everything and and it's it the weather's always seems to be great the views are spectacular and the holes are awesome so I I don't

know what more you could ask for out of a golf course. Well, just as, you know, I was hoping that golf fans would be coming around to you, you just refer to Pine Valley as Pine and they're going to want to punch you all over again, probably. No, I don't care. They can, they can, they can swing in the air and they're going to whiff every time because I'm gone. So, yeah. Well, thank you so much, Joe, for coming on, sharing some stories. And we are our sorry to see you guys go, but appreciate the efforts and basically everything we've been saying for the last hour. Yeah, well, I appreciate it. And thanks for the support they gave us. It was kind of like it was a loud voice in the forest that gave me certainly inspiration, so I appreciate it.

And it was a blast and I look back on it. I was well as a great five-year run. And I wouldn't trade it for anything. So I'm glad that we did it and I'm glad that we got better and I'm glad that we walk away after Pebble and everybody feels good and that's that. We're all the wiser for it. And I think it is a sit earlier. It made me a better broadcaster in general.

Cool. Well, that doesn't mean it has to be the end of your guest appearances on the podcast. We can do this anytime you'd like. All right, you got it. Be the right club today. Yes! That is better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most. Expect anything different.