The Press Box - Live From the U.S. Open With Kevin Van Valkenburg and NBC's John Wood

Episode Date: June 14, 2023

Bryan is live from the U.S. Open and dives into news of the LIV Golf–PGA Tour merger with Kevin Van Valkenburg (2:07). They discuss how the story broke, what the relationship is like between both entities, and what it’s like as a golf writer during these events. Later, NBC’s John Wood joins to talk about his experience as an on-course reporter, including inspecting the course, talking with the audience, and grabbing exclusive bits for the viewers (31:02). Host: Bryan Curtis Guests: Kevin Van Valkenburg and John Wood Producer: Erika Cervantes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, media consumers. Welcome to Press Box Final Edition. Brian Curtis of the Ringer here, along with producer Erica Servantes. I have spent the last two days at Los Angeles Country Club, where the U.S. Open is happening. I'm going to bring on NBC course reporter John Wood, who is a fascinating guy in just one second. But first up, this was an especially interesting week to be among my fellow sports writers. especially golf riders, because I got to see them covering the single biggest story of most of their careers. I refer, of course, to last week's announcement of the shocking deal between the PGA Tour

and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, which has bankrolled the competing live tour. That announcement was the end of 16 months of intensive content for golf writers that started with the publication of Phil Mickelson's notorious comments last February. As many of you know, Kevin Van Valkenberg of No Laying Up is my favorite person to read on all things golf. He is especially my favorite person to read on stories like this, which are about geopolitics and human rights and how we sports writers try to untangle them. Kevin and I huddled in the media tent to talk about how you should understand this new deal and what it's like for a golf writer to cover it. Here's KVV on the PGA. Kevin, look at us veteran golf writers.

We're back. Sitting here in the media tent. I love it. Thank you for welcoming you back on the pod. I always imagine there'd be more booze. Yeah. I mean, me and Dan Jenkins's day. You know,

they used to just hand it out of the door, I think. You got something there under your desk. We can break out after this. First question I got to ask about the subject of the day. Yes. What were you doing last Tuesday when you heard the news? I had breakfast. I went upstairs to my little office.

I think my wife and I were going to have lunch because she was working at home that day. And it was like all hell had broken loose. I was like, well, this must be an onion story by someone who's not, you know, very clever. They didn't like dress this up in any humor or it's like an AI thing or there's no freaking way. This is actually true. And as soon as Jay and Yasser rolled out on CNBC, I was like, holy moly. I think I know what I'm doing for the next two weeks and 10 years.

suffice it to say you and the entire no laying up crew were taken by surprise for sure uh i mean when like rory mackerel and tiger woods were taken by surprise by this whole thing like i think it's fair to say that we were taken by surprise i mean we were just in us in our like internal slack like in a state of disbelief of like this is this possibly real like how could this be you know unfolding of this how did this not possibly leak uh and we've been trying to sort of figure the details ever since. It's so interesting because you know I've been around a hundred sports writers, thousands of sports writers. And whenever there's a huge bomb shell story, somebody says, you know, I heard something like this. Yeah. What's happening? You know, to which the question is,

why didn't you break it if you did? But walking around this media tent, I haven't found one person who has even tried to say they knew this was going down. Golf by nature is pretty gossipy, even as other sports go. And so the fact that they were able to keep this quiet, I think, is pretty remarkable. I mean, they, I think maybe about six, seven people in the whole world knew that it was unfolding. And whether that comes back to bite the people in the ass in the end, because they didn't bring in antitrust lawyers, or they didn't really think through all this stuff, or they didn't, you know, ask the opinion of the players whose lives they were going to dramatically reshape, I think is to be determined. But yeah, I mean, I hate that when

Sportcher was like, you know, I knew this all along, but I just couldn't report it. That is not the case here. I really truly believe that even some of the biggest golfers in the game were taken by surprise. And so definitely the media was you couldn't sit on a story like this. What would be the possible get? What story are you trading for having sat on this one? Sponsorship with Titleist. I don't know.

Yeah, could be. One thing that interested me about the days after the story was the question of what is the nature of the relationship between the two entities here. the PGA and live. It felt like we got a couple of different answers as the story unfolded. Where are we at in your mind on that? So the one thing that I think we've been trying to point out and talk about sort of in a nuanced way, which is hard to talk about nuance. It's much easier to be like, yo, the Saudis bought the tour, didn't they?

Well, okay. So the PGA tour definitely has brought in the PIF as a minority investor. How live golf fits into that? No one really knows just yet. the PJ Tour and the people involved in the negotiations of this stuff are adamant that what they have done is essentially allow the PIF to be a minority investor in their new thing and that they will always maintain control. I think we've all watched enough episodes of succession to know that like that isn't always work how you think it's going to work. Like board seats can be swayed

or changed. But from what we understand going forward, Yasser L. Remain will be the chairman of this new entity, but the PGA Tour will always have three board seats to his one board seat. In order to sort of move forward on new investments,

which is this big part of this, it's not just like the PGA Tour isn't going to like invoice the PIF for like things that they want to spend money on. It's all new business that's brought into this, that they can then have the right of first refusal to be an investor with the tour.

So if, say, this new entity, what the placeholder is being called NUCO, NUCO, wants to buy the LPGA tour, the PIF, the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, has the right of first refusal to say, like, we'd also like to be an investor at this, you know, sort of level with your investment in buying the LPGA tour. So that could include, like, buying Pubble Beach. It could even include down the road, like buying the RNA, buying the USGA. I don't know if that's even possible, but those are things that are. are like being kicked around as like hypotheticals at the highest levels of golf right now.

So that's that's how I would explain the relationship. So did the Saudis buy professional golf? No, but they bought a seat at the table to sort of be a respectable part of how the game is influenced and shaped going forward. My podcast partner, David Schumacher, asked a good question, which is a weekend now. How much should we be focusing as sports writers on the hypocrisy of Jay Monaghan? and how much should we be focusing on what the PGA tour has actually done? Yeah. It's a great question. And I think that this is a hard one for me to answer because I'm still wrestling with it myself.

And certainly anybody who's familiar with me knows that I have been unwilling to sort of not point out the human rights stuff and the kind of complicated moral issues here. Certainly. And Monahan admitted this himself, like people are going to call me a hypocrite. and I understand that. The PGA Tour made, if this was ever a possibility, the PGA Tour made a dramatic PR error in sort of dragging out the 9-11 families

and literally going to Congress to lobby to help find some protection on behalf of like human rights grounds. And you can see that there's a lot of senators who are super pissed about being played for fools in this sense. I think it's important always to sort of continue to speak the truth about what's going on in terms of human rights stuff in Saudi Arabia. I think that if we use like F1 as an example, which I think is a good comp because the Saudis essentially bought Formula One in the same, a little bit different, but that when Lewis Hamilton goes

to like when they have a race in Riyadh, the Saudis haven't bought Lewis Hamilton's like silence. He is very adamant about like I do not like being here. I don't think we should. I believe in human rights who will wear like a rainbow helmet as a sort of a protest. He still is going to race because that's where the F1 race is. So I think that's an important distinction. What those live players did in part was sign up to be PR agents for the Saudis. So they're talking about how wonderful it is over there and how dramatically things are changing or whatever.

if we go into an agreement like we're two years from now and like there's an elevated designated event in King Abdul economic city and like Jay Monaghan is up there saying it's so great here like women are in restaurants and that's what Greg Norman is doing that I think will make me puke because that will be like massive massive hypocrisy. You could sort of nuance it in saying that like allowing the Saudis to buy into an investment is not. not that different than Uber or FedEx or some other things that they have bought into. But where I think, I mean, and it's complicated because I think people could say, what's the, what's the real difference? Like you're, you're trying to sort of make it nuanced to make yourself feel better. I personally am going to continue to wrestle with it. But I think there is a difference between saying, all right, that's, to me, is truly engaged in sports washing.

If you are saying, no, no, things here are wonderful. Like, they're not actually like executing gay people. they're not actually, you know, torturing women for advocating to sort of, you know, want to drive or want to have basic rights about can we leave a marriage or get a job without permission of our husband or father. Those things, I think, remain like a fundamental thing that I hope people like Roy McElroy will speak out, you know, against. I think they will because they have sort of a certain moral standard. But it's, it's complicated. What's it been like to be a golf writer for the last year and a half? My friend Kyle Porter and I were talking, joking about how we used to debate, like, how many majors do you think Roy McElroydwell to win?

And like, is Brooks Kepka like the best U.S. Open Player of his generation to now we're like, well, what do you think about this merger and acquisition? And what do you think about the voting rights versus ownership rights on this board seat and about geopolitical concerns over human rights issues? I mean, it's gotten a lot more complicated. Hopefully, you know, people are interested in it from our purpose. perspective like seeking out our perspective because I think we try to address it with the most nuance that we can we try to do a ton of reading we try to sort of understand the different perspectives and then keep being curious about it but uh it hasn't been exactly what the previous generations I think of golf writers saw their jobs as but I mean that's journalism to me like

and I think even in my job which I don't know that I would describe like straight up as journalism but certainly for the majority of my the entirety of my career until joining no laying up I was a journalist first and I think that that's a huge part of you you never know where your job is going to pivot you never know what you might have to be an expert in next yes I saw a tweet the other day

it said golf writers you know aren't equipped to explain economics yeah how many people on the entire sports beat yeah not to mention in the entire pool of journalists in the world have economics degrees or ever even took an economics class in college I didn't Or understand like how corporate board structures work or understand, you know, how foreign relations work in terms of like Anthony Blinken is in, you know, Riyadh the other day when this deal is announced. Like, are those things connected? The recent sort of indictment about, you know, present from President Trump's handling of classified documents includes a subpoena to sort of, you know, ask for his like messages back and forth between live golf. Like all of that is is wrapped up in golf has become a basically a piece.

on the giant global chess board of how corporations and states, heads of state, are moving things around. And, you know, I think all you can really do as a golf writer is keep wanting to talk to people and saying, I mean,

I've had three or four different phone calls this week of like, hey, you're an expert in this. Can you explain this to me, like what this element of this? And that helps us better go on the air and speak from an informed perspective as opposed to being like,

well, I don't know. I think it might be this. You know, at least we're coming to like seeking out expert opinions. help shape how we feel about it. Totally. And calling up smart people and getting them to explain stuff to us, that's journalism. For sure.

That's not something that is being invented for the live story. And I was thinking about golf too. I mean, if we go back, Martha Burke and the Masters in the early 2000s, right? That pushes golf writers who might have been happy to write about what was going on the course into a little bit of different place. Yeah. You could argue that some of the tiger stuff that was that happened, you know, and again, I'm sure there's an advanced degree and TMZ studies, but they're like, the Waffle House or whatever, but that gets you writing about things and thinking about things that probably weren't expecting to think of them.

Totally. Totally. It's interesting, actually, and I think you'll find this diversion interesting because I was talking with a younger golf rider this week, and we were talking about the Zion Williams and stuff that's sort of blowing up all over Twitter or whatever. And she was like, you know, it surprised me that that doesn't become like a bigger deal because of like way that, you know, the tiger stuff happened. And I was like, you know, it is, it's obviously, it's 20 years of difference or whatever, 15 years

of difference. But some of it is like how we've evolved, like how what we perceive athletes private lives. Some of it is like that Twitter was just sort of exploding then and now that stuff has become more normal. But the way that that that story with Tiger was sort of, you know, consumed by the media and was like this huge deal compared to the way that sort of sex scandals are kind of blow up these days is very different. And it was sort of fascinating kind of unpack, you know, how our perception of media has, what's relevant. event to private lives as it sort of spills into the public as part of what we discuss in the day to day.

Like I doubt Zion Williamson will be asked in any NBA scrum about the details of this, the way that Tiger was sort of grilled about, I can remember Tom Bernaldi asking Tiger, like, why did you get married? Like, can you imagine a question like that now in this day and age? It would be so awkward and strange, but that was the time that was, you know? And if we're looking for a connection between that Tiger awkward press conference and the first live press conference, they both involved Ari Fleischer. I believe that is actually true.

It is actually true 100%. People always think that I was joking about Ari Fleischer being at that live press conference. They're like, no, this is like a joke, right? I was like, no, I literally took a picture of Ari Fleischer. I was like, he's in the room. Like, if you thought this was like, just me having fun, like, here he is. How has the live story changed the metabolism of the golf beat? I think it has sort of forced.

I mean, it's the metabolism in terms of like there's a lot. lot more drama. There's always kind of people like, is this person going or this rumor happening? It's made it transactional maybe in a way that other sports are like NBA rumors are a huge part of that beat where that was never the case in golf. And now for the last year, there was certainly always like, oh, did you hear that like John Rom is thinking about this or Patrick Hanley and Zander Hoffley are thinking about this? And so I know my colleague Chris Solomon, you know, who's close to lots of players, even plenty of you've gone to live.

Like, you have to kind of like source that out and ask and sort of get a finger on the pulse of how it's feeling. And so it's become this constant churning thing as opposed to like the rhythms of tournaments would always sort of deter. Okay, like here comes the build up to the majors. And then the sort of slowdown of like, we won't expect any news for a while and stuff. And so I think that's an interesting way it has just in terms of,

you know, I think what's interesting sometimes about what we do is that there are like the traditional journalists. And then there's sort of like the influencer types who are probably include us and Barstool. And, you know, there's people who are focuses on architecture, but they're also like kind of involved in the transactional stuff. And then there's, you know, there's other entities that you sort of wonder like, are they getting funding from Liv? Because they sure promote a lot of like pro lives or stuff. And, you know, Sports Illustrated at one point, like, decided. they were going to make their own rankings for, you know, the golfers because they didn't feel like the ranking stuff was fair.

And they were sponsored by L.A. Golf, which was sponsored by Bryson DeShambo. I was like, God, there's so many massive conflicts of interest going on. I think it must be hard for fans of golf to sort through, like, who do I trust? What's this agenda here? Who is sort of giving it to me straight? Who's furthering, you know, this point of some player? I think what we always just try to do is, like, be up front about, like, Look, Titleist is one of our sort of sponsors.

We have some access to Titleist players that we might not have, you know, other players. We have made it very clear up front to Titleist that we want to have like autonomy about be able to say whatever we want. They've agreed to that. We're friends with Roy McElroy and Max Homa and people like that. But we try to sort of be critical of them and sort of make sure that we hold them to a high standard. And that's part of the reason why they respect us.

Like, it's complicated. I always think that it's better if that stuff plays out in like the public sphere than it is like in private of like you're wondering like, okay, does this NBA insider like is he doing the bidding of agents? Is he, you know, is this NFL insider, you know, furthering this agent's agenda? Like I will talk about like there are relationships with players and hopefully that is that disclosure helps people decide whether to take us with a grain of salt or not. Have you found that this live story has changed the interface between reporter or? media member and golfer i think golfers because they know that the media is sort of a conduit for a lot of information they will often ask like what are you hearing about such a such thing like they see information sometimes as currency and they want to kind of like well you know did you hear about

this and they'll bounce it you know off you and like what did you hear about this and what do you think about this i mean definitely some of them ask our opinions on stuff because they know that we sort of help shape some of the public, you know, discussion about it. I'm sure it's not, I mean, like, you know, Jenkins and Hogan were legitimate friends where Hogan was trying to convince Dan Jenkins to like become a professional golfer and then he would give him lessons. And so it's not like these relationships haven't existed in the past. I think that golf is such a sort of expansive sport.

He takes place over like hundreds of acres of land. You're not like confined in like a hallway or a locker room or, or, and there's not a hall monitor waiting for you at the door to be like, oh, now you're allowed in and now you're not. Like it's, it's not hard to walk up to players. Whenever, like, someone asked me, like, an reporter from the political realm or, you know,

something else and says, how do I talk to these golfers? I'm like, you literally just come to, like, the days where they're in their practice rounds and you walk up to them. And you say, do you have a second?

Can I talk to you while I walk? And that's a thing that isn't really, like, I cover the NFL for 15 years. It's hard to, like, saddle up to an NFL player. unless you're going into their space in a locker room.

And so you are able to have like really interesting conversations. I mean, like Rory and I, one of our things is we talk about TV because we both like like various like prestige TV. And so twice this year he came on our podcast, The TrapDraw to talk about succession. And he and I were just talking about have you finished Ted Lassow and like, you know, we were bouncing with this. And that's kind of a part of our, you know, friendly relationship.

We know that like we're not like friends, friends, but like we're going to have the discussions about things that interests us both about culture. And that's kind of who he is and who I am. When you say golfers are asking you for information, that includes this latest story. I think so. I think they want to know like what we've heard in terms of, all right,

well, like, are you hearing that we're going to have like equity in this whole thing? Because, you know, they will know that like, oh, you've talked to other players and you've talked to, you know, various people involved.

And, um, you've sat in. on the press conferences that where jay is forced to answer these questions i mean there was a thing earlier this week that where ches and hadley was saying you know well i i'd like to be made whole for you know the money that i passed on which is hilarious because like chess and had they was like two hundred and eighths in the world but he was like what did jay say in the press conference did he say something about how you know we would be rewarded for our loyalty i'd like to be

rewarded for my loyalty like can you guys what did he actually say did he say that about tiger and and rory and it was sort of funny to be like it was almost in public was like an exchange of information of like he was like can you clarify for me like what was actually said so that I know like what to what to what to demand in these things but we've we've reached an insane moment in golf where someone like chess and hadley who's barely scraping it together in the top 300 of the world is like well I want my money like I think I should be rewarded it's I cannot believe how golfers have become so divorced from reality that they think that like there's a market that doesn't involve sports washing that's like $200 million for their skills because there just isn't. I mean, they're for two or three guys there might be, but not dudes like down, you know, even outside the top 20. I was struck being in the media tent. How many golfers went up there and when asked about Liv and last about last week's

event said, I know as much or less than you do to reporters. And we don't think they're sandbagging. I don't think that they are. I think that they've had some meetings and they've expressed anger and outrage. But I think what's true is that like the dealmakers right now, don't really know what they've essentially agreed to is a truce to try to figure out the details and so they've they've figured out the corporate board structure and they've figured out a way to sort of help you know i think and the sum of this is conjecture but help the Saudis save face in a sort

of settlement in that yasser's going to be the chairman but they're mostly getting what they want which is like they're going to be have a seat at the table they're going to be investors they're going to be able to be introduced to grant thornton They're going to be able to be introduced to the head of the travelers. They're going to be introduced. They're going to have all these doors open now in relationships where they might not have had. That's always what they've really wanted. Not like they don't have like a super interest in team golf.

Like yes, Yasser Al-Ramein loves golf. But I don't think that they're going to look at going forward as like, I think they might say to live, they sink or swim on your own now. Like we gave you a $2 billion head start on whatever it is you can build. Figure it out. now yourself and if you if you if you wither and die on the vine that's not on us anymore like we we've already put a lot of money in this because we got out of this what we wanted i was reading your piece from last thursday which i encourage people to go look up on no laying up's website and i almost

detected two different beings in there there's journalist kevin yeah who sees a building on fire and grabs his notepad like i'm going to run over there and figure out what's happening right and then there's kevin the fan of professional golf yeah who is looking at this deal and going ooh i feel slightly to majorly queasy about my enjoyment of the sport going forward. How do those two beings interact in you right now? I think that one thing that we've talked a lot about this week is if you think about golf, like professional golf is like 0.1% of like all the people who love golf or have interest in golf in the world at large.

And the nice thing, and I think what's different about working at ESPN and now working only thing up is like we talk and cover golf as the game at large like we have a lot of stuff that we do that is completely unrelated to professional golf and so what i wanted to kind of remind people is like if you're turned off by this sort of grossness of like everybody thinking their handout give me more money you can still love golf and appreciate what you love about golf and just ignore this other shit like that is not an essential part of what it is you love and go back to the reasons that you fell in love with it and then hold on to those because that element of it doesn't have to be poisoned by this crap. And look, I'm going to still be a journalist and I'm still going to try to interview people and talk to people and suss out the details of this and that.

And that is going to be probably the next six months of my life is like trying to figure out with my core group of colleagues, like how do we best get the information of what this is going to be like. but I'm also going to still play golf with my 11 year old daughter who loves golf, and that's going to be what sort of fills up my cup and what makes me still love this and why I do it as part of my, you know, livelihood and profession. And I hope that people don't get so turned off by golf, that they reject golf in general. Sometimes like when I talk to friends who are just completely, like, disconnected from golf, like they think of it all as like, oh, yeah, golf, like that thing that, like, heads of state do like that's such a turn off that thing that like takes up all this land and like that i

read about malcolm godwell talking about how they should you know turn an la country club into a dog park and all that's totally valid but like that isn't the sort of like la country club which is hosting the u.s open for the first time in history and as like probably sitting on seven eight hundred million dollars of taxable land that isn't golf to me like golf is also like my crappy like $31 muni that's like you know two minutes from my house that you know is in the middle of Baltimore city

and was like one of the first courses to like embrace African Americans and let them feel like this is a part of this game is like part of they can feel welcome here that to me is golf too and you can you can hang on to that and feel okay about golf in general I think because that's the majority of how people play golf and consume golf you happy to be at no laying up rather than

at a broadcast entity that has deals with WGA tour. I certainly am happy to be at knowing up for a variety of reasons. I think it allows me to be, you know, the best, truest version of my idealized self. No one is going to tell me like stick to sports. No one is going to tell me like that golf story isn't relevant to our audience. And respectfully, like I, as we talked about last time we did this, like I love DSPN. And I'll continue to love it.

And I think that like you do so much really good journalism. But, you know, some of being working for a billion dollar corporation, you know, honestly, like there are some similar funny parallels to like we don't take like venture capital money. So we don't answer to anybody. We are sort of the nine of us, the knowing up, like true to our beliefs of what we think our company should be. and when you look around it like the athletic, you know, which has just decided they're laying on people off because they had to meet this certain like quarterly earnings thing

and they had to kind of juice their stock price or whatever. That's not going to happen at knowing up. And so I love that element of it. It's like we just do good work that we hope resonates with people and we make more money than we spend. And hopefully that's enough to kind of keep us happy. I think this is the point in the day when Dan Jenkins and Dave Morris said, let's repair the 19th hole.

which for you and I at this point in our lives means, you know, drink some power aid. Yeah, I think we're, you know, we're dads. We got to get up in the morning, get the kids to camp. We got to make sure that, you know, we're, we're being good, good citizens of the world. But, yeah, I mean, I look, it's funny, like that element of golf media is romanticized in some ways. And it's, it's something that I love to joke about and talk about with friends. I don't see how you could, like, function now how they did. function then, you know,

the, um, but, I'm exhausted right now and I had a few chicken figures for lunch. I mean, come on. 100%. So, I mean, I, look, I love,

it's, it's funny we keep talking about Dan Jenkins because like, Sally Jenkins has been like a super important voice, even in this current conversation of being like, you know, can we just take stock of the fact that all these like people are like sitting with their hands out and ruining something that has been, you know,

kind of sacred to a lot of people for a long time. I, Sally's like literally one of my favorite writers in the world and I love, love seeing her get fired up about something because it, you know, it shows that like the spirit of like golf should mean something more than like just the transactional elements of who's making the most money. And I, you know, she's someone who I still like model who I want to be as a journalist after. So like the spirit of like what Dan stood for, the good parts to me like lives on through her and hopefully through me. hopefully pass it on to other kind of younger golf writers. Amen. Hey, VV. Thanks for coming on the press box.

Always, bud. So on Tuesday morning, I met my next guest on the 10th T. He is John Wood. He is an on-course reporter for NBC. If you ever watch golf on NBC, Wood is the announcer who's lurking a few feet away from the players on the course, who's giving you the club and distance and a voice that's a little bit whispery, but not too whispering.

Wood and I walked the 10th Fairway, scrambling out of the way when Colin Morikawa came through playing his practice round. Hey, Colin. And I scribbled down all kinds of questions for him. Like, is he allowed to talk to players during a round? And what kind of stuff does a golf crowd say that we can hear on TV? And how did he get into wolves? Among announcers, he is a true Renaissance man. Here's John Wood.

All right, John, for people who are not golf. fans. How would you describe your job at NBC? I'm a professional talker. I'm kind of describing what the players are facing, what they are looking to do with the shot, what they're trying to avoid, sometimes trying to get into their heads about, you know, what he and his catty might be talking about. Just really, you know, having caddied for 24 years, I have a good idea just by watching them through body language, how the discussion is looking at. back and forth what they're talking about. So I'm just trying to describe what I'm seeing without really knowing being able to hear what

they're talking about, describing the shot, what they're trying to avoid, and what they're ultimately trying to accomplish. If you can't hear them, then you're the body language guy. Absolutely. Yeah. And it's amazing. As a caddy, I didn't notice it so much because I was so focused on my player. But doing this, watching the caddy player interactions, boy, I can tell a lot more.

right down to they're not getting along right now. Because, you know, you watch, you watch them walking from the T to their ball in the fairway. And, you know, they're 20 yards apart without saying a word to each other for a few holes in a row. You can kind of go, there's something going on here. There's a little and vice versa. If they're chatting every hole, yucking it up, telling jokes and laughing, obviously they're in a good place. So, yeah, right down to the relationships. How long do you usually have to talk to the folks at home?

It varies. I mean, it can be from five seconds to 30 seconds. And I always say you know, kind of have an idea when they're coming to you and you kind of develop, I got a 20 second answer, I got a 10 second answer, and I've got a five second answer. And you kind of just, if it's down to that five, you're trying and get down to the most important kernel of this shot. You know, what's the one single most important thing about it? Because you don't have time to go through everything that's going on. So you get those different ideas in your head. you kind of self-edit when you see how much time you have.

And the rule you were telling me a few minutes ago is you can talk right up to when the player hits a shot. Yeah. I try and talk as close to that as possible. Sometimes it's fun to kind of set up the shot. And if it's a big moment, just let that silence build because it kind of builds the tension and, you know, it gives them a few seconds to really, uh, the viewer just to really feel how intense and how quiet it is, you know, and how intense those moments are.

But yeah, typically I can talk right up to the hit. We'd like to hear the contact on the air without somebody talking over it. And then once the ball's away, hopefully I see it. I have a good idea where it's going and can then describe, you know, whether it's looking good. This is on a great line, whether he's missed it left or right or long or watching his body language again. If he, you know, you slams the club down or puts his head down, you know he's hit a bad shot. And you'll describe that too, where even if I don't see the ball, I can say he does not like this at all. You saw that reaction.

So a lot of different things, a lot of it's not a formula. It's all kind of winging it. Here's the other course reporter rule I was interested in. Can you talk to the players when they're on the course? I know a lot of these guys really well. A lot of my friends, players and caddies, but I don't approach them. I'll sometimes walk close enough where if they want to approach me or want to talk about something, I'm there. And then I can engage with them because they started it.

But I know how intense the concentration can be out there, caddying for so long. And so I try to leave them alone. A lot of times when you see a caddy just walking with a bag on his shoulder, you think, oh, he's just walking to the ball. Well, a lot of times they're grinding through five different options of what this shot might be, that they're facing, figuring out where am I going to tell them to miss this? How's that bunker? If we hit it there? If we hit it long, is it doable? So I don't want to jump in and say, hey, Paul, how you doing today when he's in the middle of those thoughts? Because I don't want to interfere with the competition. But if they come to me, I can talk to them.

And then you get those nuggets that make it really interesting. 100%. That's great. When you, you know, you can say and tell the viewer, hey, I was just talking to Brooks Keppka coming up here. And, you know, he loves this new driver he's hitting. and you witnessed by that when he just hit or any little bit of nugget that you can share with the viewers from inside the rope from those really close relationships. I think viewers love that kind of thing. Do you have to have an effective golf whisper to do your job? Occasionally, yes. You know, I try and get in the spot that I'm close enough to see the shot, see the swing, but far enough away where I can kind of talk in a normal voice.

but there are certainly times when you get stuck or there's just nowhere else to stand where you kind of maybe turn to the side a little bit, hold your yardage book up in front of the mic and go with that golf whisper. So yeah, you got to have it sometimes. Has a player ever overheard you and asked you to shut up? Yes. One of my first events was in at Capulua and it was right up on the top of this hill, dead quiet, nobody around.

And I was probably a good 60 yards away. But I was talking loud enough. But luckily, I know JT well enough. And he didn't take it bad. Yeah. Justin kind of looks at me and goes, Woody, I can hear you. Give you a little wave. I got you.

So that's the only time it's happened. So hopefully it never happens again. But he was a good sport about it. Who are the chattyest players on the course? Oh, man, good question. Webb Simpson, he loves to talk. Cooch loves to talk. My last boss, Matt Coocher, he's a huge talker.

And a lot of times it depends on the situation. If it's early in the week and they're just kind of grooving along, you know, anybody will have a conversation. If it's Saturday, Sunday, coming down the stretch, nobody wants to talk. You know, they're so into what they're doing. No interest at all. Yeah, you just, none at all. And you wouldn't ask anyway, even if you could because. Nope, nope.

I don't want to be, I do not want to involve myself in the outcome of a shot or a tournament. I hope, you know, you hate it when an umpire gets noticed because usually it's for something horrible. I want to call good shots and I want to do a good job, but I certainly don't want the players to notice me at all. The networks have been experimenting with micing up the players. How do you greet this development? How do I what? Greet this development.

I think it's interesting. If the player's willing to do it, I think it's fun. And there's been a lot of players who have been really good at it. And if the player says, yes, I don't have any problem with it. I think it's kind of fun. You're not worried about being replaced by a mic'd up player. You know, as a caddy, I was always worried about being replaced by a golf cart. So now, you know, there's always something to worry about.

This is the other thing I loved. I was looking up some pictures of you online and you're wearing this apparatus, I think is the right word for it. The little antenna. Yeah. And you look a little bit like that old SNL sketch with Al Franken where he was the one man political reporter. I love that sketch. I can't believe anybody else remembers it. But I love that one when he was reporting from, I think it was the Middle East out in the desert.

And they kept coming back to them and Sumberner got worse and worse every time. It was blistering up towards the end. So yeah, I feel a little bit like Al Franken out there with that headset. Yeah, it seemed very futuristic at the time, but the future is now. Yeah, exactly. Now it kind of feels like archaic. Don't we have anything better than this by now?

You're the closest NBC reporter to the crowd. What do you hear from a golf crowd that we do not hear on live television? Golf crowds are typically great. A lot of times they are asking each other questions. which is fun because, you know, and if you've got a moment, it's fun because they can ask you a question if you're along the rope line and interact with them. And they'll ask you what kind of yardage does he have? What's this? You answer. Yeah, if I've got time, yeah, why not?

If I've got time and I'm not doing anything else, it's not, I love what I'm doing. It's not rocket science. So if I've got time, if somebody wants to know what yardage and I can tell them, why not? You know, make it more enjoyable for them. The one thing I love about golf that you don't see it. any other sport is you don't go to a basketball game and watch a guy practicing his free throws in the crowd. You don't go to a baseball game and see a guy stand up and work on, you know, inside out and a pitch. At golf, you see it constantly. They'll watch a player and then they'll

take a fake back swing and kind of see how he does this. I'm going to try that next time I go. And so it's fun to watch some of those, you know, thinking they're always trying to pick something up on what they're watching. That's so interesting. I'm always fascinated when I actually come to a tournament, how much noisier a crowd is in person than it seems on television? Like, not in terms of cheering and the big swells, but just the murmurs. There's a big murmur out there. Yeah. And as long as it's constant, that's fine.

Players don't care. They can, if it's a constant murmur, they'll hit. It's not a big deal to them. It's when you get a real quiet crowd and one guy yelling or you hear one noise from, you know, a different part of the course that you'll back off and start over. But if it's a constant noise, I don't think it's. bothers them at all. Do the players care about that get in the hole or

Baba Bowie that is uttered a half a second after they swing? Not too much. In one ear, out the other, they've heard it all. Honestly, I think the players root for a little originality on those. Everybody's heard the Bababooys and they get in the holes. I think

players would love it if they started hearing some different things, you know, because they do hear it and they enjoy it when it's someone who says something funny just like anybody else. Is Baba Buoy is still a live cultural reference, or is that like the El Frank in S&L sketch. You know, I think probably most people who hear it have no idea what it is. I'm sure people who yell it, not sure what it means, you know, but everybody knows it goes

back to Howard Stern and Gary Del Bonner. You and I are old enough to know. Yes, exactly. But probably at this point, most people don't know the reference. Is there any difference between a California golf crowd and an East Coast golf crowd? Yeah, I would say so. Just like you would think the state, California crowds are typically a little bit more laid back, very positive in general. You don't hear a lot of heckling or anything like that,

but you go to Boston or New York. It's a different crowd. It's like going to a game at Yankee Stadium where you get something bad. You're going to hear about it there. California, not so much. Just kind of ignore the bad shots and cheer the good ones. But back to the Northeast, like I said, Boston, New York areas, you get some intense fans both ways. You and I were just out there walking the 10th hole. You're doing your pregame, pre-match work. What are you doing in that instance? I'm looking at the course exactly like I did when I was caddying. How are players going to play this course, this particular hole? What's the wind direction going to be? Like I said earlier, the wind direction has so much, it changes holes entirely. It can change from one day to the next.

It's completely different golf hole. So caddies do a lot of research on, you know, weather channel and figuring out what the wind's going to do for the week. And then you're kind of getting a lot of yard, just double checking the yardage book, making sure you've got all the right numbers, you know, two, two bad places, two bunkers, two any water, you know, penalty areas that there are out there, checking the uphill and downhill, how much certain shots play uphill, how much they play downhill. And really, you know, as a caddy, you're kind of doing it for one player. This is my player. Here's how, you know, Matt Coocher, when I cadd for him, he likes to hit almost every shot with a fade, left to right. So I looked at every hole for that shot. Now doing this,

I kind of look at it from a lot of different perspectives, left to right, right to left, long hitters, short hitters, just because I don't know who I'm going to be with for the week. And I might have to call it anyway. So a lot of the same work, but probably a little bit more work doing this. You and I started out at the tea and then we walked the fairway and then we were yacking. And meanwhile, Colin Moracawa, who's playing a practice round, wanted to actually tee off. So we got out of the way. We got out of the way. Watching him go through a practice round, is that helpful to you? It is. It always, especially with a course like this, it's so brand new. I mean, I had been here before. but I've never seen it played by great players. So you can have theories, you can walk a hole and think, I know how they're going to play this hole because A, B, and C. And then you see somebody play it completely different than you thought they would. And you're like, oh, yeah, that makes sense, you know.

And not all players will play the whole, you know, the same way. Six is a great example this week, Jive old par four. You'll see a lot of guys going for it with, you know, probably three would. reaching it in one or just getting it somewhere near the green and then you'll see a lot of players hitting four iron off the tee hitting it way left so it's fun watching practice rounds just to put those nuggets in your head to have an idea of what you think they might do when the tournament actually starts it's overcast here in l.a today and you called it a tough sky what's a tough sky for the uninition the color of the golf ball it's it's very white so you really got to make sure

you get in a good spot to watch shots um i like to get behind them a lot lot in line with the shot, if I can, behind our cameraman. I think that's a great vantage point to see start line. The ball's, you know, fading or drawing, high or low. If it's a nice, you know, sunny day, I'll try and get the sun at my back, no matter where I am. Because if I am trying to watch a shot and the ball goes right up into the sun, it's gone. I have no idea. I lose it right away. So just situate myself with the sun at my back, and that way it's easier to see the ball. These are the little decisions, the little things you think about when you decide where do I lurk during the shop, because you are lurking, right? Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk about your backstory a little bit. 1997, you were working at a bookstore, is this correct? I was managing a tower books in Sacramento, California, yep. And then what happens? And then, well, I played high school golf. I played one year golf at Cal Berkeley.

And then I was kind of, I was playing golf for fun, but I really wasn't interested in a career in golf at all. and then a good friend of mine, Kevin Sutherland, and his coach, Don Baccom, we were out hitting balls together one day, and it was Kevin's second year on tour. He had had three or four different caddies of first year, really didn't settle on any of them, and they just asked me if I'd be interested in going out and doing it. And, you know, I thought about it for a few days, and I, Kevin was great. I said, Kevin, can you guarantee me a full year because I'm leaving a job here, and no matter how bad I am at this, can you guarantee me a full year?

He goes, yes, I can. So I fell into it, loved it right away. I know I stunk right away. Kevin was very patient, kind of learning on the job. And, you know, that was 27 years ago. So honestly, I thought I'd do it for a year or two and then get back to the real world. But I fell in love with it. I think I was decent at it.

And it just became a career. How long did it take you to become decent? About halfway through my first year, I think, I got decent and it was all because of Kevin. Well, I shouldn't say that. Watching other good caddies, who you knew were good caddies, like Joe Lakava or Bones, Tony Navarro at that point, watching them caddy, not necessarily asking them questions, but listening in when they were caddying, you can learn a lot from them and file it away going,

that's great. But there was a moment, Kevin was so great to me at one point. I think I was agreeing with him a little too much early on. just trying to be a yes man and boost his confidence. And after around one day, he said, let's sit down and talk about this. I know you're a good golfer. You see things well. I want to hear what you would think of the player.

I don't want you to agree with me all the time. You know, I want your opinion right or wrong, whether I end up agreeing or doing what you think or not. I'm paying you for your opinion. And that's what I want. And it was so great at Kevin to lay that out for me. It really freed up my mind to really start being more opinionated out there and disagreeing with him if I disagreed with his shot. You guys never had any Jordan Speeth moments where he's going back and forth at his

catty. Oh, sure. You always have those moments. Not necessarily as much as those two do. But I, you know, I always say, you know, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, the practice rounds, you have the arguments. So Thursday through Sunday, you can have the discussions. Because you don't want the argument in tournament time because it upsets the flow and your

player. But if it's just a discussion, if you. He wants to do something on a whole and you can revert back to, hey, remember on Tuesday when we talked about this? We decided, A, because of this, he goes, yeah, yeah, you're right. And so it's nice to have those, you know, I'll call them arguments. They're not malicious or anything, but, you know, they can get a little heated and then you come to a decision on how you do. So then on Thursday through Sunday, you've made those decisions. We already had this out.

Yeah. And this is where we ended up. Exactly. So let's do this. But at the end, as a caddy, if he doesn't, want to, you have to quit disagreeing with him. If you feel like there's no way he's going to, he's going to buy into what I'm saying right now, he's done with this. He wants to hit his shot. Then you got to back out, get out of it and say, you know, you're feeling this. Give me your best one,

you know, just to kind of give him one positive thought at the end instead of saying, I disagree with this shot, but go ahead and hit it. 2017 Open Championship you were heading for the aforementioned Matt Coocher, who was up or tied for most of the back nine that day winds up finishing second to Jordan Speed. What's it like after a tournament when your guy gets that close? Yeah, that one was probably the biggest disappointment of my caddian career. You know, it made it a little bit easier that it was Jordan and Michael, who are both good friends.

I love them both to death. And the fact that I don't, Cooch didn't lose it, you know, Jordan did Jordan things in those last five holes and beat us. So it wasn't like we were in position to win and we choked or we blew it. You know, Kooch hit the shots he needed a hit to win. I think we had a one-shot lead with four or five to play, birdied two of those next four holes, and we were behind. So at a major, that really doesn't happen too often.

But Jordan did Jordan things. So, yeah, that one stung. I don't think you ever get over being that close to win in a major and not having it happen for you. But I wouldn't give up the experience for the world. when we hear about a player getting that close, they are replaying it in their mind constantly. Sure.

Did I do the right thing here, right thing here? Are you doing the same thing as a caddy in that instance? Yeah, absolutely. It's tough to go back to earlier days because you don't know had you done something differently on Thursday, would you still be in this position? Things might be totally different.

So it's hard to go. But yeah, if you are in, you know, after Sunday, after a tough loss or a writer cup or something like that, that you'll go over it for sure and you'll think man I I I blew it there that was the wrong decision I talked him into the wrong shot and I think the really good caddies um know that and they're going to feel worse about it than anything a player could do to berate them

or or knock him down you know you're trying to help your player and when you when you talk him into a wrong decision it's it's pretty devastating you're a caddy for 20 plus years and then in 2020 you come to NBC and the Golf Channel. How did you get there? A few years before that, let me go back a little bit further. Tommy Roy, the executive producer for NBC Golf, had this idea of caddies doing on-course commentating.

So years before, he had come to Bones and I and asked, would you guys be interested? I think it'd be fun perspective. I think you guys would be the two guys I'd want to experiment with. And if we can find a spot where neither of your players are playing, you want to try it for one week. So Bones and I both said, yeah, it'd be a blast.

So we found an event, RSM one year that neither of us were caddying in. Tommy set it up well beforehand. And we ended up doing just Friday and Saturday. We didn't do Thursday. Thursday, we kind of went around with the normal announcers just to get a feel for it. We did it Thursday and Friday. And then that was it for five years. Tommy was great about it, though he said, you know, if you ever really want to do this full time when you're done caddying, you know, let's talk because, you know, I think you can do it.

So I always kept it in the back of my mind and then probably, you know, five years later or so I was a little burned out on caddying. You know, I still loved it and hopefully I still get to do it a little bit here and there or, you know, now. But I was just kind of ready for something else. And so I went to Tommy and said, hey, you know, I don't know if you have anything open right now, But, you know, I'd be interested in trying it full time again. So it worked out perfectly that he was going to find a spot for me. And yeah, and I haven't looked back. I've really enjoyed it ever since then.

If we stipulate that you've got a really good job, when do you miss your old job? I miss my old job. The Cup weeks, the Ryder Cup, President's Cup. I love those team events. I miss it majors, obviously here. U.S. Open Championship, PGA, Players' championship. I do miss it, but that doesn't lessen my enjoyment of this at all. You know, there are certain times, you know, it's funny, I'll be hearing a caddy say something.

I go, oh, no, and that's the wrong. You know, I want to jump in and say, no, because of this. But definitely there's times I miss it. I miss the camaraderie, but, you know, I still have that because we have such a great team of announcers around here. But I do miss the day in, day out, hanging out with caddies and telling stories, things like that. were described to me as a Renaissance man. Do you accept that title? A poor man's Renaissance man. Do you bring a guitar to every golf event? I do. Play a lot of music yourself, write a lot of music. I do, yep. It's a great outlet for me. I like to get the creative juices flowing a little bit.

It started out where I got to a point where I would be done with the round every day. I'd go back to my hotel room, you need to flip on the TV or stare at the computer for four hours. And I'm like, this is ridiculous. I know I'm just doing nothing. So I started traveling with the guitar. And ever since then, it's been a constant companion. I don't go anywhere without it. So, you know, I get times in the mornings usually to kind of, you know, if I'm working on writing anything or, you know, practicing, just playing,

that it's a great, great outlet for me. You told Golf Week that you made your parents take you to see Elvis Presley in concert when you were seven years old? Seven years old. What do you remember about that show? Everything. Everything. Tell me.

I remember, you know, you'd had little chores, you know, and got your allowance. Anytime I got allowance, I would go down to this drugstore by an Elvis record, which I still have the stack of them at home. And this was his last tour. I mean, I didn't. It's Elvis. I didn't care that it was old, you know, fat Elvis at all. It was Elvis Presley. So he was coming to Tacoma.

And I begged my parents to let us go. and they bless them. They loved Elvis too, so it wasn't like I was twisting their arm. I remember sitting on the right side, not on the floor, but up in the arena a little bit on the right side of the stage.

And my seat was on an aisle, but that wasn't close enough. So I sat on the staircase in the aisle. He had kind of a light blue jumpsuit at the time, you know, and just did all the Elvis things, gave out the scars to the women and sang all the songs.

And here's the funny thing. My mom smuggled in a cassette recorder, so I have the cassette to that tape. And you can only make out little seconds of it here and there because it's so garbled. But yeah, I got a pirated Elvis show at home. That's amazing. Here's the other thing I loved. I was looking at your Twitter account. And you put up a video last month that you shot of some wolves at Yellowstone.

How did you get into watching wolves? Well, I was always into wolves. I took a long time to actually start watching them. Okay, always into wolves. Like, I thought wolves were cool. Reading about wolves, you know, seeing documentaries, anything like that, I was hooked on. I was always also the guy, if it was a dinner party, I was in the backyard with the dogs. I wasn't sitting at the table with everybody else.

So, yeah. And then about six, seven years ago, I just decided, this is stupid. I've wanted to do this forever. Let's do it. So I threw everything in my truck, drove the Yellowstone, and saw wolves immediately. that morning in Lamar Valley through a spotting scope and have been absolutely hooked ever since. It's my favorite thing to do. So I'll go up there, you know, two, three, four times a year, spend a couple weeks each time. And I know all the, you know, the wolf biologists up there now

and the people who are constant watchers. So it's just one of my favorite things to do. That's that guy from NBC Sports that likes wolves. Exactly. Exactly. So you're watching through your spotting scope. Yeah. For the most part. What are you looking for when you're watching All the behaviors, you know, last I was up last month and there's one pack called a Junction Butte Pack. They had pups and it was right at the point where they were starting to come out of the den. So that was a blast to, you know, watch pups and watching, you know, tumble and stumble and crawl over the adults and play with each other. Other times, you know, you'll catch them in full hunting mode and you'll watch them, you know, the whole pack take down an elk or a bison, which is just thrilling.

I mean, it's just until you've seen it, wild animals actually hunting each other. It's hard to describe until you've seen it in person. Other times, it's just, you know, big play sessions where, you know, they nap a lot during the day. So you usually see them a lot in the morning, a lot at night and daytime. They kind of take big naps. But, you know, those yearlings who are, they're kind of like teenagers. They don't want to take naps, you know.

So they'll be up playing, running around and, you know, jumping on each other's tail and playing chase and just all sorts of different behaviors. And then a great thing is the there's one guy out there and many of them that I know, Taylor and Jeremy from Yellowstone Wolf Project, but a gentleman named Rick McIntyre, who's been out there forever, has written a bunch of books on the wolves of Yellowstone. And he's still out there every morning. And it's fun just to set up to scope next to those guys and just listen to their stories, listen to them, discuss it because their knowledge is so much deeper than I would ever be able to get to.

It's fun hearing them. So you can't shrug off the term Renaissance Man and then say, And by the way, I like to go watch wolves bring down their prey. I don't think those two things quite worth. Well, I don't think you can call yourself a Renaissance, man. If somebody else calls it, you know, you can take it. Fair enough. John Wood will not be talking in a golf whisper this weekend on NBC.

He will be thinking about wolves. He might see at Yellowstone. John, thanks for coming on the press box. My pleasure. Thanks for having me on. This was a blast. That's the press box. I'm Brian Curtis.

Production Magic. As always, by Erica Servantus. I'm headed back to the U.S. Open on Thursday. So if you see a sports writer on TV who looks sunburned and totally confused, you got me. That's your guy. Shoemaker and I will return Monday with more lukewarm takes about the media. Have a fantastic weekend.