NBC Sports and the St Andrews Links Trust announced that the “home of golf” is set to host a college golf tournament featuring a few esteemed American universities.

The inaugural St Andrews Links Collegiate, presented by TopGolf and World Wide Technology, featuring the men’s and women’s golf teams from Georgetown University, the University of North Carolina, the University of Notre Dame and Vanderbilt University, will take place on October 23-25.

The men’s programmes at Vanderbilt and North Carolina finished the spring ranked Nos. 1 and 2 in the US, respectively.

The event will consist of two days of stroke play on the Jubilee Course followed by a day of match play on the historic Old Course, which will also host the 2023 Walker Cup in September.

“We are honoured and proud to partner with St Andrews Links Trust on this new collegiate invitational at the Home of Golf,” said Tom Knapp, NBC Sports Executive VP, Golf. “The St Andrews Links Collegiate elevates and enhances our already impactful college golf platform.”

“We are delighted to partner with NBC Sports to bring the first collegiate event to the Home of Golf, creating a new invitational which will see some of the game’s brightest young stars from four distinguished institutions compete in the birthplace of the game,” said Neil Coulson, CEO of St Andrews Links Trust, the organization responsible for the management and upkeep of the seven courses at St Andrews.

The Old Course — which has hosted the Open Championship on 30 occasions — is cited by course architects and historians as the most important golf course in the world.

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The news, first reported in December by multiple outlets, comes after long-time voices Roger Maltbie and Gary Koch saw their extended runs with the NBC Sports come to an end.

Faxon, 61, is an eight-time winner on the PGA Tour and known as one of the best putters in the history of the game, serving as a short-game whisperer to a number of pros, including Rory McIlroy. He briefly worked for NBC Sports last decade and was the lead golf analyst for Fox Sports’ US Open coverage for five years. Faxon has also been an on-air contributor to Sky Sports’ golf coverage in Europe and made a number of appearances last year on Golf Channel’s “Live From” show during its major coverage. Faxon will take over a hole announcement during the broadcast and continue to be a part of “Live From”.

Kaufman, 31, won the 2015 Shriners Open and is perhaps best known for playing in the final group at the 2016 Masters. The LSU product has transitioned into broadcasting and worked for ESPN, Golf Channel and NBC’s Peacock channel last season, earning rave reviews for his on-course reporting. Kaufman is expected to be an on-course reporter in his new role.

“We have the deepest roster in the game and are excited to showcase our new voices in Brad and Smylie as well as familiar faces in new roles as we start the 2023 PGA Tour season this week at Kapalua,” said Molly Solomon, executive producer at Golf Channel.

NBC also announced that Golf Channel contributors Damon Hack and Cara Banks will serve as interviewers for the upcoming season. They will replace Kathryn Tappen, who is not expected to return to NBC Sports’ golf coverage in 2023. Dan Hicks and Paul Azinger are back for their fifth consecutive year as play-by-play commentator and lead analyst.

Kaufman is expected to work this week’s Sentry Tournament of Champions in Maui, while Faxon will make his debut next month at the Honda Classic.

The post NBC Sports adds two fan favourites to broadcast team after departure of Maltbie and Koch appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
More broadcast changes are coming to the NBC Sports/Golf Channel broadcast, according to multiple reports.

A month after longtime voices Roger Maltbie and Gary Koch saw their extended runs with the network come to an end, former PGA Tour players Brad Faxon and Smylie Kaufman are expected to fill the vacated roles. The news was first reported by Golfweek, with a source confirming the move to Golf Digest.

Faxon, 61, is an eight-time winner on the PGA Tour and known as one of the best putters in the history of the game, serving as a short-game whisperer to a number of pros, including Rory McIlroy. He briefly worked for NBC Sports last decade and was the lead golf analyst for FOX Sports’ U.S. Open coverage for five years. Faxon has also been an on-air contributor to Sky Sports’ golf coverage in Europe and made a number of appearances last year on Golf Channel’s “Live From” show during its major coverage. Faxon is expected to take over a tower spot during the broadcast and continue to be a part of “Live From,” a source relayed.

Kaufman, 31, won the 2015 Shriners Open and is perhaps best known for playing in the final group at the 2016 Masters. The LSU product has transitioned into broadcasting and worked for ESPN, Golf Channel and NBC’s Peacock channel last season, earning rave reviews for his on-course reporting. Kaufman is expected to be an on-course reporter in his new role.

Along with Maltbie and Koch, Kathryn Tappen is not expected to return to NBC Sports’ golf coverage in 2023, according to Golfweek and The Quadrilateral. Tappen served as the post-round interviewer this past year. Also stepping aside is Justin Leonard, who is expected to take a reduced role in favour of playing on the PGA Champions Tour.

In a statement to Golf Digest, an NBC Sports spokesperson said, “We’re focused on celebrating Roger Maltbie and Gary Koch at the PNC Championship later this month and will be announcing any additional changes to our lineup early in the new year.”

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We’ve got a deep dive on the 43rd Matches, including a unique sit down – in a pink flamingo no less – with American stud Brooks Koepka. Don’t miss our Ryder Cup “File” and “Dossier” features either, a fascinating look at everything American captain Steve Stricker must know to “whip the Europeans”, and the inside oil on how Padraig Harrington can help the Euros “spank the Yanks”.

Elsewhere, we chat with Trump Dubai-based freelancer Alex Riggs who has embraced social media to become an online tutor to (mostly above average) Joes and Janes everywhere and land a plum gig on GolfPass, the Golf Channel off-shoot owned by NBC Sports. The Canadian has even landed a role coaching NBA superstar Steph Curry courtesy of his digital profile.

Dubai Creek Golf & Yacht Club professional Matthew Brookes has a series of stretches that will help you cool down and ensure you’re ready for your next pre-round warm-up, while Butch Harmon shares a simple tip to flush it off downhill lies that are commonplace in the Middle East. We also head to Glen Oaks in Old Westbury on Long Island, the private New York club nicknamed the “Augusta of the North” which is set to host the penultimate leg of the LET’s new Aramco Team Series next month.

There’s also a fascinating take on the triumphs and tragedies of trying to earn a start on the PGA Tour via cut-throat Monday qualifying. All this and much more in the September 2021 edition of Golf Digest Middle East.

All this and much more in the September 2021 edition of Golf Digest Middle East.

The issue is again free to our loyal audience. You can scroll through the ISSUU link provided or download the bumper September 2021 issue FREE to your favourite device for later. Alternatively, pick up a copy at your favourite club. Whatever option you take, we hope you enjoy the read.

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By Tod Leonard
Golf broadcasting has travelled light years since the days of those “Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf” matches that began in the early 1960s, when they drove around a single camera on the back of a truck. Heck, the biz has come a long way since the last U.S. Open played at Torrey Pines in 2008.

Like imposed yard lines for football games, we now wonder how we ever got along without tracers or putting “make” percentages. But we also know there is plenty more technology coming, and NBC reached another frontier last week at the U.S. Women’s Open that will be on display for a larger audience for the 121st U.S. Open.

On the sixth hole on the Torrey Pines South Course alone, there will be 88 cameras to capture the players’ swings. Let that sink in. Eighty-eight. On one tee box. That’s more cameras in one spot than NBC had on the entire grounds at Torrey Pines in 2008. The cameras, set up in a ring around the tee box, are part of the 4DReplay developed by Cisco that show a player’s swing at 360 degrees, and the video can be paused at 34 different junctures in the motion.

What makes the system truly revolutionary is that after recording the swings, the video goes to a 4DReplay truck on-site, and those producers push the content to the U.S. Open app, where fans can choose and watch the swings of players of their choice on their phone.

“It’s a really good tool for Paul [Azinger] to analyse these swings,” said NBC golf producer Tommy Roy. “And I can’t wait to see what [Bryson] DeChambeau’s swing’s going to look like there. So that’s why you require all of those [cameras] there.”

Elsewhere on the course, Roy laughed when he ran through the various other cameras that would be in the mix throughout the course. Included in those are the scorpion crane, rat cams and a frog cam. “The veritable wild kingdom out there,” Roy said.

Roy had an explanation for each of the various cameras.

Scorpion crane: “We have at the first hole that’s covering tee shots where, it’s basically a speed shot, where the crane is positioned halfway between the teeing ground and the landing area, so the ball goes whipping by, and then it reveals what the next shot is. And that crane moves, then, to 18 where we do it on our approach shots as well.”

Rat cam: “If you remember the old TV show from years ago called ‘Rat Patrol,’ it’s what inspired that name. It was a show about these Army guys that rode around in Jeeps and had machine guns on the back of them, and that’s sort of what these vehicles look like that we have. They’re basically a super golf cart with a camera on the back of it that can zip around, and we use those to receive the tee shots that are struck.”

Frog cam: “We have that in the pond at 18. You know that’s called Devlin’s Billabong, where I believe he made a 10 en route to finishing up an event there one year [1975]. That hole, it’s very easy to suck a ball back off the front of that green, and so we have a camera positioned on that bank at all times to be able to cut to immediately to show the ball going into the water. So we have that, a camera actually in the water.”

Roy and his crew are excited about the week because of the experience they had in 2008, as well as the opportunities that Torrey Pines and the San Diego coastline have to offer.

“It’s a gorgeous piece of property with the canyons and the barranca, which it actually creates more opportunities for us, like the drone,” he said. “You can’t have a drone flying over top of people, over galleries, and so there’s plenty of places for him to fly there, which is terrific.

“… I love having some holes out by the ocean where the wind is going to blow, and then having the finishing up by the clubhouse where it’s a reachable par 5 with Devlin’s Billabong in the front creating all this danger, the risk/reward. You won’t get me saying anything bad about this place. It’s awesome.”

The post Here’s why NBC will use 88 cameras(!) on one hole at Torrey Pines during the U.S. Open appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Tod Leonard
It was a valid request for NBC. Really, for all golf fans. The U.S. Open returns to Torrey Pines next week, and inescapably there will be the chatter about the 2008 championship there and Tiger Woods’ incredible performance in beating Rocco Mediate in a Monday playoff. What’s the over-under on how many times we see the Sunday putt on 18 and the celebration?

The network wanted Woods to be a part of that reminiscing, but it sounds like that’s not going to happen. On a conference call with reporters on Wednesday, NBC golf anchor Dan Hicks said that while the network invited Woods to contribute to the broadcast, he declined. Woods is missing the U.S. Open while recovering from the leg injuries he suffered in a car accident in February.

“We were thinking how good that would be,” Hicks said. “Who better, if he couldn’t be there, to voice it and have him be a part of the show? But we were rebuffed. He didn’t want to do it.

“I understand his situation,” Hicks continued. “There is a lot going on in his world right now. There’s always a part of Tiger that he doesn’t want to become a sideshow, an event, that we should be concentrating on what’s happening. I believe that if he said ‘yes’ to something, it would be a nonstop parade of asks, and you’d have to start telling everybody ‘no.’

“Hopefully, he’ll be at home watching on TV, and he’ll be inspired by us talking about what he did.”

The images and words about Woods’ victory—his last in a major until his 2019 triumph in the Masters—will no doubt resonate throughout the week at Torrey Pines. NBC golf producer Tommy Roy said on the call that 2008 is the highlight of a career in which he’s seen a lot of drama.

“Definitely No. 1 on my hit parade,” Roy said. “Growing up, Jack winning the ’86 Masters was always the most exciting event I’d seen. But that was only on the back nine, and it was about an hour and 45 minutes. The thing that happened at the U.S. Open, we had unbelievable golf. It started at 13 on Saturday [with Woods’ eagle], and then the chip-in at 17. We got off the air and I said, ‘Can you imagine if this was Sunday?’ Then it happened—him making the putt to force the playoff, then you get to the playoff, and then it goes extra holes. It just kept getting better and better. I have unbelievable memories of that whole week.”

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By Dave Shedloski
Football. Baseball. The R&A. Riviera Country Club. Torrey Pines. The PNC Challenge. The Jack Nicklaus Medal. The Olympics. COVID-19.

You have to cast a wide net over this potpourri of subject matter to fully relay the story of how the television rights to the U.S. Open changed hands from FOX Sports to NBC in a gesture of cooperation between competing networks. The deal, a child of necessity for FOX and a product of desire for NBC—which had seen FOX get in the Peacock Network henhouse in 2013 and steal away the rights to USGA championships—happened neatly and quickly and ended up being the kind of win-win-win that left all parties satisfied.

Of course, it all started with the metastasizing coronavirus pandemic that by mid-March forced golf, as well as the world of sports at large, to come to a standstill. As March turned to April, a shake-up of the major championship schedule was starting to come together, which got the wheels turning inside the head of Jon Miller, president of programming for NBC Sports.

“We kept hearing that the Open Championship was going to go from July to September, that Augusta was going to reposition to November and that the U.S. Open was possibly going to go to Riviera and be the third week of December,” Miller recalled. “And we knew that we couldn’t handle [the U.S. Open] if it was in December, because we have Sunday Night Football, and it would have also been the same weekend as our Father/Son event. So we didn’t really pay too much attention to the U.S. Open. We were just more concerned with the Open Championship.”

By the first weekend in April, the R&A informed NBC brass that the Open Championship, scheduled for July 16-19 at Royal St. George’s in Sandwich, England, was being cancelled. USGA CEO Mike Davis moved quickly, taking the September dates (this week) and thereby obviating the need to move the 120th championship from Winged Foot.

That put FOX in a fix. The network, which began hosting USGA events in 2015 in a deal over 12 years and worth an estimated $1 billion, has an extensive college football package on Saturday and the NFL on Sunday. What’s more, it also has the rights to Major League Baseball. In the midst of trying to find coverage windows on FOX but knowing that much of its U.S. Open coverage would be pushed to FS1, Larry Jones, executive vice president, business, accepted an offer from Miller to have a conversation about options for the 2020 championship.

“The original conversation was only going to be for 2020,” Miller said.

An email request to speak to Jones or Eric Shanks at FOX for this story went unanswered.

But internal conversations at NBC that involved Pete Bevacqua, Christine Dorfler and Molly Solomon at Golf Channel, among others, eventually steered Miller toward seeking the remaining seven years of the FOX deal.

“The feeling was that we just didn’t want to go for 2020. If we’re going to do this we should see if we could get the whole thing back,” Miller said. “Look, they were very open about it. Golf was not the right fit for them. None of the people who were there now at FOX were involved in the deal when it was done in August of 2013. Interestingly, there are still a lot of people at NBC who were involved with the USGA because we had it for 20 years and it was a very important property and just important to our golf business of which we think we were really strong.”

Initially, NBC golf producer Tommy Roy thought the chances were “pretty slim” that the network would regain the rights to the U.S. Open. Chris Condon

The only hurdle was the 2021 championship at Torrey Pines. NBC is committed to coverage of the U.S. Olympic Trials after the Summer Games were yet another casualty of the pandemic and postponed until next year. Eventually, they were able to work around it.

While talks were ongoing, Tommy Roy, golf producer for NBC, received a call from Mike McCarley, president, golf at NBC Sports Group, asking for a proposed budget to broadcast the U.S. Open this year. This was no problem, since Roy had produced the 2006 coverage at Winged Foot, and, in fact, had been the producer since NBC first began televising the U.S. Open in 1995.

“That’s when I knew something was going on,” Roy said. “But it was like, put this together, but chances are probably pretty slim that we’re going to get to do it.”

That’s when Roy employed his lucky medal. At a farewell dinner at the 2014 U.S. Amateur in Atlanta, NBC’s final event for the USGA, Davis presented Roy with a special rendition of the Jack Nicklaus Medal that the U.S. Open winner receives along with the trophy. “Mike said, ‘Tom, you’re the only non-winner of the U.S. Open to be ever given this medal.’ It said on it, ‘Champion Storyteller.’ It’s very cool.”

Roy kept the medal on display in his office, but he decided to put it in his pocket once he was told of the small chance to again produce his favourite event.

FOX began broadcasting the U.S. Open in 2015 at Chambers Bay with Joe Buck, Brad Faxon and Greg Norman in the booth. David Cannon

“Every four or five days one of our executives would text us going, ‘Is he carrying that medal around? Things are starting to happen here.’ And the next one, ‘Keep that medal in your pocket because things are really starting to look pretty good.’ So then when it happened it was, like, all right, the medal brought us good luck.”

It took more than luck. FOX and NBC had to hammer out a deal in which the two sides split nearly equally the cost of the remainder of the FOX contract. Talks wrapped up in early June. But that was hardly the end of it. FOX did not have the right to simply assign the TV rights to NBC. The USGA had to sign off on it, essentially negotiating an exit deal with FOX and closing on a new deal with NBC.

FOX representatives broke the news of their agreement with NBC to Davis at a June 17 meeting at Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, N.J. The next day NBC officials visited USGA headquarters at Golf House in Liberty Corner, N.J., to start the process of negotiations.

“I don’t think I slept for, like, almost two weeks,” said Navin Singh, chief commercial officer for the USGA, who with Chris Fraser, chief legal officer, were the primary representatives for the USGA in the talks with the two networks. “It was, basically, sunup to sundown working on this deal. Usually when you work on a rights deal, it can go over the span of a year sometimes. Or more. We did the whole thing in a matter of days.

“There were challenges for FOX and opportunities for NBC and they were able to work through all of it collectively, which was pretty impressive, and then they were able to come to us with their needs to close those deals,” Singh added. “They made it a lot easier than it could have ended up being. In the end, it was the best thing for golf and the best thing for the USGA.”

The eventual deal that NBC signed with the USGA wasn’t exactly what FOX had negotiated, though as Singh pointed out, from a fan standpoint it looks like a simple transfer from FOX to NBC because coverage hours remain the same.

With NBC getting back the U.S. Open, viewers will hear the familiar voices of David Feherty and Roger Maltbie. Scott Halleran

“The FOX contract, quite honestly, had a lot of stuff in it that we would never have agreed to,” Miller said. “In order for us to bring the USGA into the fold, we had to acquire not only the broadcast rights, the cable rights and the digital rights, but we had to get it as one complete package. The FOX contract only included broadcast rights; it did not include digital rights or streaming rights. So it was very important to us that we had all those rights.”

There were other tweaks that benefitted each side. Just to name one example, the USGA gained additional coverage in the form of “Live From” pregame programming on Golf Channel for the U.S. Women’s Open, which this year is slated for December at Champions Golf Club in Houston.

The whirlwind of activity that took place to bring the U.S. Open back to NBC took less than three months, with the official announcement from the USGA coming June 29.

“Last year’s U.S. Open was a fantastic production, and we leave FOX with nothing but positive relationships,” Singh said. “In some ways this was tough for us because we built something from scratch with them. But at the same time, we’re excited to be reunited with NBC and Golf Channel. Having already worked with them on our amateur events this year, you can sense the energy and excitement from Tommy Roy and everyone about being back. We couldn’t be more pleased how it all turned out.”

For NBC, it’s about more than just being back.

“We were very happy to get it,” Miller said, “not only for NBC Sports, but also we were happy to get it for our golf team, for our golf business. We were thrilled to get it for our affiliates. We were able to incorporate a Peacock element [NBC’s over-the-top streaming television service] into it, which is so important at NBC right now.

“We’re all just so excited to be back with this group because we just feel that the USGA and NBC are a great marriage – much like the Olympics and NBC, much like Notre Dame football and NBC, much like Sunday Night Football and NBC, or the Ryder Cup on NBC. We think the U.S. Open is home on NBC. It’s back where it belongs.”

The post Behind the scenes of one of the most complicated TV deals in golf history appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
The PGA Tour announced Monday a new nine-year media agreement with CBS Sports, NBC Sports and ESPN.

The long-awaited deal, running from 2022 through 2030, essentially maintains the status quo in the television arena. CBS will average 19 events per year through the lifespan of the contract while NBC will get eight events in addition to airing early round and early weekend coverage on its Golf Channel platform. As was previously reported, the networks will alternate FedEx Cup Playoff coverage, with NBC assuming command in 2022.

On the digital/streaming front, ESPN has assumed the Tour’s direct-to-consumer rights within the United States, which will be offered on ESPN+. As a result of the deal, PGA Tour Live, the Tour’s subscription video service, will live exclusively on ESPN+ beginning in 2022. (Discovery owns the streaming rights to the PGA Tour outside the United States through 2030; GOLFTV and Golf Digest are both a part of Discovery.)

Additionally, the Tour secured a rights agreement for the LPGA Tour. The women’s circuit will see its programming continue on the Golf Channel along with added exposure on NBC and CBS beyond its current arrangement of majors, which are already on the networks.

As part of the deal, the Tour is assuming new responsibilities on production and technical infrastructure. Though CBS and NBC will still use their own teams in their respective broadcasts, the Tour’s participation will allow it more efficiently aggregate, distribute and develop content for its various platforms worldwide, according to the Tour.

“Following a comprehensive process of studying the market, talking to all interested parties and analyzing our various options, we’re excited to announce that we have entered into new agreements with our existing partners ViacomCBS and Comcast/NBC Sports Group, while establishing a new long-term relationship with Disney and ESPN+,” said PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan in a press release. “We were extremely pleased with the interest we received from the market—both with incumbents and other media companies—and are excited that our current partners shared our vision for the future, and we are equally excited to be back in business with Disney and ESPN+.

“These new deals will be a major win for our fans, bringing an elevated commitment from all three partners to help us expand and innovate our content and its delivery.”

While financial terms of the deal were not released, the New York Times and Variety report an increase of at least 60 percent from media companies over the previous deal, which was claimed to be valued at $400 million. SportsBusiness Journal reported in December that the pending deal could be worth as much as $700 million. PGA Tour announces nine-year media deals with CBS, NBC and ESPN

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By Alex Myers
For nearly three decades, Johnny Miller has been a staple of golf and sports television. But riding shotgun for a record-breaking 19 of those years has been NBC play-by-play man Dan Hicks. Just hours before the two began—and ended—a 20th consecutive year of sitting side-by-side in the 18th-hole tower with the retiring Miller’s final broadcast from the Waste Management Phoenix Open, we talked to Hicks about his longtime booth partner.

RELATED: Johnny Miller’s farewell: An NBC sendoff that had him, well, choking up

1. What do you remember about the first time you met him or worked with him? Was he an intimidating presence?
Actually, he doesn’t remember, but I was at Tucson Open as just a middle-school kid down the road. My mom would get me out of school because she was a big fan of the golf tournament, and Johnny Miller would come in and win every year by multiple shots. I think I might have asked him for an autograph. So then after I got a job in Tucson at the local NBC affiliate, I interviewed. So that was the first time I actually met him and he gave me a fantastic interview about TPC courses. Time goes on and the next time I saw him was when I first got to NBC Sports in 1992. He was at the Players Championship, and he didn’t know me. I was the new kid. I’ll never forget he was on a golf cart near the television compound and I walked by and he slaps the open seat next to him and goes, “Get in, champ, I’ll show you the course.” And I was like, you’ve got to be kidding me. I cannot believe this is happening. He couldn’t have been nicer. He showed me around TPC Sawgrass, and I’ll never forget that. To go on from there and not only work with him, but share the tower with him has been a dream come true.

2. Once you guys were in the booth together, did the chemistry come right away? And did you think you guys would spend a record amount of time together?
You never know how the chemistry is going to go. And I would say it wasn’t one of those “Oh, this is the greatest thing ever” instantly. I think Johnny was keeping a close eye on me. He’d obviously heard me being on another tower for years, but sitting up next to Johnny is an entirely different story. I kind of had to earn his respect. That takes time, that takes shows. But I think he quickly saw how passionate I was about it and how dedicated I was to it and how I could help him even become better than he was. And it just evolved into great chemistry where we knew what to expect of each other through an unspoken language. So it didn’t take long, but I had to earn his trust.

3. Is there a tournament that you guys worked together that stands out? That you guys seem to reminisce about most?
There have been so many incredible moments through the years, but it always seems to go back to Tiger’s win at the 2008 U.S. Open. It was magical in so many ways. … I thought as we walked out of booth on Saturday after Tiger made those two eagles—one of which Johnny predicted that changed the entire complexion of the championship—I told Johnny, “Remember this day. I don’t know how many years we’ll get to do this, but it won’t get any better than that.” So the next day, he sinks the putt to tie Rocco and I said, “Forget about what I said last night. This is the best.”

We were counting up tournaments, and Tiger, obviously, has won more times with Johnny in the booth than any other player. And it’s been amazing to share the spotlight with Johnny with Tiger right there with us. When I first got in the booth, one of my first events was Tiger’s second U.S. Amateur win at Newport Country Club. I’ll never forget, Tiger was playing Buddy Marucci and Johnny said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if he stuffs this in there and just ended it,” and that’s exactly what he did. So we’ve done 24 times, including those two U.S. Amateurs, Tiger won. So we’ve come full circle here. We go back to 1995 when he won for the first time with Johnny in the booth and then you go back to East Lake last year. So it’s fitting Johnny’s first and last shows with me and Tiger coincided with Tiger victories. So it’s pretty poetic how that finished.

4. What’s something fans at home don’t know about Johnny? I always wonder how he spends commercials. Are snacks ever involved?
There’s a lot of great camaraderie in the booth by everybody. Some of the best stuff comes during commercial breaks. We needle Johnny. Johnny’s got a reputation of giving it to the players, but he gets needled a lot. Roger gives him the needle. We all have fun with him. I remember one time at the Bob Hope, Eddie Van Halen was there and we got into this debate at the commercial over who is the best guitar player ever. And we’re going maybe it’s Eddie, maybe it’s Eric Clapton, maybe it’s Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Johnny goes, “Well, I think Glen Campbell is a pretty good player.” We’re like “Glen Campbell!” We gave him an endless hard time for that. But that was Johnny. He was his own guy.

Cy Cyr

I’ve done 232 events with him. And I would say 100 of those he’s done in bare feet, which people don’t know. I’ve told the story this week about how he had his own Cheez Whiz can and that was a part of his menu by our longtime 18th-tower stage manager Kathy Noce, who also put his name on tuna fish can, which she just did for the very last time. He likes a can of tuna with a little tabasco sauce. It’s not always the most nutritious, but he’ll munch on things, he’s always grazing. So yeah, there are all sorts of little quirks and we actually gave him a bag with all the little things he likes at his going away party with the crew on Thursday night. So if he misses us, he can look at that bag and remember all the cool things that happened in the tower through the years.

5. Have you played golf with him? What’s he like on the course?
I have. Not as much as I would have liked to, but it never was one of his favourite things to do on the road. He plays most of his golf with his sons and his family. But I was fortunate enough to get him out on the golf course. We’d always play during Players Championship at a really cool course called Pablo Creek. We would usually only go about 9 holes, but it was so fun. Inevitably, I get asked if we’ve played and what it’s like, and first of all, he’s a much better player than he leads on. But more importantly, to watch him in his 60s and now 70s, he still has that great action that is so him. So to just be standing next to him all these years later and watch it is pretty cool.

6. Do you recall a moment where he said something that shocked you? And what’s your favourite Johnny Millerism?
Wow. A moment when he shocked me? There were a lot of them. I’d probably say at the 2000 U.S. Open. It was my very first U.S. Open and Tiger was on 15th tee and Johnny started saying, “I’ve got this hunch Tiger is going to do something historic this week, he’s going to set all sorts of records, and he’s going to blow away the field and say ‘see you later, guys.’” This was 14 holes into the first round. And I looked over at him as if to say, “Are you really going with this, right now?” It kind of left me speechless. And I just said something like, “Well, we’ve got a lot of golf left, we’ll see.” And lo and behold, he wins by 15. That’s probably the boldest thing I’ve ever heard him say that came true, but there are just too many to document.

As for the Johnny Miller lexicon, it’s legendary. My favourite may be one that got left behind with all the chunk-and-runs and green light specials. We’re doing our first U.S. Open at Shinnecock in 1995, and Johnny looks out at the native rough, the fescue, and goes, “Well, one of the keys this week will be to keep it out of the Dingle Dangles.” And I’m thinking to myself, did that just come to him? And it did. So we’ve had a running joke through the years, especially when we’ve gone back to Shinnecock, we say, “You’ve got to keep it out of the dingle dangles.”

7. What will you miss most about sitting next to Johnny?
I’ll miss most, in addition to the broadcasting brilliance, and just never a dull moment and every single show he makes so interesting, I’ll miss just as much just being with him. Some of the things we talk about in the tower before we go on the air. It’s not all golf, it’s not all research. We talk about life, we talk about family. He has given me more nuggets of wisdom about being a good father, being a good husband, and being a good friend than anyone I’ve ever known in my life. So that is what I’m going to miss the most.

The post 7 questions with Dan Hicks on Johnny Miller: The quirks you don’t see, Johnny’s “legendary lexicon,” and what he’ll miss most about Miller appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

RELATED: Why Paul Azinger is the perfect replacement for Johnny Miller

In a teleconference with media to formally introduce Azinger, NBC Sports lead producer Tommy Roy detailed how the deal came together for the analyst over the past few months. He also revealed the secret — and humorous — code name Azinger was given to try to keep a lid on his hire: Ruby Tuesday. Seriously.

Why Ruby Tuesday? Take it away, Tommy:

“I wanted to meet at a place where there was a pretty good chance we wouldn’t be recognised from people in the world of golf. So we decided to meet halfway, and Paul got to Ocala and we found a Ruby Tuesday’s just off the freeway, so that’s where we met.”

I mean, Ruby Tuesday is a decent enough spot with a top-notch salad bar, but was there not a Chili’s in the area? Anyway, Roy went on:

“Whenever we have big-time deals at NBC, we operate in total secrecy, so from that time forward when we had any internal texts or communications on this, we always referred to Paul as Ruby Tuesday.”

Love it. Now what’s the over/under on when Dan Hicks calls his new booth partner that?

The post NBC had a fantastic code name for Paul Azinger while it secretly recruited him appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.