The Highs and Lows of Televised Golf Tournament Coverage

Thanks primarily to a honey-do list longer than my arm, I hung around the house all weekend soaking up a good deal of golf tournament coverage. I’m talented that way. The Senior Players Championship was broadcast on NBC and three tournaments were covered on The Golf Channel – the PGA Tour, LPGA Tour and European Tour.

The NBC team is very solid, even without the ever interesting Johnny Miller. Roger Maltbie, Dottie Pepper and Gary Koch do a terrific job on color commentary and Dan Hicks is mostly tolerable as the “professional broadcaster”. They were nearly flawless in coverage this past weekend of the closely contested Champions Tour event with compelling story lines, and unafraid to address the gag factor.

Most of The Golf Channel announcing teams are lackluster at best. Part of the problem is that they are now covering so much golf that the current talent pool is spread out too thin. I don’t really want to hammer these folks because they seem to be trying hard to do a good job. But, damn.

However, there is one Golf Channel broadcast team which stands head and shoulders above the rest. That would be the one that covers the European Tour, comprised of Renton Laidlaw, Warren Humphries, Dougie Donnelly, Julian Tutt and Jay Townsend. In fact, I believe this group is nearly equal to the NBC team even when it does have Miller. They understand tournament golf extremely well and are able to communicate situations with the barest minimum of golf clichés. It’s a real treat to listen to honest, informed opinion on good or bad shots and decisions and to have it done in a high standard of literacy. On top of all that, they are comfortable enough as a group that they will good-naturedly tweak each other when the opportunity arises. Take a bow, fellas. As always, well done.