Category: ForeCaddie

Forecaddie: CBS shakeup continues as Lance Barrow, longtime golf producer, to step down

CBS’ Lance Barrow will work one final season as coordinating producer of golf before passing the baton to Sellers Shy.

The Man Out Front hears that CBS isn’t done shaking up its golf broadcast team. Longtime coordinating producer Lance Barrow is expected to announce that the 2020 season will be his final year calling the shots in the truck.

Sellers Shy, who has been a longtime producer on CBS Sports’ golf coverage team, will assume the top job, according to a person who is familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Shy has worked as replay producer, associate director and producer for CBS golf coverage, including the Masters Highlight Show and Masters Preview.

An announcement from the network was expected later Monday.

MORE: Golf Channel pays touching tribute to CBS-bound Frank Nobilo

Barrow, 64, began producing the majority of CBS’ golf coverage in 1996 and has been the network’s No. 1 golf producer since 1997. He won an Emmy for coverage of the 2004 Masters. He formerly was the No. 1 producer for its NFL coverage from 2004-2017.

This marks the end of an era. Barrow, who joined CBS Sports as a spotter and researcher for Pat Summerall at the 1976 Colonial, will shift into a new emeritus role with CBS.

This is the latest step in a significant reboot of the CBS golf team ahead of an announcement of the PGA Tour’s television negotiations, which will go into effect for 2022 and beyond.

In October, CBS announced that it chose not to renew the contracts of longtime broadcasters Peter Kostis and Gary McCord. Days later, it signed Davis Love III to its team as an analyst. Last month CBS wooed Frank Nobilo away from NBC/Golf Channel and expanded his role to full-time analyst, added Masters champion Trevor Immelman, increased duties for his brother, Mark Immelman, and Andrew Catalon. The network also promoted Dottie Pepper to lead on-course reporter, and said that Michelle Wie will join its multimedia coverage this season, including at the Masters.

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Presidents Cup Forecaddie: Golf’s leadership hits the links at the Australian Sandbelt

The Presidents Cup served as a good excuse for golf’s governing bodies to meet and also play some great golf courses.

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MELBOURNE, Australia — As meetings of the Five Families of golf goes, it doesn’t get much better than a gathering in the Australian Sandbelt. The leaders of golf’s governing bodies had one of their quarterly get togethers under the auspices of a board meeting of the International Golf Federation and while The Man Out Front’s invitation went missing once again, he heard all about the birdies and bogeys and offers a hearty golf clap to one and all.

Thanks, of course, go out to PGA Tour Commish Jay Monahan, who threw his own outing at Metropolitan Golf Club, not far from Royal Melbourne Golf Club, site of the Presidents Cup. The three people who have had the pleasure to suspend John Daly for conduct unbecoming—Monahan, Tim Finchem and Deane Beman—were scheduled to tee it up together on Friday. USGA CEO Mike Davis, PGA CEO Seth Waugh and the R&A’s big cheese Martin Slumbers were on the attendee list too.

Earlier in the week, TMOF bumped into Beman, who cracks that he only plays once a day, at Peninsula-Kingswood Golf Club, and he squeezed in a round at Victoria Golf Club, where he played with Junior Presidents Cup participant Jackson Van Paris during another outing.

Finchem, whose daughter Stephanie works on the Presidents Cup staff, had come over early and stopped in New Zealand to play Tom Doak’s Tara Iti, and couldn’t stop raving about that vaunted layout. He pledged that he’ll make a return trip someday.

Finchem wasn’t the only golf leader heading to New Zealand to play some of its beloved courses. TMOF hears that the USGA’s Davis and R&A’s Slumbers were headed on a buddies’ trip and will be hitting the links for some post-Presidents Cup golf of their own. Could they be ironing out the final details of the long-awaited Distance Insights Project Report, due to be release in February, at the 19th hole? TMOF approves of golf’s leaders losing their blue blazers and chasing the little white ball around some of golf’s great cathedrals. If any of them needs a fourth, The Forecaddie’s set is packed and always ready to play an emergency nine.

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Forecaddie: The Presidents Cup when Tiger Woods chugged vodka cranberries like water

Tiger Woods considered playing in the three-hole sudden-death playoff against Ernie Els the most pressure-packed situation in his career.

The Man Out Front learned something new about Tiger Woods the other day. He likes cranberry juice as his mixer. More on that in a moment.

Woods and Ernie Els will lock heads as team captains of Team USA and Team International, respectively, at the Presidents Cup this week. No matter how tense the action gets watching their 12-man teams try to hole putts, it likely will pale in comparison to the gut-wrenching pressure of having the entire outcome of the match hang in the balance as it did when they faced off in a sudden-death playoff in 2003 in Els’ home country of South Africa.

Dennis Alpert, then tournament director of the Presidents Cup for the PGA Tour, tells The Forecaddie, that Woods went “stone cold” when he realized the match was tied and he and Els would play for all the marbles.

Tiger Woods and Ernie Els each parred three consecutive sudden-death playoff holes before the 2003 Presidents Cup was called by darkness.

“Tiger’s demeanor completely changed,” Alpert recalled. “He went stone cold. The enormity of the situation hit them both. The burden fell on their shoulders. Tiger was World No. 1, the player everyone came to see. Ernie was playing on home soil. He’s the Big Easy and was like the ambassador of the event. Add to that, they each felt this incredible weight on their shoulders on behalf of their teammates. I remember trying to make some small talk with them, wishing them both good luck and feeling as though a cold breeze had fallen over me.”

But it wasn’t until after they played three extra holes and the match was called for darkness and ruled a tie that Alpert discovered how the match shook Tiger to the core.

“Tiger is sitting in front of me in the van back to the clubhouse and he’s shaking,” Alpert said. “One of the players said it was incredible how he handled the pressure of the moment and asked him, ‘How do you feel?’ Tiger held up his hand and it was shaking. He wanted to show these guys – this is how I feel. He said he’d never been this nervous in his life.”

On the short, uphill winding ride to the clubhouse, Woods had one special request, asking if the clubhouse served cranberry juice. Why, yes they did.

“Can you get me a vodka cranberry?” Alpert recalls Woods adjusting his order. “He said make it a big one.”

Alpert had the driver pull over at the side of the clubhouse near the bar and he jumped out and fetched a pint glass inside and had the bartender make a stiff drink. Woods was sitting in front of his locker when Alpert arrived, and his hands were still shaking.

“Tiger took the drink and chugged it like it was water,” Alpert said.

And Woods’ thirst wasn’t quenched yet. He asked for another to take the edge off. Alpert came back with another and a Miller Genuine Draft. He pounded those too.

“It was like a musician winding down at the end of a concert,” Alpert said.

Mozart in the Jungle has nothing on Tiger in the African safari.

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Forecaddie: Bryson DeChambeau not ready to sport Puma’s new slow play polo just yet

Puma’s new Saltwater Collection was debuted at the Hero World Challenge by Rickie Fowler and Gary Woodland.

The Forecaddie couldn’t help but admire Puma’s new Saltwater Collection, debuted at the Hero World Challenge by its three highest profile male ambassadors. The ultra soft and thin cotton — The Man Out Front meant to say Fusion Yarn Flex fabric — may address the need for a performance shirt without the shine.

But it’s the design that may turn a few heads, with the light blue-themed collection including the Slow Play Polo, Slow Play Tee and the Predators Polo. A turtle logo adorns the Slow Play Polo. Get it. Turtle. Slow.

The Forecaddie digresses.

As Gary Woodland and Rickie Fowler debuted different versions of the turtle-infused line, the field’s other Puma player was not quite ready to embrace the golfing turtle.

“It’s an awesome collection,” Bryson DeChambeau said as The Man Out Front trailed him in a quick course departure following an opening 76. “They had the turtle one …” he said, and before the Forecaddie could ask if it would make his repertoire.

“That’s not going to happen,” DeChambeau said.

He’s probably wise to avoid any slow play talk after 2019’s high-profile episodes where he became a lightning rod for tepid play. Though Rickie Fowler, easing into the new collection with a white shirt sporting just one turtle while posting a first round 69, regaled media with a different, light-hearted theory.

“I thought it would have been awesome if he kind of went with it and then he could have just said to people asking, ‘Bryson, why are you wearing it?’ and be like, ‘Actually it’s my own line, I’m a little slow, Gary and Rickie decided to jump on board, they’re very supportive of me, to help me through this hard time.’”

That’s not going to happen. At least, anytime soon.

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Forecaddie: Jon Rahm is pretty sure what his wedding day highlight will be

Jon Rahm will marry longtime girlfriend Kelley Cahill this month at his church in Bilbao, Spain.

Current World No. 3 Jon Rahm became engaged to longtime college girlfriend Kelley Cahill in August of 2018, and now the Hero World Challenge defending champion has finally cleared space on his calendar to marry Cahill in the coming weeks.

The Man Out Front is very happy for the pair, especially hearing Rahm’s answer to a press conference question about the big day. Cover your eyes children.

Asked by GolfChannel.com’s Brentley Romine what part of his wedding day he’s most looking forward to, Rahm’s expression changed and he paused briefly.

“Part of the day?” he said. “What part, I mean, it’s pretty self explanatory, right?”

Hero World: Tee times, TV info | Odds | Fantasy | Photos

As the press room erupted in laughter, Romine tried again. “What part of your wedding are you looking forward to the most, her walking down, the aisle, the vows? There’s a lot that goes on.”

Rahm replied, “Oh, I could say so many bad stuff right now.”

 

The Forecaddie notes that at this point, PGA Tour press officer Jack Ryan stepped in to move things along. Gently.

“Think very carefully about your answer.”

The Man Out Front should point out that Rahm went on from this point to paint a picture of a lovely Catholic wedding at the church he grew up going to in Bilbao, Spain. And the romantics at heart will appreciate this.

“I think when I see those doors open and see her walking down the aisle for the first time, I think it’s going to be what I’m looking forward to the most, that first moment of seeing her walk down the aisle,” he said. “But there’s so many possible parts of the day I could mention, but I think that’s the single moment probably that I’m looking forward to the most.”

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Forecaddie: The best Tuesday night on Tour? TMOF says it’s dinner at Davis’s

The best PGA Tour pro-am draw party is at the RSM Classic, where Davis Love III pitches a tent in his backyard.

As far as The Man Out Front is concerned, the best Tuesday night meal of the golf year isn’t the Champions Dinner at Augusta National. That may be the most coveted invite, but The Forecaddie can attest that it doesn’t get much better than the RSM Classic’s pro-am draw party hosted in a tent in the backyard of former U.S. Ryder Cup captain and World Golf Hall of Famer Davis Love III.

This is the 10th year Love has played host to more than 250 of his newest and closest friends willing to fork over $8,000, or $22,000 for a threesome, for the opportunity to play in the tournament pro-am on Wednesday. There’s nothing else on the PGA Tour quite like a night under the oaks feasting on the best low-country cuisine that can be had at DL3’s digs, A.K.A. Sinclair Plantation. So, how did this become a tradition like none other? As Love tells it, we have John Linen to thank – not the Beatle, but the former vice chairman of American Express.

“He wanted to do special outings at Sea Island. I said, ‘Why not just have them over to my house,’ ” Love tells TMOF. “When he said he was talking about 100 people, I said, ‘We’ll put a tent outside.’ He said, ‘Really?’ I told him, ‘What would be better than telling your clients they’re having a dinner party at our house?’ When we pitched RSM, we told them it would be an intimate affair like the old Callaway Gardens (Southern Open) and the Crosby Clambake (AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am) with southern hospitality. It started out with a normal pro-am of 40 teams and has grown to 80.”

Davis Love III on the seventh hole during the 2016 RSM Classic. Photo: Logan Bowles/USA TODAY Sports

Word spread and Love’s backyard has hosted everything from weddings to the annual Blue Jean Ball for the Humane Society of South Coastal Georgia. It’s become a great way to raise money for charity, he says.

“A guy with Insulate America came to the draw party and decided he wanted to have his company party here,” Love says. “He offered to donate $50,000 to the Davis Love Foundation. How could I say no to that? He’s become one of our partners at the RSM Classic.”

At this point, the tournament could change courses and hear less complaints than if it moved the draw party from the Love’s backyard. There’s only one problem – Love’s house is on the market.

“What are we going to do if it actually sells?” Love says.

He’s already thought of the perfect solution: “I think the tournament should buy it and lease it to me.”

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