The duo got together for an interview in the first round and it was priceless.
Get the tissues out.
Gary Koch and Roger Maltbie are names familiar to most golf fans who have watched any NBC Sports telecast over the last couple decades. The two haven’t worked full-time for the network since the end of 2022, but they returned in March for the 50th anniversary of the Players Championship, and fans loved seeing their faces on TV and listening to their analysis.
Well, the duo and good friends were together on TV again Thursday, this time in a bit different capacity. Koch qualified for this week’s U.S. Senior Open at Newport Country Club in Rhode Island (the oldest player to ever do so at 71 years and 7 months), and Maltbie was walking around as an on-course reporter.
The duo got together for an interview in the first round, and it was priceless.
“That’s Andy Bean” was the common refrain when family and friends spoke of the affable big man.
LAKELAND, Fla. – Gary Koch’s favorite Andy Bean story happened back when they were University of Florida teammates competing at the Chris Schenkel Invitational in Statesboro, Georgia. Koch watched from the fairway as an angry Bean appeared to take a bite out of a balata ball after missing a short putt. A curious Koch searched for the ball in the bushes by the green.
“Sure enough, I find this Titleist 3 with a big chunk out of it, just like an apple,” Koch said with a laugh.
Woody Blackburn roomed with Bean at Florida and recalled the time Bean picked up a baby racoon on the way home from practice and housed him in an empty golf bag.
“I can train him,” Bean insisted after the animal had soiled his dorm bed. “He’ll be fine.”
The Bean stories were flowing Monday at Grasslands Golf and Country Club in Lakeland, Florida, where Bean and his wife, Debbie, lived on the back nine. Not long after Bean died from complications from double lung replacement surgery last October at the age of 70, friends came together to organize the Andy Bean Memorial Golf Tournament, benefitting the local First Tee program. The event sold out in less than a week.
Debbie Bean posts with her seven grandchildren at the Andy Bean Memorial Golf Tournament. (photo credit: Clare Naponick)
Bean moved to Lakeland from Jekyll Island, Georgia, as a teenager and after a successful stint at Florida, the big man with soft hands and a high fade joined the PGA Tour in 1976, winning 11 tournaments over span of a decade. While he never won a major, Bean finished runner-up three times and represented the U.S. on two Ryder Cup teams (1979 and 1987).
At Grasslands, his three daughters wore Ryder Cup sweatshirts they’d uncovered that had their dad’s name stretched across the back. His seven grandkids – who range in age from 5 to 10 – wore shirts that said “Team Dodad.”
“It’s overwhelming to see everything that they have put together today,” said Bean’s eldest daughter, Lauren Cushenbery.
“There’s so much gratitude in who he was as my dad and who he was to so many, just the love that is coming full circle in this.”
Always looking out for others
Andy Bean was the kind of guy who carried a tow rope in the back of his truck to help those stranded on the side of the road. He did the same in the Florida Everglades with his boat, often rescuing those stuck on a sand bar.
He’d often anonymously pay for the meals of firefighters and police officers. And after coming one stroke shy at the 1983 British Open, he bought an electric wheelchair for a little girl he’d seen in the gallery all week being pushed up and down the hills by her parents.
“He just had a heart for helping others,” said Debbie, “especially children.”
While still competing on the PGA Tour Champions, Bean was instrumental in raising funds for the First Tee of Lakeland through the Barkley, Bean, Bryant and Friends celebrity event, which raised millions over the course of 15 years.
T.J. Wright was 9 years old the first time he held a golf club at the First Tee in Lakeland. Bean paid for Wright’s membership to the local par-3 course and watched him compete in junior tournaments.
“He was a male figure in my life that I looked up to that I didn’t have in my personal life,” said a now 27-year-old Wright who serves as executive director of the First Tee program.
“The way that he cared about the game and cared about other kids, wherever they came from in the community, was very inspiring to me, and one of the reasons I wanted to come back and work at the First Tee and be a part of it.”
Spent some time today at a fundraiser for the First Tee in my hometown of Lakeland in honor of the late Andy Bean. His college teammate, Fred Ridley, was on hand as well as several @ChampionsTour players. A good day remembering a good man.
For Monday’s auction, Jack Nicklaus, who along with wife Barbara, came to Bean’s funeral, donated a signed replica of the 1-iron he used in 1972 to birdie the 17th hole at Pebble Beach en route to his third of four U.S. Open titles.
Koch, a six-time winner on the PGA Tour and television broadcaster, donated a foursome for golf and lunch with him at Old Memorial in Tampa. Close friend David Leadbetter donated a two-hour lesson.
In the early days of Leadbetter’s teaching career, he worked out of the Andy Bean Golf Studio at Grenelefe in Haines City, Florida. It was Bean who invited Leadbetter to his first Masters Tournament. They drove around for an hour early week in search of good barbeque and a Dairy Queen.
“He was sort of like the Buffalo Bill of the Tour,” said Leadbetter, “throwing alligators into the lake and biting golf balls.”
Former Florida teammate Fred Ridley, who currently serves as chairman of Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters Tournament, made the trip over to Lakeland, where he was born and lived until age 8. Ridley, who then moved to nearby Winter Haven, played high school golf against Bean and later teamed up with him in college.
When Ridley won the U.S. Amateur in 1975, he met Bean in the semifinals at the Country Club of Virginia. After finding the long rough on the par-5 16th, a confident Bean pulled a 3-iron and took aim at the green, which was guarded by a large overhanging oak tree. The ball rattled around in the tree for a bit before tumbling out on the front of the green.
Bean won the hole, but it wasn’t enough to win the match. During the post-round interview, Ridley said a reporter asked Bean if it had been foolish to try to hit that shot from the rough.
“Andy kind of looked at this guy and said, ‘Mister, there’’s no damn tree in the state of Virginia that could stop Andy Bean’s golf ball,'” recalled Ridley with a smile.
“That was Andy Bean.”
2007 U.S. Senior Open winner Brad Bryant gives a clinic before a charity outing at Grasslands Golf and Country Club honoring Andy Bean. (photo credit: Clare Naponick)
Koch said the 6-foot-4 Bean hit some of the prettiest long iron shots he’d ever seen at Florida, fading 2-irons and 3-irons that started low and dropped down softly like a feather.
“He was long before we knew what long was,” said Koch.
Bean met his wife Debbie on a short Delta flight. With no ice on the plane, the young flight attendant worried that a host of complaints from thirsty PGA Tour players might cost her a job. Instead, Bean asked if they could have dinner when he was back in Atlanta.
Friends say having three daughters softened Bean, whose world in his later years centered around family, faith and giving back.
A broken wrist from a car accident ultimately brought Beans’ competitive career to a close in 2014 after three wins on the PGA Tour Champions. Still, he was a mainstay on the golf course, quick to offer tips to juniors and college players in town, even after a battle with COVID-19 wrecked his lungs and left him on an oxygen tank. If someone needed help, Bean was there.
Rick Nolte, owner of the local golf shop in town, said Bean loved to tinker with his clubs and would drop by when he reached the point that he needed help.
“He’d sit behind the counter somedays,” said Nolte, “and people would come in and do a double-, triple-take and whisper, ‘That’s Andy Bean.’ ”
Brad Bryant started fishing with Bean in 1980, and the pair spent a good deal of time together after Bryant moved to Lakeland. They had one special spot in Hawaii where they loved to bone fish on a mud flap. Late one afternoon, with the sun setting along the horizon line, Bean spotted four bone fish coming Bryant’s way.
But it was the way that Bean helped him catch those fish – by climbing 15 feet up a tree – that stands out.
“That was Andy Bean,” said Bryant. “Andy would go to great lengths to help you do things that you wanted to do, that not many people would.”
That’s how he’ll be remembered in his hometown: The big man with the heart of gold.
The 1993 PGA champion has been in the booth for NBC Sports for the last five years.
Paul Azinger will not return to his role as lead golf analyst for NBC Sports in 2024, ending a five-year relationship between the network and the 12-time PGA Tour winner.
“We want to thank Paul for his work with us over the last five years,” an NBC Sports spokesperson said to Golfweek. “His insights, work ethic and relationships in the golf industry are well known, and we appreciate what he brought to our team. We wish Paul the best in his future endeavors.”
According to the Associated Press, the first to report the news Sunday morning, Azinger was disappointed and surprised by the abrupt decision. His last event was the Ryder Cup in Italy, and the 1993 PGA champion will now miss calling next month’s Hero World Challenge, where tournament host Tiger Woods will make his first competitive appearance since the Masters in April.
“I have treasured working beside Dan Hicks and the other talented NBC broadcasters as well as lead producer Tommy Roy and all those behind the scenes,” said Azinger via a statement. “They are a remarkable team, and I will miss them tremendously. My thanks to them and the countless others who have supported me and helped me along the way during my work in television. I have faith in what the future holds for me, for NBC, and for the great game of golf.”
Azinger played on four Ryder Cup teams and captained the 2008 U.S. squad to a win at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky. He began his broadcasting career in 2005 with ABC and ESPN, and after the network lost its Open Championship broadcast rights in 2015 he joined FOX Sports as their lead golf analyst. He also worked for the BBC at the Masters Tournament for six years.
“I always felt like it was my job in the booth to give the viewer a sense of what it takes to deal with the mental and physical challenges of the game,” Azinger continued. “If you play competitive golf, you learn that your mind and body change under stressful conditions and circumstances. The great players understand this and know how to perform and win when the heat is on.”
Azinger will now continue his work on the Miakka Golf Club in Myakka, Florida, as well as with his wife, Toni, on the Azinger Compassion Center in Bradenton, Florida, which supports the One More Child organization.
This time last year Golfweek was first to report that both longtime voices Roger Maltbie and Gary Koch wouldn’t be returning to NBC golf broadcasts in 2023 as network looked to “refresh” its team. The network now has another big seat to fill.
For Gary Koch, Monday likely will go down as better than most.
In recognition of his character, sportsmanship and commitment to charitable giving, the six-time PGA Tour winner and former NBC Sports golf commentator best-known for his celebrated “better than most” call, has been named the 2023 recipient of the PGA Tour’s Payne Stewart Award presented by Southern Company.
“To be honored with this award and to think that people may think of me in the same vein as Payne Stewart is truly unbelievable,” Koch said. “When you’re recognized by your peers for something you’ve accomplished and how you treat people, it means a tremendous amount. I would say this is the highlight of my career.”
Koch will be honored on Tuesday, August 22, at the Payne Stewart Award Ceremony in conjunction with the TOUR Championship. The ceremony will be televised live on Golf Channel as part of a “Golf Central” special from 7-8 p.m. ET at the Southern Exchange in downtown Atlanta.
Gary Koch during the second round of the 2011 Cleveland Golf Srixon Scottish Senior Open at the Torrance Course at Fairmont St Andrews in Scotland. (Photo by Phil Inglis/Getty Images)
“From a decorated amateur and professional playing career to his legacy as a broadcaster, where his voice and commentary became the soundtrack of so many memorable moments in PGA Tour history, Gary Koch is the epitome of what it means to be a Payne Stewart Award recipient,” said PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan. “Today, Gary continues to show his passion and character through his dedication towards making our game more welcoming and accessible to the next generation in the Tampa area. We are thrilled Gary will join the list of Payne Stewart Award winners who – through golf – have achieved greatness, inspired others and impacted lives.”
The Payne Stewart Award is presented annually by the PGA Tour to a professional golfer who best exemplifies Stewart’s steadfast values of character, charity and sportsmanship. Stewart, an 11-time winner on the PGA Tour and World Golf Hall of Fame member, died tragically 24 years ago during the week of the Tour Championship in 1999.
Koch, 70, was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, but calls Tampa, Florida, home. As a player, Koch burst onto the scene with his unlikely victory in the 1969 Florida Open as a 16-year-old amateur. One year later, he won the 1970 U.S. Junior Amateur at Athens Country Club and later decided to pursue his collegiate career at his beloved University of Florida. Once in Gainesville, Koch became a four-time All-American, won 10 collegiate titles, and helped lead the Gators to victory in the 1973 NCAA Championship.
After joining the PGA Tour in 1976, Koch collected six career victories in his 15 seasons, including the 1984 Arnold Palmer Invitational, which Stewart won three years later in 1987.
Gary Koch drives from the seventh tee during the second round of the 2005 Blue Angels Classic in Milton, Fl. (Photo by Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images)
Koch spent 33 years with ESPN and NBC Sports calling some of the game’s greatest moments, including Tiger Woods’ iconic putt at the 17th hole at the 2001 PLAYERS Championship, where he delivered the famous “Better than Most…” call that still reverberates through the tournament’s history.
As an on-course reporter for NBC during the 1999 Ryder Cup, Koch was assigned to the Singles match between Stewart and Colin Montgomerie. Following the match, which ended with Stewart conceding a long putt to Montgomerie in an act of sportsmanship, Koch spoke to Stewart for what was one of his final live interviews before his passing one month later.
Koch and his wife, Donna, have two daughters, Patricia and Rachel.
As part of the award, $300,000 is donated to a charity of the recipient’s choice. Koch has chosen to direct funds to the Gary and Donna Koch Family Foundation, Gift of Adoption’s Florida chapter, and First Tee – Tampa Bay. The Gary and Donna Koch Family Foundation was launched in 2014 to help fund scholarships and student aid in their community, and to date the Kochs have awarded scholarship dollars to 20 First Tee graduates.
Koch’s support of Gift of Adoption’s Florida chapter will buoy their mission of providing adoption assistance grants to complete the adoption of children in vulnerable circumstances, giving them permanent families and a chance to thrive. Koch has served as the honorary chairman of the organization’s annual fundraising event for the past 17 years.
Much of Koch’s charitable focus has been geared toward the junior and amateur game, where he has helped provide a platform for the next generation of golfers to reach their potential. In 2011, Gary and Donna stepped in to support their local First Tee – Tampa Bay chapter when it was in dire need of financial assistance and on the brink of closure. Koch rallied together a group of supporters called the “Friends of First Tee Tampa” to help provide the necessary funds to keep the chapter going. Eight years later, First Tee – Tampa Bay was recognized as the largest chapter in the country in certifying participants and annually reaches more than 90,000 youth in the area.
The momentum at First Tee – Tampa Bay has continued, with Koch in 2022 proposing the idea to build a par 3 course at the local First Tee facility that can be better utilized by younger First Tee participants. Koch enlisted golf course architect Steve Smyers – his former college teammate – to design the course. Smyers waived his design fee.
Koch also hosts the annual Gary Koch Invitational Pro-Am at Old Memorial Golf Club to support both First Tee – Tampa Bay and ART International Training & Research, with the latter being focused on supporting those who suffer from PTSD and other psychological traumas.
For more than 20 years, he hosted the Gary Koch Intercollegiate, a mainstay on the college golf circuit that saw several future PGA Tour stars compete against some of the best college teams in the nation. And with the PGA Tour’s Valspar Championship taking place down the road from Koch’s home in Tampa, his involvement with the Copperheads has helped drive additional charitable funds for various local charities. Koch was named Copperhead of the Year in 2021 in recognition of his volunteer work.
Koch is the 26th recipient of the Payne Stewart Award, joining a distinguished group of respected golfers including Billy Andrade, who was recognized in 2022, and the inaugural recipients Byron Nelson, Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer (2000).
Other recipients include Justin Rose (2021), Zach Johnson (2020), Hale Irwin (2019), Bernhard Langer (2018), Stewart Cink (2017), Jim Furyk (2016), Ernie Els (2015), Sir Nick Faldo (2014), Peter Jacobsen (2013), Steve Stricker (2012), David Toms (2011), Tom Lehman (2010), Kenny Perry (2009), Davis Love III (2008), Hal Sutton (2007), Gary Player (2006), Brad Faxon (2005), Jay Haas (2004), Tom Watson (2003), Nick Price (2002) and Ben Crenshaw (2001).
It will be different watching golf in 2023 and not hearing Faldo, Maltbie or Koch.
Each PGA Tour season starts with new faces and new names for fans to learn and embrace. Whether it is a raw rookie fresh off the Korn Ferry Tour, a college star getting a handful of starts and making some waves or a European player taking a shot at the U.S.-based tour, there is always something new.
But in recent years, the new faces aren’t just on the golf course. The faces have come with new voices to the broadcast booths of PGA Tour events. That carousel seems to be spinning faster and faster these days.
At NBC, Gary Koch and Roger Maltbie, two long-time golf announcers who are both in their 70s, are out as 2023 begins. They are replaced by Brad Faxon and Smylie Kaufman, two more former players.
At CBS, Nick Faldo left as lead analyst at the end of the network’s coverage in 2022. Faldo will be replaced by Trevor Immelman, a former Masters champion. Immelman, who was already on the CBS team, is 42. Faldo is 65, and he apparently wanted to work a more limited schedule. CBS decided that didn’t work for the network, so Faldo retired.
So the voices get younger as 2023 begins, and it seems like a lot of change for the two main networks that cover the PGA Tour (Golf Channel covers its own PGA Tour tournaments as well as sharing producing and voices at times with NBC and CBS). But have things really changed that fast this year, or is it just the world of social media that has pushed the idea that changes have come at a break-neck speed?
Remember Johnny Miller? It might seem like a long time ago when Miller stepped down as a straight-talking lead analyst for NBC. But it was only in 2019 that he ended a nearly three-decade career with the network. Former PGA champion and Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger stepped in for Miller.
That was about the same time, by the way, that CBS, in an effort to freshen its golf broadcasts, said goodbye to Gary McCord and Peter Kostis, a pair of voices who had been with CBS for three decades themselves.
“Money,” Feherty told the Toledo Blade. “People don’t talk about it. I hear, ‘Well, it’s to grow the game.’ Bull … they paid me a lot of money.”
The LIV Golf Invitational Series is still without a television partner, but Feherty’s move gave the Greg Norman-led, Saudi Arabia-funded upstart circuit a known name on its broadcast team. He made his debut at LIV Bedminster.
Dan Hicks, Johnny Miller, and Sir Nick Faldo of The Golf Channel discuss the action during the first round of the 2012 Hyundai Tournament of Champions. (Sam Greenwood/Getty Images)
Changes happening all the time
And there have been other changes. Jim “Bones” MacKay, longtime caddie for Phil Mickelson, became a respected on-course commentator for NBC before returning to caddie duties for Justin Thomas. John Wood, another longtime tour caddie, is drawing raves for his work for NBC.
That might seem like a lot of changes in a short period of time. But remember, it was just 20 years ago, in the 2002 season, that Ken Venturi ended a run of 35 years as the lead analyst for CBS.
Networks understand that golf needs to appeal to a younger audience. It’s great that people 50 and over love and watch the sport, because that demographic tends to have more leisure time and more disposable income — things that advertisers crave in a viewer. But the sport needs younger viewers, too, fans who will embrace the sport now and follow the young stars for the next 15 or 20 years or even longer. So younger voices might seem like the right thing to do.
It’s not that Maltbie or Koch or McCord or Kostis did a bad job of reporting on PGA Tour events or were rapidly deteriorating as broadcasters. But inevitably, older voices get pushed aside by younger voices. That’s true in any part of media or entertainment.
Faxon has some experience in broadcasting and has shown he can hold his own. Kaufman, once a rising player on the tour whose game disappeared with a string of missed cuts in his last three years, proved to be a breakout star working for Golf Channel and NBC last year. Immelman has been a strong part of the CBS team for several years and should fit in fine at Augusta National, where he won in 2008.
But it will be different watching golf as 2023 begins not hearing Faldo or Maltbie or Koch. Some familiar voices, such as Mark Rolfing at NBC and Ian Baker-Finch at CBS, remain, as do the main anchors for their network, Dan Hicks at NBC and Jim Nantz at CBS.
Will it be better or worse? Chances are it will be about the same, with the networks throwing in some technical innovations but hanging on to the tried and true method of broadcasting a PGA Tour event. Sometimes it isn’t the voices that need to be freshened, it is the approach to the broadcast itself that gets stale.
Either way, golf will look familiar in 2023 on NBC, CBS and Golf Channel, even if it sounds a little different.
Larry Bohannan is the golf writer for The Desert Sun. You can contact him at (760) 778-4633 or at larry.bohannan@desertsun.com. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @larry_bohannan. Golfweek’s Cameron Jourdan contributed to this report.
“If I have to go out, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather go out with than Roger” — Gary Koch
Gary Koch and Roger Maltbie are signing off for the last time from NBC on Sunday at the PNC Championship in Orlando, ending two distinguished careers as broadcasters.
“If I have to go out, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather go out with than Roger,” said Koch, a six-time winner on the PGA Tour who joined NBC in 1997.
Maltbie, who won five times on Tour and joined NBC in 1992, has agreed to do several tournaments for Golf Channel in 2023.
“I wake up one day and say, ‘Why would I do that?’ ’” Maltbie told pgatour.com. “And the next day I wake up and say, ‘I still really like doing this. It’s fun.’ So I’m going to do a few.”
Koch, 70, turned down a similar offer.
“After being in the majors for 26 years, I don’t have much desire to work in the minors,” Koch told Golf Digest, referring to being relegated to lesser events. “I can only think it has to do with money. I really don’t know what the justification is. I was told that they wanted to refresh the team and that they were looking at 10-15 years down the road, but then they hired two 60-something guys [Brad Faxon and Curt Byrum], so it’s kind of confusing.”
After Saturday’s opening round of the PNC, NBC paid tribute to Koch and Maltbie, which included a video of several of their best calls – including Koch’s famous ‘Better than most’ call of Tiger draining a bomb at the 17th at TPC Sawgrass in the Players – and top players sharing what the announcers meant to them. It meant a great deal to them, too.
NBC Sports paid one final tribute to Roger Maltbie (left) and Gary Koch as the network signed off from the PNC Championship on December 18, 2022.
“It’s been a long, wonderful ride,” said Maltbie, 71. “Neither one of us want it to end, but that decision was made, and so be it. It’ll be a sad afternoon when it’s all done.”
Here’s what the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Lee Trevino and others had to say about Koch and Maltbie, who will be missed.
Thank you, Roger Maltbie and Gary Koch. ❤️
Names from around the game paid tribute to these Golf Channel icons who are broadcasting their last event at the @PNCchampionship this weekend. pic.twitter.com/fkbktjCeLq
Maltbie has covered golf for NBC Sports since 1992. Koch joined full-time in 1997.
It’s the end of an era for NBC and Golf Channel.
Golfweek has confirmed that both Roger Maltbie and Gary Koch won’t be returning to broadcasts in 2023. The network told Maltbie and Koch the decision was made to “refresh” the team for the future.
“Roger and Gary have been synonymous with NBC Sports’ golf coverage for decades, having educated and entertained multiple generations of viewers and having made some of the most memorable calls in the history of the game,” said Golf Channel Executive Producer Molly Solomon via a statement to Golfweek. “Their professionalism and prowess is only exceeded by their character as they have been great teammates and friends to so many of us here. We will be honoring their careers during our coverage of the PNC Championship in December.”
Maltbie was originally told 2021 would be his last year before Jim “Bones” Mackay left his on-air role with the network to caddie for Justin Thomas. He returned as an on-course reporter for 2022 but wasn’t renewed for 2023. A five-time winner on the PGA Tour, Maltbie, 71, had been covering golf for NBC Sports since 1992.
Koch, 69, joined NBC Sports full-time in 1997 after he debuted as a course reporter at the 1996 Players Championship and U.S. Open. The six-time winner on Tour was an analyst in the tower for the network’s PGA Tour and major championship coverage.
Not only did they work together on-air, but the pair also teamed up to win the PGA Tour Champions’ Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf three times in the Raphael Division in 2003, 2008 and 2009.
Adam Scott called the putt heard round the golf world.
(Editor’s note: All this week, in honor of the 20-year anniversary of Tiger Woods’ “Better than Most” putt, we’ve been looking back at the magical moment at TPC Sawgrass, perhaps the greatest in the history of The Players Championship. Also see:
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Adam Scott called the putt heard round the golf world.
Seriously, the Aussie went all Nostradamus well before NBC commentator Gary Koch started saying “better than most” in the 2001 Players Championship.
Scott wasn’t playing in the tournament and to this day has no idea why he was at TPC Sawgrass. But he ended up doing guest commentary for Sky Sports alongside his coach, Butch Harmon, who also was working with Tiger Woods at the time.
During Saturday’s sunlit third round, the two were on a break and standing outside of the Sky Sports compound overlooking the famous 17th green.
Before them was Woods, surveying a putt from the back fringe of the island green that would need to break twice, slide down a steep ridge and travel 60 feet to reach the front-left pin placement. Up to then, a handful of players had putted from the top of the ridge on the 17th and every ball zoomed past the hole and off the green and onto the fringe below.
“This is such a hard putt,” Harmon said back then.
“I wouldn’t want it,” Scott said.
“He could putt the ball off the green,” Harmon said.
“Sure could,” Scott said.
“He could four-putt. He could three-putt. It sure as hell isn’t an easy two-putt. And it’s basically impossible to make the putt,” Harmon said.
“Just wait,” Scott said. “Wait until we hear the roar when he makes it.”
Ka-boom.
Woods made the Better Than Most putt, which was Koch’s famous phrase as the putt neared the hole and then disappeared. The Richter Scale went crazy, Woods started fist-pumping and roaring, and Harmon and Scott high-fived each other until their hands hurt.
“When I told Butch Tiger was going to make it, he laughed,” Scott said. “But sure enough, the putter was up in the air and the ball was going in. It just blew the roof off the place. It was unbelievable. If you watch the footage long enough, Tiger points up to Butch with a huge smile. Tiger Woods points after sinking a 60-foot birdie putt at the 17th hole of the TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course on March 24, 2001, in the third round of The Players Championship. Woods went on to win the tournament two days later in a Monday finish. [Bob Self/Florida Times-Union]“That was a pretty good one to be hanging out for as a spectator.”
After the round, Harmon met up with Woods.
“I said, ‘That was some putt you made on 17.’ And all he said was, ‘That was cool, wasn’t it Butchy.’ That’s all he ever said about it to me.”
It was cool, indeed. Well, not for everyone.
On the green with Woods was his caddie, Steve Williams, and Phil Mickelson and his caddie, Jim “Bones” Mackay. The titanic pairing of the top 2 players in the world had already stirred up thunderous applause the first 16 holes but Woods’ putt was off the charts.
“I remember when the ball got to the crest of the slope that it had perfect pace,” Mickelson said 20 years later. “And then when it got to about 10 feet out it looked like he was going to make it. Seriously, from where he was, the ball was actually going to go in and I just remember thinking, ‘Are you frickin’ kidding me?’
“I had seen so much of that kind of stuff from him for so long it didn’t unnerve me. The guy certainly didn’t need any help, he was playing such great golf at the time. And then he makes a bomb. When you’re thinking he was going to three-putt and he makes it, it felt like a two-shot swing.
“Well, 20 years later, I still don’t really know what more I can say.”
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Mackay said it was the most Tiger thing ever.
“I just remember laughing when it went in. Who else is going to make that putt? Are you kidding me?” Mackay said. “I was fortunate to be with Phil when he did something incredible, and when you see Tiger or someone else do something incredible, you just sort of look down and wait for that tidal wave of sound to hit you. So I saw the ball going toward the hole and you’re waiting that 10th of a second for the sound explosion and then it came. It was huge.”
Williams heartedly celebrated with his boss on the green.
“Tiger had an uncanny knack of making the impossible possible,” Williams said in an email. “It seemed like the more difficult the shot the more focused he became and he just relished any opportunity that would give a knockout blow to his opponents. Tiger’s imagination on the greens made him one of the greatest putters of all time under pressure.”
Woods shot 66 that day and then won the weather-delayed tournament on Monday. He had won the Arnold Palmer Invitational the week before, and then would win the Masters the following week, completing the Tiger Slam by winning four consecutive major championships.
Rob McNamara, TGR Ventures vice president who also serves as a frequent playing partner for Woods and provides a second set of eyes, was in the clubhouse watching on a small TV when Woods teed up his heroics on the 17th green.
“That was his first Players win and that meant a lot to him,” McNamara said. “After he won the (career) Grand Slam (in 2000), his record was pretty astonishing, but the focus then shifted to him having not won a Players.
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“I remember the criticism that he hadn’t won a Players. People were trying to diminish what Tiger was doing. I think it was very telling that he silenced the critics when he won the Players. Which was a little bit ridiculous.”
Woods really didn’t talk about the Better Than Most putt.
“The only thing Tiger said about the putt was that he started fist-pumping it and started walking pretty early,” McNamara said. “And then it sort of barely jumped into the right side and when he watched the film he realized he started his walk too early. That putt could have missed. But when you’re young and confident that walk is early. But that’s the thing about Tiger. Sometimes he wills those putts in and that was definitely one of them.”
Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee, a former PGA Tour player who won the 1998 Great Vancouver Open, doesn’t remember where he was when he saw the putt but he hasn’t forgotten one thing that stood out to him.
“If you go back and watch the whole clip, Tiger circles the green and then when he gets over the putt, he does something I had never seen him do. He stood over the putt and made strokes with just his right hand,” Chamblee said. “It was a great example of someone being an artist. He walked around, looked at the putt, saw what the green was, and he stood over the putt and had put all that information into his computer and just tried to feel what the putt was going to do.
“And off it went. That putt just shows you the magic of the guy.”
Koch, a six-time winner on the PGA Tour and a mainstay on NBC telecasts since 1996, sat down with Woods on the 15th anniversary of the putt. One thing that came out of the conversation sort of startled Koch.
“I asked him, ‘I’m assuming you hit some practice putts from up there? I mean you were the only one that even came close to reading the break properly,’” Koch said. “And he goes, ‘Nope. Never hit a putt from up there. Never did.’”
