This is good news for golf fans grumbling about too many ads on TV.
It’s a common refrain for golf fans watching their favorite sport on TV: too many commercials during critical times of the weekend coverage.
Well, thanks to a deal with Callaway, the final hour of Sunday’s coverage of the Sentry Tournament of Champions on Golf Channel will be commercial free.
The Sentry Tournament of Champions can be seen on streaming services ESPN+ and Peacock and on TV on Golf Channel all four days and on NBC on Saturday and Sunday.
The typical handoff from cable to network TV is in reverse this week though. Usually it’s Golf Channel with the first chunk of coverage before turning things over to the over-the-air coverage on NBC or CBS.
For the Sentry, NBC has the first two hours of the weekend TV coverage from 4 to 6 p.m. ET while Golf Channel brings it home from 6 to 8 p.m. The final hour will be commercial free on TV and on the Peacock stream.
Sports Business Journal reports there may be more commercial-free coverage of the PGA Tour on Sundays down the line, with lead NBC producer Tommy Roy telling the publication: “Whenever we can have commercial-free golf, we do it. To get it here on the first designated event, to get it on Sunday, we’re really happy.”
Faxon, an eight-time winner on the PGA Tour, will be a hole announcer and contributor for NBC Sports’ studio coverage and will debut next month at the Honda Classic. Kaufman, also a winner on Tour, will join Notah Begay III, Arron Oberholser and John Wood as an on-course reporter. The network also announced that Curt Byrum will serve as an announcer, taking the place of fan-favorite David Feherty, who left to work for LIV Golf.
“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, Golf Channel’s executive producer.
Maltbie, 71, and Koch, 70, were told the network wanted to “refresh” its team. Meanwhile, Golf.com has reported Mark Rolfing, 73, has re-upped with the network with a multi-year deal that begins this week at the Sentry Tournament of Champions.
Damon Hack and Cara Banks will be reporters for tournament coverage while Dan Hicks and Paul Azinger will return to their respective play-by-play and lead analyst roles for a fifth consecutive year.
Golfweek has learned from multiple sources that Brad Faxon and Smylie Kaufman will join NBC Sports and Golf Channel.
Golfweek has learned from multiple sources that Brad Faxon and Smylie Kaufman will join the NBC Sports and Golf Channel announce team beginning in 2023.
Faxon, 61, won eight times on the PGA Tour and twice on the PGA Tour Champions and is renowned for his putting stroke. He still works with Rory McIlroy as a putting coach. He broke into the TV business in 2010 with NBC Sports, doing seven events before shifting to competing on the senior tour when he turned 50.
He was the lead golf analyst for Fox Sports for five years when the network held the rights to USGA events including the U.S. Open. Since NBC reacquired those package of events, Faxon has provided analysis for Sky Sports, the subscription-based channel in the United Kingdom and Ireland, which along with NBC and Golf Channel are owned by Comcast.
Faxon is expected to take over one of the tower assignments and will contribute to various ancillary programming such as the popular “Live From” show at majors. Faxon declined to comment.
Rory McIlroy and Brad Faxon at a practice round ahead of the 2019 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach Golf Links. (Photo: Warren Little/Getty Images)
Kaufman, 31, played at LSU and won the PGA Tour’s Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in 2015 and played in the final group of the 2016 Masters, but has struggled with his game in recent years and no longer is an exempt player. He worked for ESPN and contributed to coverage of the PGA Championship and NBC’s Peacock coverage of the U.S. Open, as well as the U.S. Junior and a handful of fall events for the Golf Channel.
Kaufman is expected to be an on-course analyst and viewed as a direct response to CBS’s hiring of Colt Knost, who went from a part-time role last year to a full-time gig this season.
Former Golf Channel host Gary Williams said of Kaufman on his podcast “5 Clubs,” that Kaufman has a savant-like ability to talk like himself and give a thought in 12 seconds.
“Is it my path forever? I don’t know,” Kaufman told Williams of doing TV. “But for right now it seems to be what I enjoy doing. We’ll see. I think right now it seems to be the way I’m headed.”
Kaufman didn’t respond to phone or text messages.
Golfweek has also learned that Curt Byrum is in line to be elevated to the top PGA Tour team and work in the “super tower,” assuming the spot of David Feherty, who left to join LIV Golf in late July, and that Justin Leonard will scale back his TV role as he focuses full time on the senior circuit.
Byrum, 63, won the 1989 Hardee’s Classic on the PGA Tour, and has served as an analyst with Golf Channel since 2001. When Golf Channel and NBC merged, Byrum was the one Golf Channel analyst to be bumped immediately up to NBC.
“He’s both underrated and underappreciated,” said one NBC Sports veteran, who was not at liberty to speak on the hirings because details still were being finalized.
When reached on the phone, Byrum said that his current contract expires in December and he’s “thrown his hat in the ring but nothing confirmed as of yet.”
Leonard, 50, has spent the last few years as an analyst and contributor to “Live From.” But the former British Open champion, who last played as many as 13 Tour events in 2015-16, has made the decision to play full-time on the Champions Tour. Last year, he played his PGA Tour swansong at the Valero Texas Open and made four starts on the Champions Tour after turning 50, with a best result of T-14 at Furyk & Friends. Leonard may make a few cameo appearances with NBC, such as at the Ryder Cup. Notah Begay III, who also turned 50 earlier this year and played twice on the Champions Tour, is expected to build his playing schedule around his TV role.
An NBC Sports spokesman responded by saying, “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.”
NBC is expected to announce the hirings shortly, but may wait until after the PNC Championship, which ends Dec. 18, out of respect for Koch, who will be doing his last event.
NBC is following in the footsteps of CBS, which in late 2019 cut ties with Peter Kostis and Gary McCord as part of a youth movement in its announcing crew. Nick Faldo, 65, retired in August and The Eye promoted Trevor Immelman, who turns 43 on Dec. 16, to the top analyst position next to Jim Nantz.
O’Hurley has built a successful career, first with a decade at the Golf Channel and now through her own line of clothing.
“In Texas, it’s really all about the people, right?” Lisa O’Hurley said within the first two minutes of our conversation, explaining that she originally had no plans to play golf at Baylor University.
Now, the former Golf Channel executive can’t imagine what life would have been like without it.
The daughter of a country club manager who worked in Dallas, Houston and various other locales, O’Hurley’s first golf lesson came from future PGA Tour player Billy Ray Brown. By the time she was ready to pick a college, her family had moved to Arizona and she was playing for nationally renowned Xavier College Prep, which also spawned Cheyenne Woods, Grace Park and current Arizona State coach Missy Farr-Kaye. When a close friend from her high school team said she was going on college visits in Texas, O’Hurley jumped at the chance to join in, knowing how much she’d enjoyed her upbringing in the Lone Star State.
But when she got accepted at Baylor, the idea was to just attend, and not compete. That all changed quickly.
“I had no intention of playing golf there until about two weeks into my time there. Literally, they knocked on my dorm room door and said we’re starting a golf team and we understand that you play golf and we want you to be part of the team,” she said. ”So I said sure, and I played on the college team at Baylor.
“We were nowhere as good, in comparison, as my high school team. Not even close.”
Fast-forward some two-plus decades and O’Hurley has built a successful career around the game, first with over a decade at the Golf Channel and now through her own line of clothing that’s quickly gaining traction. As the CEO of Lohla Sport, O’Hurley has built on her six years with Golfino, a fashion sportswear company based in Germany, and used some European flair to go with some West Coast vibes to create a line that has quickly resonated with female golfers.
Former Golf Channel executive Lisa O’Hurley lives in Los Angeles with her husband, John, who has a long string of acting credits, including an iconic role on “Seinfeld.” (Contributed photo)
O’Hurley, who had built a healthy contacts list, reached out to 70 potential buyers on her Lohla line, even before she had any product to show. More than 50 bought it, sight unseen, and O’Hurley knew she was on to something. Still, it took a little luck for the whole thing to work as many clothing lines, especially those that popped up during the pandemic, quickly went under.
“Golf was the only thing that was marked safe and so the clubs were still open, the shops were still open, and that was enormous. If we were a brand that’s just something in department stores, we never would have made it. So I mean, the fact that the golf community could support itself so to speak was tremendous,” she said. “And then with COVID, we got to pick up a lot of new females who were new to the sport who aren’t used to wearing golf clothes.”
O’Hurley now lives in Los Angeles with her husband John — J. Peterman of “Seinfeld” fame — and she still plays plenty of golf while holding her Baylor roots dear. In fact, she’s become close with the current coach of the Bears’ women’s golf team, and often plays with the squad when they make a trip to Southern California.
“I guess one of my lucky gifts, you know, is keeping my connections going and always having these wonderful people in my life. And so I have kept really good friends with the current golf coach at Baylor, Jay Goble, and he and I have become very close. I’m just really still in tune with that team.”
Speaking of her husband, he made a recent appearance at a jazz club in San Antonio’s Pearl District. John O’Hurley has hosted “Family Feud,” was a contestant on “Dancing with the Stars” and hosts an annual charity golf tournament with former Major League Baseball star Josh Beckett (who lives in Boerne).
But while he’s a man of many talents, he’s currently an underdog when playing in a twosome with his wife.
“When we met, we were pretty even,” Lisa O’Hurley said. “I give him strokes now.”
The complaint further alleges monopolization, attempted monopolization and other unfair trade practices.
Attorney Larry Klayman announced the filing of a Second Amended Class Action Complaint in Palm Beach County’s 15th Judicial Circuit on Monday which alleges antitrust conspiracy to restrain trade and harm golf fans in the state of Florida, as well as “eliminate LIV Golf in its infancy.”
Named in the court filing are the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour Golf Channel and the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR).
The OWGR is alleged to be part of a conspiracy to restrain trade in violation of Florida’s antitrust laws because its board contains “the conflicted leadership of the PGA Tour and DP World Tour.” PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and DP World Tour chief executive Keith Pelley are both on the OWGR board.
The court filing alleges that consumers “have seen the quality of the product that they are paying for at PGA Tour events be diluted and destroyed by a deterioration of the talent level at PGA Tour events due to the exclusion of many of the top players in the world who have signed to LIV Golf.”
The court filing also claims tickets for the Players Championship in 2023 are 34 percent higher than in 2022, “and some packages for the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando, Florida are at least ten percent higher in 2023 than in 2022” and later refers to the increases as “supracompetitive prices.”
The complaint further alleges monopolization, attempted monopolization, group boycotts and other unfair trade practices. The first amended class action complaint to name the OWGR was filed on Nov. 4. The second amended complaint was e-filed Nov. 11. Golfweek confirmed with the 15th Judicial Circuit the second complaint is still pending at the time of this post’s publication. Offices were closed on Nov. 9th and 10th due to Hurricane Nicole and also on Nov. 11th for Veterans Day.
The second amended action “seeks actual and compensatory damages, in an amount to be determined” by a jury.
“Consumers, that is Florida golf fans including me, have as much right as anyone to benefit from a free market, which would allow all golf leagues and independent contractor players to fairly compete,” said Klayman via a release. “But the Defendants have illegally worked hard to prevent this, as the PGA Tour and its co-conspirator Defendants will not tolerate honest and fair competition, as it will challenge their trillion dollar plus monopoly to totally dominate the golf world.”
While representing LIV Golf’s Patrick Reed, Klayman refiled a $750 million defamation lawsuit in late September to add Golf Channel’s Damon Hack, Shane Bacon, as well as Golfweek columnist Eamon Lynch and its parent company, Gannett. Earlier this month, Klayman filed a new $250 million suit against a number of other prominent golf media members and organizations, including author Shane Ryan, Hachette, the New York Post and Fox Sports, as well as Associated Press golf writer Doug Ferguson and the organization for whom he works.
Check out some of the best photos from Maltbie’s career in golf.
Born in Modesto, California, and raised in San Jose, Roger Maltbie has spent more time than most on golf courses.
After attending and competing for both San Jose City College and San Jose State University, Maltbie joined the PGA Tour in 1974 and was a member from 1975-1996, where he won five events, first in 1975 at the Ed McMahon-Jaycees Quad Cities Open and last at the NEC World Series of Golf. His biggest victory came in 1976, when he won the first-ever Memorial Tournament via a playoff with Hale Irwin.
After his playing career, Maltbie began covering golf for NBC Sports in 1992 and eventually became the network’s lead on-course reporter. His last year calling golf for the network was in 2022 after he wasn’t renewed for 2023.
Check out some of the best photos from Maltbie’s career in golf.
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.
The lawsuit alleges conspiracy, defamation, injurious falsehood and tortious interference.
Patrick Reed’s attorneys refiled a $750 million defamation lawsuit on Thursday, adding Golf Channel’s Damon Hack, Shane Bacon and Eamon Lynch, as well as Golfweek and its parent company, Gannett. Lynch is also a Golfweek columnist.
The lawsuit, originally filed Aug. 16 in a federal court in Texas and now in Florida, alleges conspiracy, defamation, injurious falsehood and tortious interference and that the defenders have acted “in concert as joint tortfeasors.”
“The PGA Tour’s and its ‘partner’ the NBC’s Golf Channel’s mission is to destroy a top LIV Golf Tour player, his family, as well as all of the LIV Golf players, to further their agenda and alleged collaborative efforts to destroy the new LIV Golf Tour,” said Reed’s attorney, Larry Klayman, via a news release. “As alleged in the Complaint, these calculated malicious attacks have created hate, aided and abetted a hostile workplace environment, and have caused substantial financial and emotional damage and harm to Mr. Reed and his family.”
The refiled lawsuit looks similar to the original lawsuit and also cites new Golf Channel broadcasts where Hack and Bacon were claimed to be critical of Reed and his actions, as well as a column from Lynch.
In four starts on the Greg Norman-led and Saudi Arabia-funded LIV Golf Invitational Series, Reed, 32, has earned two top-five finishes and $5,958,500. A nine-time winner on the PGA Tour, Reed earned $37,070,706 over his 12 years on Tour.
He’s seeking $750 million in damages. Yes, $750 million.
According to the documents — which were released via a reporter for Courthouse News Service — Reed claims Chamblee has a history of calling him a cheater and has criticized Reed and other golfers for leaving the PGA Tour for the Greg Norman-led, Saudi-backed LIV Golf Series.
Well, once the news broke, Golf Twitter went into an all-out frenzy.
LIV Golf announced Friday that David Feherty, longtime NBC Sports and Golf Channel analyst and TV host, is its newest broadcaster.
David Feherty is on the move.
The colorful commentator and longtime NBC Sports and Golf Channel analyst is joining the LIV Golf Invitational Series, the league announced Friday afternoon. LIV Golf is still without a television partner, but Feherty’s move gives the Greg Norman-led, Saudi Arabia-funded upstart circuit a known name on its broadcast team.
Feherty, 63, was a part of the 20-person on-air crew at the Old Course at St. Andrews for the 150th Open Championship last week.
He has been with the NBC Sports group in a variety of roles for about seven years. In March, he hosted the World Golf Hall of Fame induction ceremony that included Tiger Woods.
Feherty will join LIV Golf’s coverage next week during its third event at Trump Bedminster in New Jersey.
Here’s a look at photos of Feherty throughout the years.
