Paul Azinger returning to broadcasting in 2025 as lead analyst for PGA Tour Champions

“It’s not like a full-time gig or anything … It’ll be kind of fun,” Azinger told Golfweek on Monday.

Paul Azinger is returning to the broadcast booth in 2025.

Golfweek has learned that the 64-year-old former 12-time PGA Tour champion and winner of the 1993 PGA Championship will replace Lanny Wadkins, who announced his retirement on Friday, as the lead analyst on Golf Channel’s coverage of PGA Tour Champions for 10-12 tournaments next season as part of a one-year deal.

“It’s not like a full-time gig or anything, which I don’t want, but to be able to go in there and part-time some golf, some really great golf, it’ll be kind of fun,” Azinger told Golfweek in a phone interview on Monday. “I’ll just be as candid as I can and enjoy it.”

Peter Jacobsen and John Cook will split time in the analyst chair when Azinger is off. [Cook will serve as on-site walking reporter when he’s not an analyst.]

“Paul brings a lot of credibility to that seat and has a lot of creative ideas that we think can just add to our overall telecast,” Miller Brady, president of PGA Tour Champions, said. “It’s hard to replace a Hall of Famer like Lanny week in and week out, but, I think Paul will be tremendous for us.”

Azinger was the lead golf analyst for NBC Sports’ coverage of the PGA Tour for five years until the network stunned him by electing not to renew his contract last December.

“I thought I would do at least one more year and then sign a four-year deal. They made the offer, my agent said ‘No, we’ll counteroffer the next day.’ And they said, ‘Sorry, we’re moving on.’ You know, it wasn’t a conversation with me, like, ‘What do you need Zinger? What do we need to do? Here’s our situation. You know, this is why we need you to accept this deal.’ There was no reason, it just was it’s complicated, it’s complicated. I was like, ‘How complicated can it be, bud?’ It’s money,” Azinger told Golfweek in March.

The Peacock still hasn’t hired a replacement for Azinger, instead rotating this season through a cast of veteran players including Kevin Kisner and Luke Donald, Golf Channel commentators Paul McGinley and Brandel Chamblee, who did the U.S. Open, and caddie Jim “Bones” Mackay, who has since rejoined Golf Channel as an on-course commentator.

Sep 24, 2022; Charlotte, North Carolina, USA; Paul Azinger holds up a fish at the lake near the 14th hole during the foursomes match play of the Presidents Cup golf tournament at Quail Hollow Club. Mandatory Credit: Peter Casey-USA TODAY Sports

While Azinger will appear on Golf Channel, he isn’t employed by the network but rather by PGA Tour Entertainment, which has final say on talent for PGA Tour Champions coverage. All parties involved said that the relationship has been reconciled despite the messy parting nearly a year ago.

“I hope that that’s water under the bridge and that everyone just moves on. I know Paul wants to move on, and we want to move on,” Brady said.

“Paul has called some of golf’s biggest events and has been a part of the PGA Tour as a player or analyst for more than four decades, and we’re excited to have him bring that experience to the PGA Tour Champions telecasts on Golf Channel,” an NBC Sports spokesperson said.

During his interview with Golfweek in March, Azinger hinted that he’d be interested in calling the 50-and-over tour.

“I’d rather call the Senior Tour than the PGA Tour to tell you the truth. I’m over the PGA Tour. To call the best senior players in the world, at least they’re the best,” Azinger said, a not-so-subtle jab at the Tour’s loss of talented players to LIV Golf.

Brady said he and Greg Hopfe, the Tour’s senior vice president and executive producer of live programming, met with Azinger in February to feel out his interest in the Champions Tour.

“And, you know, he wasn’t quite sure,” Brady said. “It took a lot of time to think about it. We continued to answer questions that he had, and we said, look, at the end of the day, we’re not asking you to come do a full schedule. We’re asking you to dip your toe in the water and let’s see if you like it.”

Wadkins has been the lead analyst of Golf Channel’s coverage of the Champions Tour for the last 13 years. He told Golfweek on Friday that he would do his final broadcast in January at the Mitsubishi Electric Championship, the kickoff to the 2025 Champions Tour season, and Brady said the tour would honor Wadkins’ contributions in a special ceremony to be held before the tournament. At his newsletter, The Quadrilateral, Geoff Shackelford called Wadkins “one of the most underrated analysts in golf television history.”

Azinger, who was the winning U.S. captain at the 2008 Ryder Cup, started in television in 2005 with ABC and ESPN, sharing analyst duties with Nick Faldo in a three-man booth with Mike Tirico. When ESPN lost its right to the British Open in 2015, Azinger signed with Fox Sports as lead analyst when it outbid NBC for the U.S. Open and other USGA championships. NBC hired him in 2018 to replace Johnny Miller when he passed the baton and signed off from the 2019 WM Phoenix Open. Azinger’s final broadcast was the 2023 Ryder Cup in Rome.

In January, Golfweek asked Brady about Azinger and he noted that he had seen him shortly after his departure from NBC at the World Champions Cup, which was played not far from Azinger’s home at The Concession in Bradenton, Florida. Brady wondered if he could talk Azinger into bringing his vast talents to the booth on the senior circuit.

“At the right time, I want to go see if maybe he’ll jump in the booth here. Why not? But the money’s vastly different. He has to want to do it. So I’ve got to find the right time,” Brady said. “If I’m with him, just to say, hey, do you want to do a couple events? It’s too raw now.”

Turns out, the time is right for Azinger.

“For Paul, it’s not about the money and he’ll tell you it’s not about the money,” Brady said, “it’s about just staying involved in the game and being close to a lot of his contemporaries.”

When Azinger was reminded that if he enjoys it enough to stick around for a second year, he may have the opportunity to call Tiger Woods again, Azinger’s voice lit up.

“I hope he does,” Azinger said. “He says he will. I mean, if I could do five or six or seven of Tiger’s events, I would be thrilled. I’ll be thrilled anyway. Trust me, it’s gonna be good fun.”

Miakka Golf Club to shine along a Florida river, but another course feature comes from Down Under

Allow us to geek out about bunker edges for a bit.

MYAKKA CITY, Fla. – The under-construction Miakka Golf Club has a lot going for it. A wide-open parcel of land with several interesting features. Two miles of frontage along a pastoral river. A former Ryder Cup captain as consultant. A successful developer with a proven track record, big plans and deep pockets.

Forget all that for a minute, and indulge this golf architecture nerd to geek out about one particular aspect of the work taking place inland between Tampa and Fort Myers on the western side of Florida’s peninsula. Because if all goes to plan, the private Miakka might have some of the coolest bunkers found in the United States.

Yes, after a tour of the property in its raw-dirt form, it was the bunkers that caught my eye. That’s because some of the best bunkers in the world caught the eyes of course architects Dana Fry and Jason Straka, who plan to model their traps at Miakka in the form of Australian Sandbelt courses.

Victoria Golf Club Australia — A beautiful bunker’s edge is carved directly into a green at Victoria Golf Club in Australia. (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)

Citing the style of bunkering at such international heavyweights as Royal Melbourne, Victoria, Kingston Heath and Peninsula Kingswood, Fry and Straka plan to build traps that reach deep into greens with the putting surfaces seemingly suspended in air above the sand.

Fellow architecture nerds are granted a gasp at the daring.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Straka said with a smile during a tour of the property.

The traps in Australia’s Sandbelt around Melbourne are largely the creation of or inspired by Alister MacKenzie, the famed designer of Augusta National and Cypress Point, among others. It was on a working tour of Australia nearly a century ago that MacKenzie introduced some of the best bunkers in the world to several courses.

We rank the top private golf courses in Florida

The best Sandbelt greens and traps are split by a knife’s edge with no fringe, no separation. With graceful curves etched directly into the putting surfaces, they are among the most beautiful and frightening sand traps in the world, often falling back into a more rugged and natural design on the far sides of the traps.

But it’s almost impossible to build such traps at most locations. The Melbourne Sandbelt is graced with dense sand, which helps the traps retain their shape. They wouldn’t work at most American courses, as the edges of the bunkers would crumble under the weight of golfers and mowers on the surfaces above – such construction would be a liability and a maintenance headache. Instead, American bunkers are normally kept at least several steps off a putting surface. Us lot have grown accustomed to the American style, most of us never realizing what we’re missing Down Under.

Fry and Straka plan to utilize a modern construction method to change all that at Miakka.

Architect Jason Straka inspects a Loksand bunker edge at Miakka Golf Club. (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)

The design team will lean on Loksand to construct bunker edges. With offices in Asia and Australia, the company Loksand has created a crimped fiber product that allows grass to grow atop it while resisting compression or shifting. The company’s methods provide the hardy bunker walls Fry and Straka need to carve Sandbelt-style traps into greens in Florida, where native sand is normally much looser.

Amazing Australia: Melbourne and Victoria tick all the boxes for perfect golf, from Royal Melbourne down to the Mornington Peninsula

Showing off a Loksand test bunker at Miakka, Straka threw a golf ball into the wall of the trap. It bounced off in a natural way, not some weird rebound that would be a turn-off to golfers. The Loksand bunker also supports plenty of weight. The company provided a green light for Fry and Straka to make bold choices.

“We had looked at the Sandbelt course and wanted to find a way to build bunkers like that, and this gave us that chance,” Straka said during our tour. “We tried several other options, and this just works.”

For the golf architecture nerds who have had the good fortune to play in the Sandbelt, it’s an inspiring choice.

But the property’s developer, Florida-based entrepreneur Steve Herrig, was not originally inspired by golf at all. This all started with horses.

Miakka Golf Club sits next to Herrig’s TerraNova Equestrian Center, which he built to accommodate the growing passion for horses shown by his daughter. Starting with small plans for a barn and a place to ride, TerraNova has grown into a world-class equestrian center capable of holding national events. Herrig has laid out plans for a horse-themed community adjacent to the equestrian center, with lots ranging from five to 20 acres, each with a private barn.

A frequent participant in golf games at Gator Creek Golf Club in nearby Sarasota, Herrig – who has built profitable businesses in insurance and human resources – said he was told by friends that he should add a golf course. “Here we are now,” he said at lunch before setting out to check on construction of his Miakka Golf Club.

One of those friends from the Sarasota club – known simply as Gator by locals – just happened to be Paul Azinger, winner of 12 PGA Tour events including the 1993 PGA Championship. He went on to captain the victorious 2008 U.S. Ryder Cup squad and feature as a prominent voice in golf broadcasting for 15 years. Herrig brought on Azinger as a design consultant at Miakka.

The property has a lot going for it. The course and its facilities will sit on 1,100 acres away from the planned homes. Overall, the land tilts on a plane dozens of feet down toward the Myakka River, and there’s a twisting creek bed that will be interlaced with fairways. Some 3 million cubic yards of sand will be pushed into landforms atop the site, that sand having been mined from an area that will become a lake nearer a rural highway that passes the course and sprawling clubhouse. Plans include a 12-hole par-3 course, a huge circular practice facility, cabins and a lighted putting course.

Unlike at most Florida courses, which rely on man-made lakes for irrigation as well as shotmaking interest, the lake at Miakka won’t be in play on the main 18. Azinger, ever an angler, said he can’t wait to cast for bass in its water.

The river and its offshoots will be in play on several holes, most notably a par-3 that plays along the waterway. Other than that and the creekbed, the course will rely on Fry and Straka’s shaping to provide strategic golf interest instead of water carries, similar to the way Australian Sandbelt courses don’t feature much, if any, water.

In a state experiencing something of a golf construction boom, especially for high-end clubs with six-figure membership fees, it all serves to set Miakka apart in some ways. There will be horses, barns, firm and bouncy golf, and plenty of luxury for well-heeled members.

Best of all, there will be those bunker edges.

Paul Azinger doesn’t hold back about his breakup with NBC (and suggests who should replace him)

Was it still too soon for Azinger to talk on this topic? It was not.

Paul Azinger is driving to Gator Creek Golf Club in Sarasota, Florida. He brought the fish for a fish fry and then he’s planning to peg it with his son-in-law and a couple of friends.

His mind is miles away from the Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches, what should’ve been the start of four straight weeks in his home state calling out whoever might be choking his guts out on the PGA Tour for NBC. But in November, the network elected not to renew his contract, ending his four-year stint as its lead golf analyst. (NBC Sports declined to comment for this story.)

Instead, Azinger has been hanging on his boat, fishing frequently, and getting ready to get “his elbows dirty” partnering with Fry/Straka Global Golf Course Design to build the new riverside Miakka Golf Club in Myakka City, Florida.

“There’s always something to do, wash the wheels of your car,” he says during a phone conversation on Sunday. “It’s not too bad, and I’m not looking for a job either. I’ve had two full careers. I played the Tour for 30 years, I broadcast for about 18 years. I’m enjoying my life right now. I didn’t know I could enjoy it this much. I’m serious, I wake up with no schedule. It’s weird and it’s nice.”

And before he can be asked the obvious follow-up question, he adds, “I’m not missing golf in any capacity at all as a broadcaster. It’s hard work to be an analyst. It’s always stress and pressure. So I don’t really miss it that much. I just don’t like the way it ended.”

Before calling Azinger, one of my favorite people to talk about the game with, I wondered if it still might be too soon for him to talk on this topic.

It was not.

PGA Tour Champions President Miller Brady tackles Tiger in two years, how he snared a new playoff sponsor and Paul Azinger in the booth?

Is PGA Tour Champions ready for Tiger Woods?

KONA, Hawaii — Miller Brady points out in the distance at the Pacific Ocean as another stunning sunset unfolds and says, “Look, there’s a whale spout. It’s right in line with that palm tree.”

It never gets old for Brady, president of PGA Tour Champions, to start the new season at Four Seasons Hualalai, home of the Mitsubishi Electric Championship. This is the 28^th consecutive year the senior circuit has kicked off the year here in paradise and the 17^th in a row for Brady, who is in his sixth year leading the Champions Tour and embarking on his 25^th year with the PGA Tour, the last 18 with the over-50 crowd.

“I had the chance to go to the regular tour a couple different times,” he said. “But I just sort of like this niche.”

It’s a niche playing for some $67 million this season, and its top players don’t need signature events or bloated FedEx Cup points to show up. A couple hours later, nearly all the stars of senior golf will attend the pro-am draw party and make their way to the stage when emcee Dave Marr III calls their name.

“It’s one of the coolest pictures you’ll see,” Brady said.

During a wide-ranging conversation, Brady shared why he’s bullish on the future for PGA Tour Champions, the back story on the change in title sponsor for one of its three playoff events and prepping for Tigermania at 50.

PGA Tour Champions: Key storylines as 2024 season kicks off

Photos: Paul Azinger through the years

Paul Azinger isn’t on the 2024 TV broadcasts, but the 12-time PGA Tour champ will turn 64 on Jan. 6.

Paul Azinger, who was born on January 6, 1960, played on four Ryder Cup teams and captained the 2008 U.S. squad to a win at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky. The Holyoke, Massachusetts, native won a dozen times on the PGA Tour, including the 1993 PGA Championship at Inverness, beating Greg Norman in a playoff.

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.

But Azinger did 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.

“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.

Here are a number of our favorite moments from ‘Zinger’s career.

Report says NBC is targeting Geoff Ogilvy for analyst role to replace Paul Azinger

Ogilvy, who has started a golf course architecture firm, won the 2006 U.S. Open.

Paul McGinley had a trial run on NBC during the Hero World Challenge, the Tiger Woods-run event in Bahamas.

Coincidentally, just as Tiger prepares to tee it up again at this week’s PNC Championship, there’s more news regarding the vacant analyst role on the network’s golf coverage.

NBC Sports is eyeing Geoff Ogilvy to replace Paul Azinger with an announcement coming within the next week, according to a Sports Business Journal report.

Ogilvy turned pro in 1998 and went on to win eight PGA Tour events plus four on the now-DP World Tour. His high-water mark was claiming the 2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot. A three-time member of the International Team in the Presidents Cup, he has also been a vice captain during the last three biennial competitions against the U.S. There’s still talk he’ll one day captain the Internationals.

Ogilvy is also busy with his budding golf course architecture firm, OCM, which is tasked with getting Medinah ready for the 2026 Presidents Cup outside of Chicago.

In an October Q&A with Golfweek‘s Adam Schupak, Ogilvy was asked: “How are you not doing TV because I think you’d be great at it?”

His answer: “I don’t really want to. Would you like to talk to Brandel?,” he quipped. “I like Brandel off camera. He came on our podcast (Fire Pit Collective) and he was great. He sounded like a human. He tries too hard to sound smart. His stats and research is over the top. You can’t tell him anything. But I guess that’s what is required from the analyst on a show like that. So, in that case, he probably does a good job. It’s just not really my speed.

When asked a follow-up about perhaps getting involved in a Manning-cast style golf show, Ogilvy said: “That would be fun. I’d do that during the majors. To me, I think that’s the future for golf on TV. Golf needs to do more of that.”

NBC declined comment to Golfweek on Friday.

Paul McGinley to replace Paul Azinger as lead analyst at NBC Sports — at least for one week

McGinley, 56, won four times on the DP World Tour and served as winning Ryder Cup captain for Europe in 2014.

NBC Sports is replacing one Paul with another in the booth – at least for one week.

Former European Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley will be in the chair formerly occupied by Paul Azinger as the lead analyst for NBC during the Hero World Challenge, which begins on Thursday in Nassau, Bahamas. A spokesperson for the network confirmed the news to Golfweek after the Irish Independent was first to report.

Azinger had one event remaining on his contract that was up at the end of the year, but negotiations to renew stalled when Azinger countered and NBC reportedly pulled its offer and parted ways with the 12-time PGA Tour winner.

McGinley, a 56-year-old Irishman who won four times on the DP World Tour and served as winning Ryder Cup captain for Europe in 2014, is no stranger to American golf fans and to the Golf Channel/NBC team. He’s a longtime TV commentator for Sky Sports in Europe and has contributed to Golf Channel’s “Live From” show from the majors for the past two years.

McGinley will work in the booth with NBC lead anchor Dan Hicks and also team with analyst Curt Byrum in a three-man booth in what has the feel of a tryout.

The Independent noted, “McGinley’s [TV] future will likely depend on how he does in the Bahamas and future events over the next few months.”

“They obviously need a fill-in this week and as I’ve done some work with them this year and am part of the Comcast Group I’m filling in,” McGinley told Golf Digest. “That’s all. No more than that.”

Azinger had been NBC Sports’ lead analyst since 2019 following the retirement of Johnny Miller.

[lawrence-auto-related count=4 category=1375]

Paul Azinger won’t return as NBC Sports lead golf analyst in 2024

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.

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.

[lawrence-auto-related count=4 category=1375]

Schupak: Bring back the Pauls, McGinley in ’25, Azinger in ’27, and see if either of the best Ryder Cup captains can win on the road

“If LIV plucks a bunch of guys off of the Tour as is rumored, why would I even watch the Ryder Cup?”

Rory McIlroy put it best during Team Europe’s Ryder Cup winner’s press conference: Winning a Ryder Cup on the road may be the hardest thing to do in sports.

Considering that the U.S. side hasn’t won on European soil since 1993 and the Euros needed the Miracle at Medinah to rally from a 10-6 deficit to do so in 2012, McIlroy has a good argument. The home team has held serve ever since but more troubling is the fact that you have to go back to the 2012 edition of the biennial competition for the last time we didn’t have a blowout. Sundays have largely been a foregone conclusion as to which side is going to win.

Want to make the Ryder Cup great again? How about giving arguably the two best captains of the modern era another shot behind the wheel to see if either of them can win on the road. In other words, Paul McGinley, who guided the Euros to a beatdown of the Americans in Scotland in 2014, as Europe’s captain in 2025 at Bethpage, and Paul Azinger, who was brilliant at the helm in 2008 in Louisville, in 2027 in Ireland.

When I proposed this scenario to Azinger, he chuckled and said, “That would be awesome.”

“McGinley was a brilliant captain, he really was,” Azinger said. “There’s only so much a captain can do but he has a huge responsibility to create an environment, to create a message and get his players to out-prepare the other team. I might have said to this U.S. Ryder Cup team that if you were in the top six (an automatic qualifier to the team) do whatever you want, you made it, but the next six, you have to play the week before or two weeks before or I’m not going to pick you. That’s the way it is, sorry. You have to promise me you’re going to play. Everyone knew they didn’t play enough going in. That to me was the biggest way they out-prepared us.”

Europe players lift their captain Paul McGinley as he holds the trophy after winning the 2014 Ryder Cup.

Azinger laughed when I said let either Tiger Woods if he wants the job at Bethpage or Stewart Cink or even Fred Couples take a turn in 2025 but let’s get going on 2027 to end this seemingly endless losing streak on the road. The idea of taking another bite at the captaincy? He says that ship has passed.

“I lobbied in 2010 to carry the flag and win the cup on the road. The PGA of America told me, ‘There’s more captains than there are Ryder Cups.’ I said, ‘OK, that’s fine.’ They chose Corey Pavin. Then they get (Tom) Watson and (Davis) Love again. I wanted that challenge but it was 17 years earlier. I think I’m passed due. I’ll be 67. It’s not fair to a guy like Stewart Cink. I think he’ll be an awesome captain. I’d roll in as an assistant captain. They’ve got a clique going now. It’s the result of the Task Force. Sometimes cliques are incredible. Let’s not forget they won the last Cup by 10 points but I think it’s time to break the clique up…I worry that Tiger is going to want Freddie and Davis and Strick again. I would like to see a different group be in there as assistants that can be future captains.”

McGinley echoed a similar sentiment that his window for a return engagement as captain has closed.

“I think we’ve certainly nailed the home template but we haven’t written the template for away from home. I like the way you’re thinking but I think my ship has sailed in that regard. I’m 10 years aways from being a captain, I’m 56 years old, there’s a certain disconnection with the current crop of players,” he argued.

But McGinley, too, recognized that winning on the road has become the white whale for Ryder Cup captains and it was something he once desired.

“I think it so much more difficult away and I’d have loved to have written the away template but I thought it was greedy to go again,” he said. “I knew there were a lot of guys waiting patiently behind me and I thought it would be unfair to go again.”

But what once was a backlog of potential captains has become a shortage due to LIV, which wiped out Ian Poulter, Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood, Henrik Stenson, Graeme McDowell and Paul Casey for Team Europe and Phil Mickelson, Bubba Watson and (eventually) Dustin Johnson from consideration. Let’s take this unique moment in time to determine once and for all which of these brilliant leaders of men can steer his team to victory away from home.

Azinger and McGinley both lived and breathed the job for two years and understood team dynamics better than anyone before or after in the captaincy role. Both are still active in their role as TV commentators and have a handle on the pulse of the game.

“I think I’d rather broadcast it, thank you, though,” Azinger said. “I think it’s really important at this point to have someone of their era who really knows the players.”

Who does he think should lead Europe into the hostile environment that will be Bethpage Black in 2025?

“It’s going to be contentious. Luke Donald is the perfect personality type. Otherwise, I would love to see Sergio (Garcia) but it will never happen. If I’m them, I’m bringing the most polished professional I can bring. If you can find anyone more polished and buttoned up than Luke, let me know,” he said.

“It wouldn’t be a big surprise if Luke was to go again,” McGinley added. “In an ideal world, you should do two captaincies – one home and one away. That would be a real test of the captain, wouldn’t it?”

Azinger expressed one concern for the Ryder Cup going forward: Will the U.S. be able to field its best team?

“I really fear for the next Ryder Cup,” he said. “If LIV plucks a bunch of guys off of the Tour as is rumored, why would I even watch the Ryder Cup? That’s the way I’m feeling about it. It’s just not America vs Europe anymore. I mean, it is, but it wouldn’t be our best players. I fear for the Ryder Cup because of LIV.”

You heard it here first: McGinley in ’25, Azinger in ’27. Let’s settle who is the best captain once and for all.

Paul Azinger, Fry/Straka Design to build course for new Miakka Golf Club in Florida

Paul Azinger partners with Fry/Straka Design to build course for new private club in Southwest Florida.

[anyclip pubname=”2122″ widgetname=”0016M00002U0B1kQAF_M8224″]

Former PGA Tour star Paul Azinger and the architecture firm of Fry/Straka Global Golf Course Design have partnered to build 18 main holes and more for the new riverside Miakka Golf Club in Myakka City, Florida.

The private club will be built on more than 1,100 acres along the Myakka River about 30 miles southeast of Sarasota/Bradenton International Airport, not far from the Gulf of Mexico between Tampa and Naples. The club shares ownership and is adjacent to the TerraNova Equestrian Center and The Estates at TerraNova, with development led by Florida entrepreneur Steve Herrig.

The club will include a full-length 18-hole course, a 12-hole par-3 course, a 7-acre short-game facility, a lighted putting course and a circular practice range that includes a performance center. Along with a clubhouse, the club plans to build cabins for members and guests. Plans are for the short course to open in 2024 with the main course ready for play in 2025.

“This is one of the best natural sites for golf and one of the best teams we’ve ever been affiliated with,” Jason Straka, principal of Fry/Straka Global Golf Course Design, said in a media release announcing the club. “The property has an incredible two miles of frontage along the Myakka River with hundreds of mature oak hammocks. Just the golf club and its facilities are being built on more than 1,100 acres.

“Miakka is going to be pure golf with no encroachments or distractions of any kind. The course will resemble the celebrated courses of the Australian Sandbelt, with wide turf corridors, no rough, and distinctive bunkers and natural-area hazards jutting into the line of play.”

Azinger, a former Ryder Cup captain, grew up in Florida and lives in nearby Bradenton.

“This is my home, and it’s incredibly important to me,” Azinger said in the media release. “Steve (Herrig) and his team are absolutely committed to making Miakka Golf Club one of the very best private clubs in the world. He’s assembled an all-star team and will do whatever it takes to achieve that goal.”

Dana Fry said his design team is going to great lengths to provide superior playing conditions.

“The entire 7,700-yard golf course will be sand-capped with a proprietary blend of sand and Profile soil conditioner,” Fry said in the media release. “Everything but the greens will be sodded. In addition, the entire course will have substantial underdrains to ensure fast and firm playing conditions year-round. Recently, Miakka secured 1,600 acres of adjacent land and will be the first course in Florida with its own sod farm. This is where they’ll grow the Stadium and Lazer Zoysia grass that will be used on the fairways, tees, and green surrounds.”

[lawrence-auto-related count=1]