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.
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.
“They (NBC) were very good to me for a very long time. So I’ve got no hard feelings. But yeah, it was handled pretty sh**ty”
Roger Maltbie has led a charmed life.
He’s the first to admit that winning 12 professional tournaments, including the first Memorial Tournament at Jack’s Place and the old World Series of Golf at Firestone, exceeded his expectations and made for a pretty respectable playing career. Then he made a seamless transition into television, working for more than three decades for NBC/Golf Channel, and becoming a fan favorite.
As he discusses in part two of a Q&A with Golfweek that was conducted at Silverado Resort during the Fortinet Championship last month, Maltbie may be making his final appearance behind the mic this weekend at the Shriners Children’s Open in Las Vegas. (You can read part one of the Q&A here.)
Maltbie’s role was reduced this season to a handful of second-tier events and he doesn’t know yet if he’ll be asked back for next season in a similar capacity. But after chatting for a solid hour, Maltbie bid adieu with these classic words: “I’ve got to get suited up.” Here’s hoping he’s brought back for an encore.
His most memorable call? “Tiger Woods, sixth hole at the 2000 U.S. Open: My response was ‘just not a fair fight.'”
Roger Maltbie is a national treasure.
The veteran pro turned roving reporter for NBC/Golf Channel had his workload cut back significantly this year to our everlasting chagrin but he still is making a few appearances here and there, including a few weeks ago in Napa at the Fortinet Championship, not far from his old stomping grounds as a NorCal golfer.
Wine Country is where Golfweek caught up with Maltbie for an hour-long chat that was so entertaining we’ve decided to split it into a two-part Q&A. And here’s some more good news: You can get another fix of Maltbie and his unique brand of humor this week as he takes part in the broadcast of the PGA Tour’s Shriners Children’s Open in Las Vegas.
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 said his age and a past spat with Greg Norman may keep him from getting a call from LIV Golf.
“Welcome to the graveyard of old fired golf announcers.”
That was the playful introduction for Roger Maltbie earlier this week when the former PGA Tour player and NBC on-course reporter joined Gary McCord and Drew Stoltz on their SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio show.
Golfweek was first to report last week that Maltbie and Gary Koch won’t be returning to NBC in 2023 after the network told the pair of longtime broadcasters it wanted to “refresh” the team for the future.
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.
“Does it hurt when you hear the words? Sure. ‘You’re not in our plans.’ Thirty-one years I spent with NBC. ‘You’re no longer in our plans and you’re not part of our future. We need to go young,’ which is a nice way of saying you’re old, and I understand all that,” said Maltbie. “But you know, there’s hurt feelings and there’s also a lot of gratitude. They were great to me for 31 years. I don’t have a complaint.
"There's hurt feelings and there's also a lot of gratitude."
The golf world is still reacting to the news that Roger Maltbie's time with NBC Sports is ending. Maltbie himself reacts with Gary & Drew on McCord & Stoltz. Hear the full interview on the SXM App.@thesleezymanpic.twitter.com/BPQd78kdMi
“I absolutely love the guys I worked with. I will miss watching the greatest players in the world play great,” he continued. “My role was to walk with the final group on Sunday, so I was watching the best players in the world playing their best and I still get a kick out of it to this day, even though I can’t do it anymore. I sure like watching it and I’ll miss all that. I will.”
If anyone knows how Maltbie and Koch feel, it’s McCord. In Oct. 2019, he and Peter Kostis, two longtime members of the CBS golf team, were not renewed for 2020. Both were told by the network that things were getting “stale.”
“I would have liked to have kept going but it’s a funny thing, the phases your career goes through over the course of 31 years,” Maltbie explained. “When I first started, hell, I knew every player, I was a player still. I was one of them and I was doing TV. I knew the names of their wives and the names of your kids and competed with and against them. There was a real familiarity. Then you go through a period where they know who you are and they know you played and so on and so forth, and then you meet a new bunch of young kids and you go on and then the later years, most of those kids don’t even know I played golf for a living, really to be honest with you. There’s a timespan to everything.”
Maltbie said he’s mulling over calling some PGA Tour Champions events for the network, noting how he’ll miss the adrenaline rush that comes with live TV. But what about a hypothetical chance with LIV Golf?
“I guess at this age, at 71, you never say never, but that would shock me beyond belief,” said Maltbie. “Greg Norman and I had sort of a spat you might call it years back, and I doubt that I would get a call from LIV, let’s put it that way.”
The international travel and 14-event schedule would be something to consider for Maltbie if the call did come, and he’d have “no compunction about going to work for somebody that’s willing to pay you a salary.”
“This LIV thing, it’s kind of crazy. There’s so much hypocrisy involved in it,” Maltbie said. “I don’t begrudge any player that accepted that money or decided to do that. That’s still a decision that is 1,000 percent their right. I don’t like the idea that they think they could do that and play the PGA Tour. I don’t follow that, but I’m not upset with it.”
“There are people that have this moral outrage about accepting money from the Saudi Investment Fund and it’s like, really? All the business that our government does with Saudi Arabia, and the largest corporations in America, so many of them do some business with the Saudis. Why all of a sudden are golfers the moral compass of the world? I don’t understand that. So I have no problem with those guys taking that money.”
With Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund as its sole funder, LIV Golf has long been criticized as a way for the Kingdom to sportswash its human rights record. Saudi Arabia has been accused of wide-ranging human rights abuses, including politically motivated killings, torture, forced disappearances and inhumane treatment of prisoners. Not to mention members of the royal family and Saudi government were accused of involvement in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist.
It’s still to be determined when and where golf fans will see Maltbie in the future. Whether its on a Champions tour or LIV broadcast – maybe he’ll pull a McCord and help with The Match? – the longtime voice will surely be missed by many.
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.
