Golf announcers do not often defect from one network to another, so David Feherty’s move from CBS Sports to NBC and Golf Channel is unusual.
Jim McKay made a move from CBS more than a half-century ago to join Roone Arledge’s fledgling ABC Sports. Steve Melnyk also left CBS for ABC in the early 1990s. More recently, Ian Baker-Finch made the reverse move, departing ESPN and ABC for CBS.
An on-course reporter for 19 years at CBS, Feherty is known for his Irish accent and off-kilter approach to golf commentary, as well as for speaking candidly about his depression and alcoholism.
“I’m nervous about this, and I’m hoping they don’t drug-test announcers, because I would fail on several counts with the psych meds that I have to take, especially at the Olympics,” he said during a conference call. “I think I’m probably doomed if they do that there.”
Soon after announcing the deal, he wrote on Twitter: “After 19 great years at CBS today I’ve signed a new deal with @GolfChannel and @NBCSports. Which one of them will fire me first?”
He has been familiar to Golf Channel viewers through his interview program, “Feherty,” which is in its fifth season as one of the network’s most popular prime-time shows. CBS had no problem sharing him with Golf Channel but chose not to pay him what he wanted to stay on its golf schedule.
NBC saw a chance to pick up a star commentator to add to an announcing corps that features Johnny Miller and includes Roger Maltbie and Gary Koch, who are reducing their workload.
“This whole thing couldn’t have come together at a better time,” said Tommy Roy, producer of Golf Channel on NBC. He added: “It goes without saying how much his wit spices up a telecast, but his ability to analyze, in my opinion, like he has at the Masters, is off-the-charts good.”
Feherty’s deal, which begins next year, will let him expand beyond reporting from along fairways and behind greens. He has wanted to offer analysis from a CBS tower but recognized there was no room for him. But at NBC and Golf Channel, he will alternate between course reporting and a tower.
His deal also allows him to create new programming, continue with the “Feherty” series and call golf during next year’s Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. “My grandfather actually competed in 1908 in catching the javelin,” he said.
He might add other sports to his portfolio, like curling (or perhaps he was kidding). But he has a personal stake in the sport, or so he says.
Every curling stone, he said, “is cut from the Alisa Craig off the coast of Turnberry there, and you can see it from my bedroom window in Northern Ireland.”
Leaving CBS means no longer being part of the network that broadcasts two major tournaments, the Masters and the PGA Championship. He joins NBC and Golf Channel at a time when they have no majors to televise for a while; for now, their slate of biggest tournaments includes the Players Championship and the Ryder Cup.
Having lost U.S. Open rights to Fox, NBC and Golf Channel await the beginning, in 2017, of their deal to televise the British Open.
“I just feel like a player with a microphone, so when I go back to a place with which I am familiar, like a Turnberry or a Troon, where I played well before, it brings back memories,” Feherty said.
But his failures at such courses made him realize that he did not ache to win as an elite player does.
“I was aching for this,” he said, referring to calling golf. “The opportunity to be in a business where I could be in the upper echelon of performers. That’s the thrill for me.”
For everything he will do at NBC and Golf Channel beyond course reporting, he seems not ready to give up that role.
“I’m one of those broadcasters who’s lucky enough not to have to prepare, really,” he said. “As a walking announcer, you don’t need to know where the guy went to high school or how many dogs he has or whether he played the trombone. I call what I see, real time.”
About the Author
