In making Davis Love III the newest announced member of its golf broadcast team, CBS Sports accomplished two things:
It quickly diverted the narrative from the unexpected dismissal of longtime voices Peter Kostis and Gary McCord while adding one of the sharpest people in the game to what will be a restructured crew.
There are also indications that Trevor Immelman and his brother Mark will be added to the CBS team, which will make its 2020 debut at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in January.
Love brings everything to television that viewers – as well as CBS Sports officials and the PGA Tour – want. He’s smart, in touch and a great talker.
As a player, his credentials speak for themselves. As a leader, he’s captained two Ryder Cup teams and been a part of national teams for years. As an administrator, Love has been instrumental in helping plot the PGA Tour’s business as a four-time member of its policy board.
In a statement announcing his hiring, Love said his playing career is not over – he intends to play a handful of events, including the new Bermuda Championship this week – but his focus will shift to television work.
Love’s hiring comes just days after CBS Sports announced McCord and Kostis would not return in 2020.
McCord made it clear in interviews this week that the move was unexpected and he related a conversation with CBS Sports president Sean McManus in which McCord said he was told the broadcast had become “stale” and needed freshening.
To be fair, the telecasts had become familiar. Depending on the point of view, that was either a good thing or a bad thing. CBS apparently felt it was time to change.
With a new round of PGA Tour television negotiations under way, it’s natural to wonder how much the departure of Kostis and McCord is related to the bidding process. It’s an active market with the familiar players – CBS, NBC and Golf Channel – being joined by other entities as the tour plots a media future with new and expanded options.
CBS Sports has two more years on its current agreement with the PGA Tour and while it has been the most familiar broadcast team to many viewers, there comes a time for change.
As for Kostis, he told me last spring that he intended to continue his television work through 2021 but CBS Sports had other plans.
As the old saying goes, everyone has a sell-by date.
Still, dropping both McCord and Kostis was a surprise. Love will give the CBS broadcasts something different. He’s good at getting to the heart of an issue quickly, he’s full of stories and he’s likely to sound like he’s been doing television for years.
McCord’s gift was his distinctive take on the game, combining his experience as a player with his keen sense of humor, making him one of the most popular voices in golf television for more than 30 years.
Going back and forth with Ben Wright and, later, David Feherty, McCord changed the tenor of telecasts, using his humor particularly during the unavoidable flat spots in an afternoon of golf. He’s the guy viewers wanted to go have a beer with.
As for Kostis, he told me last spring that he intended to continue his television work through 2021 but CBS Sports had other plans.
“I will retire definitely after the 2021 season but I will never retire from teaching,” Kostis told me.
Even with his busy CBS schedule, Kostis would spend the early part of most weeks on the practice tee in Arizona giving lessons, often to double-digit handicappers because he is a teacher at heart.
“I view myself as a teacher whether I’m working for CBS or not,” Kostis said. “I view myself as a person who is trying to communicate with a 10-, 12-, 15-handicapper at home. I don’t really try and analyze stuff in tour lingo or inside golf stuff. I try to keep it simple and relatable for the people I teach. I just view myself teaching to a bigger audience with CBS. …
“My philosophy has never changed. My philosophy is there is no one swing for everybody but everybody needs one swing. I teach individuals. I don’t teach a method. I don’t teach a system. I don’t teach the same thing to everybody.”
Chip Shot
• It is a cute photo making the social-media rounds these days of young Tiger Woods receiving an autograph from Sam Snead, whose career PGA Tour victory record he tied Sunday in Japan.
If he only knew …
The only two with 82. pic.twitter.com/6B4s3oYg5E
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) October 28, 2019
Woods said it happened at a California outing in which he played the last two holes with Snead.
“I remember hitting the ball into a little creek and playing it out of the water and making bogey. I bogeyed the last and he went par-par. The only time I ever got to play with Sam Snead, I was 2 down through two,” Woods said after his victory in the Zozo Championship.
That was not their only meeting. Woods attended a few Champions Dinners at the Masters where he got a taste of the colorful Snead in a private setting.
During his post-victory press session in Japan, Woods admitted he had given up on tying or passing Snead’s record during his long down time related to his back issues. Snead’s record had become a target for him once he reached 50 victories, Woods said.
“But then unfortunately I went through some rough patches with my back and didn’t play for a number of years so that record seemed like it was out of reach,” he said. “Having had my fourth back procedure and being able to come back and play at a decently high level again, it put the number back in the conversation again.”
Davis Love III is a natural behind a microphone. Photo: Ryan Young, PGA Tour via Getty Images