A Golf Legend In My Own Mind

Posted October 19th, 2008 at 1:47 pm in Golf Legends

TV Golf Credentials To Remember Them By

These are just a few of the many events I have been lucky to be a part of as an on-course TV Golf spotter during a long love affair with the game of golf, both as a regular player (strictly amateur now with a 12 hndcp) who loves to travel the world in pursuit of a good golf course and as a spectator at PGA Tour events. I have been fortunate to have attended all of golf's major championships and to have worked as an on-course spotter for all but one of them (The Masters Tournament – where Chuck Will of CBS had me at the top of his list until Lance Barrow overthrew the "Ayatollah" of CBS, Frank Chirkinian).

It Helps To Work In The Golf Business

Over the last 20 years between my regular jobs in golf travel and hospitality in Arizona. I have walked (and run) inside the ropes at both regular PGA Tour events and what they used to call "silly"-season events like the Skins Game (1st one, Desert Highlands, 1983), Desert Scramble (to promote the opening of Desert Mountain Golf Club in N. Scottsdale, Diners Club Matches at PGA West and the first two Anderson Consulting events played in my hometown of Scottsdale, Arizona at the Grayhawk Golf Club.

A Golf Moment With Ann Archer

I have spotted for TV broadcasts of LPGA Tour events, what used to be called the Senior Tour (now Champions Tour) and have called the player hitting orders for most of the major networks; CBS & TBS at the 92 PGA Championship, ABC sports for a bunch of the old Tournament of Champions at Lacosta Resort & Spa, and a slew of Nabisco LPGA tournaments, one Nissan Open and of course the British Open at Muirfield with ABC sports and the BBC. On the golf course at the TPC of Scottsdale I was watching it hail one year while working for ESPN at the Phoenix Open (now the FBR Open) on several occasions and the US Open at Pebble Beach with ABC.

Spotters are beneath noticing which works well when you are in a position to hear things around the compound. If you are a baby boomer you will particularly appreciate some of the legendary spotter stories that involve both PGA Tour members, celebrities and those visiting the "talent" at the compound who did not know their conversations were being overheard by someone with a brain. I also vividly remember shaking hands with a gorgeous and down-to-earth Ann Archer who was visiting her husband Terry Jastrow at the ABC sports compound during one of his last events for ABC sports (at the Tournament of Champions at Lacosta Resort- the field was PGA Tour winners from the previous year – he left later that year for Nicklaus Productions).

I can remember many hilarious moments where spotter bloopers and gaffs caused producers some serious indigestion, embarassment and loss of voice from screaming obsenities at spotters who were distracted by a pretty girl or were not in position when called for the hitting order. All that plus any and all spotter hall of fame material that I can wring out of John Kerr, spotter extraordinaire, good friend, and the guy responsible for getting me into this part-time TV gig 18 years ago. Who eee Johnny, the fun we had. Stay tuned, his spotter stories are truly legendary!