Roger Maltbie was emotional signing off on Golf Channel Friday night.
Golf Channel
These days, the professional golf world is obsessive about new. New codecs. New leagues. New tournaments. New cash. But on Thursday and Friday, the Players Championship tapped into one thing totally different: Something enduring. Something time-tested. Something legendary. It labored.
Roger Maltbie and Gary Koch joined Golf Channel’s broadcast staff at TPC Sawgrass for Thursday and Friday to assist rejoice the event’s fiftieth anniversary. Their presence appeared to supercharge the printed; play-by-play commentator Dan Hicks appeared giddy each time he received an opportunity to toss to “Rog,” whereas Mike Tirico gushed on the probability handy the reins to Koch.
For the uninitiated, Maltbie (an on-course reporter) and Koch (an analyst) labored on NBC’s golf broadcasts for more than 25 years earlier than the community allow them to go on the finish of 2022. Maltbie is among the many most beloved individuals to cruise the fairways anytime he attends a golf event. And Koch was chargeable for essentially the most iconic line in Players historical past when he delivered his “better than most” name accompanying Tiger Woods’ iconic putt in 2001.
Their departure was controversial; neither Koch nor Maltbie had been prepared for his or her tenures to finish, followers felt the identical method, and so they’ve stated so. Maltbie told Golfweek final 12 months that whereas he feels an “enormous” quantity of gratitude, the top of his run was “handled pretty s—-y.” Koch echoed that sentiment to Golf Digest. “It hurts,” he stated on the time. NBC executives had advised them the community was searching for “a refresh.” That didn’t make it really feel any higher.
While Maltbie stayed on with Golf Channel to name a handful of occasions in 2023, Koch declined an identical supply, citing an absence of want to “work in the minors” after a quarter-century on the high of golf’s broadcast ladder.
But on Thursday and Friday the 2 had been an integral a part of an energized Golf Channel staff. It helped that the leaderboard was star-studded, the commercials had been sparse and so they’d clearly invested in sources to make the occasion really feel massive. In different phrases, it helped that they’d been set as much as thrive. And for 2 days they did, like outdated instances however more treasured.
In one spirited alternate on No. 7 Friday afternoon, Koch questioned a dangerous play being undertaken by Rory McIlroy. He puzzled aloud why McIlroy’s caddie Harry Diamond wasn’t intervening — a name I puzzled if he’d have made on a long-term deal.
Maltbie chimed in along with his perspective:
“His ball’s going to have to have a lot of speed to be the height that it needs to be to get underneath the limb and get across that water,” he stated. “It’s going to have to be moving.”
And then, when McIlroy really pulled off the shot, scampering his ball by means of a bunker, off the lip and up onto the inexperienced, they had been each delighted to be confirmed fallacious.
There’s loads of good new stuff taking place with Golf Channel’s broadcast. A welcome innovation got here within the type of Smylie Kaufman’s “Happy Hour” section, which was informative and entertaining as he hosted with Kevin Kisner — plus company Keith Mitchell and Brian Harman — by the seventeenth tee. Kisner ought to be glorious on the weekend broadcast. And Johnson Wagner joined the “Live From” staff post-round to attempt to execute that McIlroy pine-straw escape in a pleasant, barely unhinged section that means they’re persevering with to strive enjoyable new issues. In all it added as much as a terrific two days for a Tour in want of an excellent week.
But there was nostalgia and melancholy as the printed wound down and the truth — that this was short-term — started to set in.
Before they signed off, Hicks requested Koch to recall one thing that viewers might not have recognized about that better-than-most putt.
“Most of the times that you hear the call, you don’t hear what Johnny Miller asks me initially,” Koch stated. “As the ball takes off – and Johnny always had a habit of bringing us in without us really knowing it was going to come – Tiger’s ball rolls about six to eight feet off the putter and I hear, ‘How’s that look, Gary?’ And that was the first ‘better than most,’ because it was farther left than any other putt I had seen to that point.”
It was an applicable capstone to the printed, and enjoyable so as to add one other dimension to an iconic name that may stay on for the Players’ subsequent 50 years, too. But it was Maltbie’s exit that stole the present. As Hicks tossed to him, greenside at No. 18, he seemed into the digicam, his eyes welling up, delivering a concise sign-off imbued with heartache.
“Thanks, guys,” he stated. “It was a treat and I loved every minute of it. I miss this. A lot.”
As we’ve got for many years, the golf world heard him. And we felt what he stated.
Dylan welcomes your suggestions at dylan_dethier@golf.com.
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