Like any job, there’s a learning curve, even for guys like Joe Buck. Buck and his Fox Sports team called the U.S. Open and U.S. Women’s Open from 2015 to 2020, up until the broadcast partnership abruptly ended in June 2020.
Buck joined this week’s Subpar podcast to discuss his time calling golf on TV, what it’s like to work a Super Bowl, his Mount Rushmore of broadcasters and more. During the golf conversation, he went deep on the learning curve of calling golf on TV.
While he said it was difficult to get used to things like the correct terminology the broadcast desired — i.e. teeing ground, not tee box; or hole location, not pin, etc. — he said he learned his biggest lesson when he fell into a trap he had long warned young broadcasters about.
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“I found that I was trying to prove how much I knew about the players and their recent history and where they are in the Official World Golf Ranking — all the other stuff — and what was missing was, OK, we just saw Spieth putting for par, and he missed it, shot, shot, and now we are back to Spieth. Like putting the narrative together and what we are watching and trying to build that versus trying to prove what I knew. I fell into every trap that I tell young broadcasters not to fall into of being married to your notes and your research instead of just watching what was going on and commenting on that.
“It was a steep learning curve, and I’m not saying I learned it, but by the end I was like, Man, I missed the mark here for a couple of years now. I gotta get back to what I do, which is seeing, reacting and trying to build why someone is red hot, what kind of run they are on and where someone’s tournament fell apart. That’s what’s interesting to the viewer.”
Subpar co-host Colt Knost added that when he first started calling golf for CBS, veteran Frank Nobilo told him to “watch the screen” and “react” versus focusing on notes. Buck agreed.
“All that stuff [in your notes] is stuff that’s happened,” Buck said. “What’s going on on the screen has never happened before, and if you are missing that because you are digging through your notes for something you wrote a week prior, you are missing the boat. If a big wind comes in and throws every note out of the booth, you should still be able to do the game or tournament. And I fell into the trap I warned guys against all the time.”
You can listen to the complete interview with Buck here, or watch it on YouTube below.
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