Shownotes
The podcast delves into the intricate world of golf broadcasting as Jeff Tracy converses with Frank Nabolo, a seasoned commentator for CBS and the Golf Channel. The discussion unveils the rigorous preparation that underpins the art of golf commentary, particularly as the new season approaches. Frank elucidates his methodical approach to understanding the course dynamics and the nuances of player performances, emphasizing the importance of perspective and adaptability in broadcasting. He draws parallels between golf and other sports, highlighting the need for broadcasters to continuously enrich their knowledge and skills by observing various sports, thereby enhancing their commentary techniques. Furthermore, the conversation touches upon the technological advancements in golf equipment and instruction, underscoring how these innovations influence both the game and the way it is presented to audiences. Frank shares his experiences from attending the AMG Golf Summit, where he absorbed insights from renowned instructors, stressing the significance of communication between players and coaches to improve the viewing experience for fans.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Birdie Ball
- Weston Kia
- CNN
- AMG
- MIT
- Piers Morgan
- Uncensored
- Trackman
- Mevo
- Tailor Made
- CBS
- Golf Channel
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcripts
It's time for Grilling at the Green.
Speaker A:Join Jeff Tracy as he explores the golfing lifestyle and tries to keep it.
Speaker B:In the short grass for the hackers.
Speaker A:New sweepers and turf spankers.
Speaker A:Here's Jeff.
Speaker B:Hey, everybody.
Speaker B:Welcome to Grilling at the Green.
Speaker B:I'm JT Big, part of Golf News Network, among other ancillary broadcast platforms and radio stations.
Speaker B:Really honored today to welcome back to the show Frank Nabolo.
Speaker B:Frank has taken time out of his busy schedule.
Speaker B:May not be busy right at this moment, but it's gearing up, trust me.
Speaker B:And we want to thank him for being here today.
Speaker B:Frank, it's nice to see you again.
Speaker B:And first of all, I had to say, didn't your daughter just land a new gig?
Speaker A:She did.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:That's a good way to start.
Speaker A:Happy New Year, first of all, Jeff, thanks.
Speaker A:She did.
Speaker A:She left CNN a few years ago, and she actually got a board position on an AI company.
Speaker A:It was called.
Speaker A:It's called ifs and she had a contract for three years.
Speaker A:Just didn't quite like the way it was working out.
Speaker A:She was a spokesman for them, board position, met a lot of people from mit, and for some reason, she just wanted to go back into the previous space in a little different way.
Speaker A:And she's good friends with Piers Morgan.
Speaker A:So Piers had started his YouTube channel, which is called Uncensored.
Speaker A:Bianca is more of an academic.
Speaker A:That's my daughter's name.
Speaker A:And she wanted to do history and sort of stroke politics, so that started up officially probably just over a month ago.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And she's slowly building an audience.
Speaker A:But she's very good.
Speaker A:I mean, she's a voracious reader.
Speaker A:One of the best history schools in England is Warwick, so that's where she attended.
Speaker A:Some of their field trips were great.
Speaker A:They'd go to Italy or Greece, and that never left her, really.
Speaker A:But, yeah, so I'm proud of her.
Speaker B:Well, good for her.
Speaker B:And good for you.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:I saw that clip a while back, and I went.
Speaker B:I'm gonna have to ask Frank about that.
Speaker B:So, anyway, a couple of things to get us started here.
Speaker B:You're heading into the new season, and I think a lot of listeners, I. E. View.
Speaker B:How do you.
Speaker B:How do you prep?
Speaker B:I mean, you're just a wealth of knowledge, obviously, from all your experiences and all that, but some people say BS but there's got to be prep.
Speaker B:I mean, I prep just doing this show.
Speaker B:So you're on national television, international television.
Speaker B:There's got to be some prep time that goes into that.
Speaker A:Yeah, sadly you're right.
Speaker A:Otherwise we get yelled at more than, more than normal.
Speaker A:But you know, golfers, golf never stops, right?
Speaker A:So the hardest thing is when you shut it down.
Speaker A:I, I do try and watch other sports in the off season because I think you learn as a broadcaster from other sports.
Speaker A:Just because we're in the golf space doesn't mean that you can't improve your technique, so to speak.
Speaker A:And you know, so you, you watch NFL, see the way they keep their energy up.
Speaker A:Or you might watch basketball, hockey, I watch rugby where I grew up, you know, all sorts of different types of announcers.
Speaker A:So that's more the technical side on maybe what you can do a little differently as a broadcaster.
Speaker A:And then you try and obviously keep up to date with what's going on, whether it's equipment, whether it's instruction.
Speaker A:Obviously the players are moving around like, you know, musical chairs between living the PGA Tour.
Speaker A:So that's another thing.
Speaker A:But for example, yesterday I was lucky enough to be a fly on the wall at the AMG Golf Summit.
Speaker A:And AMG, it's more geared around Gears, which is computerized software 3D format, which, which is phenomenal.
Speaker A:So a lot of things have changed since I last played competitively.
Speaker A:You know, it was just sort of pre track, man, getting into it.
Speaker A:And then each year, I mean if you're a techie, there's so many great things in goal.
Speaker A:So I have a lot of respect for the instructors.
Speaker A:Sometimes they don't have a big enough voice in the game.
Speaker A:So yesterday I got there at 8:30 in the morning and left at 6:30 in the afternoon.
Speaker A:I was just a sponge.
Speaker A:There was Brian Manzella, used to coach.
Speaker A:David Toms was there.
Speaker A:I don't want to go through all the coaches, but you know, there was so many good people.
Speaker A:Sean Webb from amg, he was nice enough to give me a spot there.
Speaker A:And so I realized I was taking up somebody else's spot.
Speaker A:But just to be a sponge and learn, you know, these people watch swing after swing after swing.
Speaker A:Some of their verbiage might be a little differently, a little different, but they're also the conduit to the people that play every day.
Speaker A:You know, we, we televise the sport, they deal with it on a day to day basis.
Speaker A:So I have a lot of respect and I learn a lot from them.
Speaker A:So that was a little bit of my homework yesterday.
Speaker B:It, it seems like you said, it's just a constant flow of new gear, new tech stuff, new techniques.
Speaker B:There always seems to be a new coach.
Speaker B:That comes out and says, hey, I've got the answer.
Speaker B:Which I, I think I'm old enough to say nobody actually has the answer, but, but that's why we.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, just to interrupt on there, that was one thing I learned yesterday.
Speaker A:Perspective, for example.
Speaker A:Like a coach will say to your point, this is the secret.
Speaker A:And then what they've found, and it's not like the coach is wrong, it's the camera angle or whatever.
Speaker A:They looked at the various people from their lens today.
Speaker A:That was the theory.
Speaker A:It's a bit like when the earth was flat.
Speaker A:And then the more information you get, doesn't mean that they're crazy, but with all the information they had right there and then the earth was flat.
Speaker A:And then the more information you get, the more worldly you become, the more knowledge and you become more and more educated.
Speaker A:So the instruction of yesterday, that might have said, for example, one of the topics yesterday was you shallow the club.
Speaker A:And I watched swing after swing yesterday.
Speaker A:And it's a different muscle group.
Speaker A:Players do not do that.
Speaker A:It's just where the camera, camera is or the angle, it gives the appearance that that's what they're doing.
Speaker A:So therefore, everybody watching, therefore tries to copy it.
Speaker A:And you go down a rabbit hole.
Speaker A:So you've got a lot of smart minds that are trying to bridge that and stop it, stop the average amateur from sucking that information in and for example, wrecking their game.
Speaker B:Well, you touched on a point there for me.
Speaker B:In the, in the golf magazines for years you would, you would see a very well respected coach come out and say, this is how you hit that sand shot, just as an example, right?
Speaker B:And then you would go to 15 pages back and there was another coach that says, no, you hit it this way.
Speaker B:And I think, and they both have valid points for like you say, what they're seeing at the time, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker B:But I think the average muck like me who's out there just trying to, you know, break 90, if you will, that gets a little confusing sometimes.
Speaker A:It does.
Speaker A:I was on the phone this morning with one of my best friends and he's an Australian, he's in the hotel business in Charlotte, runs the Omni there.
Speaker A:And he just got a Mevo, a new Mevo, and here's his thing set up in his garage where he hits some balls.
Speaker A:And we just got into a discussion about, you know, trackman.
Speaker A:And it's not a, it's not a brand thing.
Speaker A:The mevo is not $25,000.
Speaker A:So for him it was like you know, do I go ball speed?
Speaker A:Do I go, you know, clubhead speed?
Speaker A:Do I go loft?
Speaker A:And all this.
Speaker A:All these things to your point where they read one article about, you know, the gaps between your clubs should be 4 degrees, then another article says, well, it should be 10 yards or 15 yards.
Speaker A:So like, is that contradictory or is that still saying the same thing?
Speaker A:And then what the pros are doing now is they gap with ball speed so they find the ball speed with it, which sounds a little foreign to the average amateur.
Speaker A:And it also sounds more complicated.
Speaker A:So on one hand you have truth, but you got to simplify that for the guy at home.
Speaker A:So, you know, he's a four handicapper, he's a very good player, he loves his golf.
Speaker A:But to me, it's also like a conduit to the people that are watching the golf.
Speaker A:So as broadcasters, I think we've got to be in some respects even more accurate or if it's too complicated, then don't talk about it.
Speaker A:We're not there to be the star of the show.
Speaker A:We're trying to, you know, we hold ourselves to a standard to do the best show we can and for the viewer at home and we try and have some fun in the process.
Speaker A:So whether that's Colt having a job, because, for example, this afternoon Colt's playing golf, he's very close to some of the players.
Speaker A:He stays current with the game from his own golf point of view.
Speaker A:And so you've got just a nice blend of everything.
Speaker B:Oh, sure, absolutely.
Speaker B:We want to thank the folks at Birdie Ball for sponsoring part of this show.
Speaker B:If you need a little practice putting green, that if you live in the part of the world like I do where the weather is not always cooperative, go to birdieball.com and check out out there putting greens.
Speaker B:Hey, we're going to take a quick break here on grilling at the green and Frank and I'll be back right after this.
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Speaker B:Welcome back to Grilling at the Green, proudly part of the Golf News Network.
Speaker B:Today we're talking with Frank Nabolo from CBS and Golf Channel fame.
Speaker B:How much prep time do you do once, you know, like you said, you're leaving this week, I believe, or very soon.
Speaker A:Next week.
Speaker A:Next week.
Speaker B:Next week.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:To, to go to your first broadcast.
Speaker B:Walk us through fairly quickly if you could.
Speaker B:Frank, once you get there and everybody says hello because you haven't seen them for a while, it's the first broadcast of the year, technically.
Speaker B:What's your day like before you go on the air?
Speaker A:Yeah, that's a good question.
Speaker A:Up until this year, I did a lot of Thursday Fridays for Golf Channel before I went on cbs.
Speaker A:So if I used my previous years, for example, I would get on nearly, you know, at least a full day before.
Speaker A:So in those days, it was Wednesday, and you go on the range a little bit, but you also go around the golf course.
Speaker A:I look at it through a player's eyes, but I'm not trying to play the golf course through, through my ability or my eyes.
Speaker A:I'm trying to say, well, for example, Rory McElroy and Scotty Scheffler, the two of the best players in the world, they play the game differently.
Speaker A:So a shot for Rory might be easier than a shot for Scotty and vice versa.
Speaker A:And you can go through that for the rest of the field.
Speaker A:I used to use the analogy the two Johnsons, Dustin and Zach, you couldn't play the game any more differently.
Speaker A:So if they had 260 yards across water, but Dustin Johnson was no big deal because he had immense power.
Speaker A:For Zach Johnson in those days, he was probably on the limit of the three wood across water.
Speaker A:So it was a much tougher shot.
Speaker A:So you have to try and look at a hole in a lot of different ways.
Speaker A:And of course, golf, we change the whole location every day.
Speaker A:We have different weather, it might be into one day across bridges and whatever.
Speaker A:So you learn the course naturally and you try and pick up.
Speaker A:I remember, for example, pebble beach last year.
Speaker A:I did Thursday, Friday as well as Saturday.
Speaker A:Sunday, I was having breakfast with my wife on property and Roy's agent and one of his best friends who also helps him as a guy called Niall o' Connor and Sean o' Flaherty was, was the agent.
Speaker A:And they just joined us for a quick bit.
Speaker A:We didn't really want to chat about golf.
Speaker A:But then just as we were leaving, I Said, hey, any changes?
Speaker A:And Nile says, yeah, Rory's trying a new ball.
Speaker A:Now, I'm not allowed to say it on regular broadcast.
Speaker A:It was tailor made.
Speaker A:There's a lot of different.
Speaker A:You can find that out in two seconds on the Internet.
Speaker A:And I just said, which one does it spin a little more because that bull has five covers.
Speaker A:I don't want to go down a rabbit hole here.
Speaker A:Yeah, a little softer.
Speaker A:Spins more.
Speaker A:And it was a pebble beach.
Speaker A:So instantly you start thinking, so is it going to help his short irons, which is sometimes a weakness.
Speaker A:It opens up Pandora's box on what it might do.
Speaker A:Will he lose yardage with the driver because of the five calls?
Speaker A:Maybe, maybe not.
Speaker A:And it sends you down, down this road, which to me is extremely exciting because it's.
Speaker A:It's a.
Speaker A:It's new for him.
Speaker A:So it's worth watching and it's also worth telling the viewer.
Speaker A:So you tell the people you're working with, whether it's Dottie, Colt, Trevor, Jim or whatever.
Speaker A:And everybody's sort of absorbing information, like, you know, like an octopus.
Speaker A:You got tentacles going everywhere.
Speaker A:Amanda, the same.
Speaker A:She will talk to the players from a different point of view, maybe run into a coach.
Speaker A:So you're trying to gather that information.
Speaker A:We're trying to share it, not steal it.
Speaker A:And like I said, Golf Channel days.
Speaker A:Then I would get into the Thursday broadcast, same thing in the morning, look at the golf course, the whole locations, see where they are.
Speaker A:Maybe what's hard, what's easier.
Speaker A:You look at things like shot link, there's a lot of tools.
Speaker A:And then I always remember something from Billy Packer.
Speaker A:I met Billy Packer years ago and like a young broadcaster picked his brains up.
Speaker A:You know, I didn't want to be rude, but I'm like, there he is, you know, this great basketball announcer.
Speaker A:And I'm like, you don't mind me asking, how did you prepare?
Speaker A:And he goes, yeah, it's quite simple, really.
Speaker A:You know, I look at why Team A should win.
Speaker A:Middle league basketball is an east to west game.
Speaker A:Not like.
Speaker A:Not like golf.
Speaker A:I look at why the Lakers should win or lose, and I look at why the Celtics should win or lose, and I'm like, well, that's not really in my mind.
Speaker A:I'm thinking that's not really riveting.
Speaker A:But the last thing, what he said, I'll never forget.
Speaker A:He says, then I put it to the side and I watch the ball.
Speaker A:So in other words, he's made an argument for the Lakers and against the Lakers.
Speaker A:He's Made an argument for Celtics, for them and against them.
Speaker A:So he's done his homework.
Speaker A:But then the most important thing for the people at home is what are the players doing with the ball?
Speaker A:So I look at that as an analogy for trying to get ready for a golf tournament.
Speaker A:You try and see why this golf course should cert a certain player or maybe where he'll come unstuck same year down the field.
Speaker A:I remember Jason Day, for example, at the Players Championship.
Speaker A:I was on a live from in those days, and.
Speaker A:And Brandon and I, we were.
Speaker A:We were going through the players really that we thought, the really good players that we didn't think could win.
Speaker A:And Jason was one of them.
Speaker A:Because Jason, in that, that particular time, even though he's one of the best players in the world, his sort of short irons, middle arms were barely top hundred.
Speaker A:But then you make an argument on why he could win.
Speaker A:And the only way we could figure out that he would do that is he had to hit from.
Speaker A:From a closer distance.
Speaker A:In other words, even with a six iron in his hand and another player within a six iron and he's going to lose.
Speaker A:But if he's hitting an eight arm with somebody else hitting a six iron, it's.
Speaker A:It's game on.
Speaker A:And so I was sort of really proud of that segment where you make the argument for and against the player.
Speaker A:And then, lo and behold, Jason Day did win that week, and he won it actually by being far more aggressive of the tee and going with shorter clubs.
Speaker A:It doesn't always work out that way, but that's.
Speaker A:You've got to go in with knowing your homework, but with a complete open mind.
Speaker A:And then, to quote Billy Packer, you just watch the ball.
Speaker A:You hang in.
Speaker A:It's a team.
Speaker A:You know, as Vin Scully once said, you know, golf is a.
Speaker A:It's a relay sport.
Speaker A:You know, when you're an announcer, it's a team sport.
Speaker A:She's just trying to hand the baton off and give people a wide berth and allow them to do the best job possible as well.
Speaker B:Well, and then you have to be prepared for whatever Colt is going to throw at you out there on the course.
Speaker A:Yeah, he can be a little annoying.
Speaker A:He's.
Speaker A:He's good.
Speaker A:I mean, we've got.
Speaker B:I know.
Speaker A:Along with Jason Wagner, I was talking about the Thursday, Friday with the Golf Channel.
Speaker A:I mean, I. CBS has been a tremendous employer to me because once the tournament started, we've condensed the field.
Speaker A:So Saturday, Sunday, you know, you feel like you've got everybody ramped up and you Got the business end of the tournament.
Speaker A:So you're seeing some of the best shots.
Speaker A:You have all the best technology, camera angles and all that.
Speaker A:Steve Melton, the director, is just an absolute genius.
Speaker A:The drones, I remember doing Augusta, remember the November Masters, where there was no patrons, so we were allowed to put drones.
Speaker A:Of course, never look better.
Speaker A:I mean, you saw things you never ever seen before.
Speaker A:And also you've got to have people that throw curveballs.
Speaker A:I Colt, you know, we've, I think CBS has done a tremendous job of trying to garner young talent.
Speaker A:You know, Colts 40, Johnson, Wagner, Wagner, the new edition, now 45.
Speaker A:Obviously, Amanda isn't very old as well.
Speaker A:And then you've got the, the gray heads, which is, you know, Jim and myself and of course Trevor underneath that and his brother Mark.
Speaker A:So we feel like we have a good ensemble.
Speaker A:I think we also have the best producer in the game in golf right now, which is seller shy.
Speaker A:So matter of fact, we have a zoom call this afternoon.
Speaker A:So nobody takes anything for granted.
Speaker B:Oh, sure, absolutely.
Speaker B:We want to thank folks at Birdie Ball for sponsoring part of this show.
Speaker B:If you need a little practice putting green that if you live in the part of the world like I do where the weather is not always cooperative, go to birdieball.com and check out their putting green greens.
Speaker B:Excuse me, Frank and I'll be back in just a minute.
Speaker B:Don't go away.
Speaker B:Hey, everybody, it's jt.
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Speaker B:Welcome back to grilling.
Speaker B:It's green.
Speaker B:I'm J.T.
Speaker B:we're blessed to have Frank Navalo with us today.
Speaker B:Frank, I wanted to throw something at you a lot in the news.
Speaker B:Now we've got Brooks coming back to the tour.
Speaker B:A lot of hubbub about that.
Speaker B:Some of the guys over on LIVE are saying like, we're good.
Speaker B:They're going to get their X millions and move forward from in the booth.
Speaker B:How does that look?
Speaker B:Is he now just another golfer on tour when he's actually in the field or is it, is it going to be something that's going to have to be addressed?
Speaker B:Maybe not every day, but there's going to be comments about it obviously in the chat, as they say.
Speaker A:A bit of both, to be honest.
Speaker A:It's going to be interesting.
Speaker A:My first week is Torrey Pines.
Speaker A:That'll be his first week back.
Speaker A:And then the following week he's going to play in Phoenix.
Speaker A:And we know what Phoenix is like.
Speaker A:You know, you've got, especially on a Saturday, if he's playing well, it'll be interesting to see the reaction.
Speaker A:So that's one of those things as the same with Billy Packer.
Speaker A:You just follow the ball because you've got a garner where the fans are, hey, this is phenomenal.
Speaker A:We got them back.
Speaker A:We love it.
Speaker A:Or they're giving him a grilling promo for your show.
Speaker A:Really.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker A:But, but you know, I remember Brooks, his, his caddy, you know, Ricky, Ricky Elliott, he used to be here, you know, one of the, one of the assistant professionals at Lake Nona.
Speaker A:So I've known Ricky for years and, and that's really how I got to meet, meet Brooks.
Speaker A: , in: Speaker A:He was number one for nearly a year.
Speaker A:I think it's 45, 47 weeks.
Speaker A:So, you know, you've got a guy that help.
Speaker A:He's also translated that ability into five major championships.
Speaker A:So actually the following year in career is where he re injured his knee.
Speaker A:So I think part of his departure and going over to live is, was the knee.
Speaker A:He didn't think he could put it through the same type of stress that flying around the world and PGA Tour demands out of its players to be.
Speaker A:You know, there's no question it's a, it's tougher from top to bottom than anywhere else in the world.
Speaker A:So I think playing at Liv, it gave his knee a chance to heal.
Speaker A:And by all accounts it's not bad.
Speaker A:So for me, I like Brooks's game, but he's also part villain.
Speaker A:And one of the things that LIV did, it took away some of the villains.
Speaker A:And if you use wrestling as an example, you need goodies and you need baddies.
Speaker A:So we lost a few of the so called villains, whether it be Sergio Garcia.
Speaker A:Remember the days when he wanted to take on Tiger Woods?
Speaker A:That's what made it so compelling.
Speaker A:You had the yin and the yang in the game.
Speaker A:Patrick Reed, phenomenal player.
Speaker A:But he rubbed a few people up the wrong way.
Speaker A:You also left And Brooks can be incredibly candid.
Speaker A:We've missed that.
Speaker A:Matter of fact, Rory McIlroy on the, on the PJ Tour side has sort of become the goody and the villain at the same time, which is a bit weird.
Speaker A:So you need people that they go, okay, he's a villain and he's a hero.
Speaker A:So it'll be good for Brooks to come back and if he can sort of adopt that role again.
Speaker A:But just from watching him play, you know, five majors, only Mickelson's one more in the Tiger woods era.
Speaker A:So, you know, he's just a great player whichever way you, you look at it.
Speaker A:And he has the ability on tough horses to do what he's done already five times, beat the best, his major records, incredible.
Speaker A:So I'm looking forward to having him back in the fray.
Speaker A:It's going to strengthen the fields.
Speaker A:It does give us something else to talk about, and it makes the PGA Tour stronger.
Speaker B:You know, you.
Speaker B:You mentioned Rory.
Speaker B:I've said a couple times on the show, I actually kind of feel bad for him.
Speaker B:Not for his career and all that, but kind of the way I always thought the Tour kind of didn't do him any favors.
Speaker B:He was out there, an adamant spokesman for the tour, staying the same.
Speaker B:And then they, they did some things and we don't need to re litigate all that.
Speaker B:But I, I kind of felt like they just kind of went, yeah, okay.
Speaker B:And I think he personally, from what I can see, and I, I watch his news conferences, his pressers and stuff, I don't blame him for sometimes having a little chip on his shoulder.
Speaker B:That's just me personally, I'd probably be more vocal than he is at times.
Speaker A:That's a good evaluation, I think, Jeff, for a number of reasons going back, some of the people that fans thought were villains, as we're just saying before they left.
Speaker A:So Rory became the spokesman.
Speaker A:Scotty Scheffler, phenomenal player.
Speaker A:He has that ability.
Speaker A:He's a bit like Byron Nelson.
Speaker A:And I never only got to know him with a handshake and was about it and.
Speaker A:But Byron just played golf, and that's why his nickname was Lord Byron.
Speaker A:And he was damn good at it.
Speaker A:And then all he wanted to do was earn enough money for his farm and he kept the game in high regard and that was it.
Speaker A:Nothing more than that, nothing less, but nothing more.
Speaker A:And I think Scotty's along the same way Scotty is.
Speaker A:He's the most normal superstar I've ever seen, and there's nothing fake about it.
Speaker A:His relationship with his longtime instructor, Randy Smith's tremendous.
Speaker A:I've talked about it.
Speaker A:Agnosium.
Speaker A:But when Scotty went through a growth Spurt for about 12 months, and a lot of people would have left their instructor because they're not playing very good.
Speaker A:He had a little bit of dip when he was a teenager, and Randy says, you're fine.
Speaker A:You've just grown like a foot in a year.
Speaker A:What do you expect?
Speaker A:Further away from the ball party?
Speaker A:Everything's going to be different.
Speaker A:We don't have to change, just grow into it.
Speaker A:And it's the same when, you know, last year when he heard his hand trying to make pasta at home on the wine glass, I mean, that was a severe injury, and he very rarely did he talk about it started off, and he started getting a little bit of criticism because he wasn't playing as well.
Speaker A:If you go back and look at the first six weeks prior to Augusta, I mean, you never really saw the Scottish shifter that we'd seen the previous few years, but there was zero panic in the team.
Speaker A:He didn't go there.
Speaker A:He didn't grab a microphone and say, I'm injured, or whatever.
Speaker A:He just said, just struggling, whatever.
Speaker A:And Randy, when I saw Randy, I decided they just.
Speaker A:We know what we've got to do.
Speaker A:Patience and all that.
Speaker A:So that's the number one player in the world, and he's going through.
Speaker A:But there's a void, especially on the PGA Tour side, because you've got this fight between the Tour and live, and someone has to fill the void.
Speaker A:And that's been filled by Rory, because the great resume, plus winning, you know, the Grand Slam, it just.
Speaker A:It's huge.
Speaker A:Plus being, you know, the.
Speaker A:The greatest European player ever.
Speaker A:I mean, you can just tick a lot of boxes.
Speaker A:So he's like, the game needs a voice.
Speaker A:Tiger woods, we weren't seeing him, you know, Jack Nicholas.
Speaker A:When he comes out to his tournament, we've lost Arnold Palmer.
Speaker A:So really, our side needed a voice.
Speaker A:So Rory was the goody and the baddie all at once.
Speaker A:And that's where the chip came.
Speaker A:But the good thing about it, which I'm proud of, is he didn't back down.
Speaker A:And he knew.
Speaker A:He knew his people were going to take shots at him.
Speaker A:But on one hand, he's made a lot of money out of the game.
Speaker A:On the other hand, he says, I got an opinion, and I don't really care what people say, so I'm going to say it.
Speaker A:I kind of admire that.
Speaker B:Yeah, I do, too, because it's nice.
Speaker B:It's refreshing.
Speaker B:As much as I was a Tiger woods fan and still am, I mean, unabashedly.
Speaker B:But I never saw anybody, except maybe somebody that worked in Congress that could talk for five minutes and not say anything at times.
Speaker B:And Tiger could do that.
Speaker B:He was very skilled.
Speaker B:I think he was trained from early on.
Speaker B:That is a skill.
Speaker B:I'm not taking anything away from him, but Rory just kind of comes out and goes, yeah, well, I thought that sucked.
Speaker B:And, and, and, and then he will tell you why, you know, he doesn't just make kind of a very definitive statement and move on.
Speaker B:He'll give you some reasoning behind it and whether you agree with it or not.
Speaker B:I find that very refreshing myself.
Speaker A:So, yeah, that's, that's his background.
Speaker A:His dad, Jerry and Rose, they brought him up that way.
Speaker A:You know, you have a spine.
Speaker A:I'd like to go back to the Tiger woods thing, too.
Speaker A:It was always Tiger got criticism in a different way.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker A:And he's one of those rare athletes that are just born to win and they refuse to quit.
Speaker A:So Tiger would give us from.
Speaker A:During the daylight hours, he would give us a highlight reel every day.
Speaker A:So it was like, the rest is my time.
Speaker A:And so he would shut it down.
Speaker A:And you're right.
Speaker A:I think a politician or congressman is a great way to describe it, but he was very aware that he was always going to be quoted.
Speaker A:And, you know, you can say, you know, you're in the, you're in the industry.
Speaker A:You can talk for an hour, someone can clip something out for 15 seconds and they can make you appear anyway.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:And in fairness to him, whether he played good, bad or indifferent, and most of the time it was good.
Speaker A:He very rarely.
Speaker A:I mean, you probably count him on one hand.
Speaker A:We did not do an interview, and that was the standard.
Speaker A:I don't.
Speaker A:Which I don't think we gave him enough credit for to this very day.
Speaker A:He would take it on the chin.
Speaker A:He doubled the last.
Speaker A:They stick a microphone in front of his mouth and he would talk.
Speaker A:So he knew that if he said something inflammatory, he was just going to get written up and killed.
Speaker A:And all he was worried about was preparing for the very next day.
Speaker A:I love sports and even motor racing.
Speaker A:For example, a big fan of Formula one.
Speaker A:I look at a Max Verstappen, who's just a rare talent like Tiger woods, and they just know that people are trying to chip into their psychings.
Speaker A:Novak Djokovic is another one.
Speaker A:And so they have to have a steel trap mind.
Speaker A:That's part of their greatness.
Speaker B:Like, I said I think Tiger through his father, through time, through probably the folks at Nike.
Speaker B:Do you know, they're not far from my house, trust me.
Speaker B:And they pretty much control the message.
Speaker B:So yeah.
Speaker B:And he was under a 24.7spotlight.
Speaker B:Anyway, Frank and I are going to take another break.
Speaker B:We're going to go get some cold drinks or whatever and we'll be back.
Speaker B:Just, just a couple minutes.
Speaker B:Stay with us.
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Speaker B:Welcome back to Grilling at the Green.
Speaker B:I'm JT Today.
Speaker B:I'm very fortunate to have Frank Noblo from CBS with us today and sometimes part time for a golf channel.
Speaker B:Once in a while you fill in and you always do a great job.
Speaker B:I wanted to compliment you on that.
Speaker B:I've always, when you first agreed to do the show, what, two or three years ago, I was so excited to meet you just because I like the quality of your work.
Speaker B:I'm always appreciative of people in our industry that work at the top and have the quality of content like Frank does.
Speaker B:So we got a few minutes here before we wrap up the regular show.
Speaker B:Frank, one of the things I wanted to ask you and you touched on in the last segment, golf media.
Speaker B:And I was thinking about this today, getting ready.
Speaker B:If you look back at like when Jack and Arnie were in their heydays and then, you know, you had some interim and then Tiger came along.
Speaker B:Do you think Jack and Arnie stories would be, how do I want to say, quantified?
Speaker B:Maybe, maybe that's not the right word meaning that there was kind of a gentleman, gentleman's agreement back in those days with the old sports writers and stuff.
Speaker B:They nobody really went after him too hard and that they had a lot of respect for him.
Speaker B:They probably had drinks with them after the round.
Speaker B:Not so much in the Tiger woods area era and going forward because we have the Internet and like you said in the last segment, everybody wants to take a little chip out of you, there's always the instantaneous gratificational headlines.
Speaker B:I think there's a real difference in those worlds.
Speaker B:But I just maybe thought you might give us your take on that.
Speaker A:I love where you're going there.
Speaker A:I would use two words and they're vastly different.
Speaker A:I would say or phrases.
Speaker A:Actually lack of respect and the desire for more money is what's changed considerably across the board.
Speaker A:I think where I say lack of respect, if you go back to Arnold Palmer, just to use him for an example, because he was a great statesman for the game, he respected the journalism.
Speaker A:Bob Drum, for example, was his right hand man, he was a journalist.
Speaker B:But right.
Speaker A:If Arnold crossed the line, maybe with another writer, Bob Drum would come to him and go, hey, Arnold, we got a chat.
Speaker A:He said, you know, you blew off so and so or whatever though, they're on a deadline for the, you know, for whatever article, whatever magazine.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker A:And he would tell them, you know, like, because everybody has a job to do, right?
Speaker A:You know, like you go to the supermarket, it doesn't hurt to say thank you or please.
Speaker A:And I think there was a respect for the industry.
Speaker A:It's gone in politics as well.
Speaker A:I know you can argue that whether it's media is leaning to left or whatever, but journalism was a trade.
Speaker A:The same way whether you make automobiles, you want to be the best you can.
Speaker A:So you respected people that got out of bed and did a job.
Speaker A:And I think now there's less respect for other people's industries.
Speaker A:It's more like, me, me, me, hey, what about me?
Speaker A:My voice is more important than yours, which I think is absolutely garbage.
Speaker A:Everybody should have a voice.
Speaker A:And like I said, they're just going to earn different amounts of money.
Speaker A:So the desire to earn money means in today's world, whether it's Twitter or X, whatever you want to call it, Instagram, even a print, it's a race to be first.
Speaker A:In other words, if I can beat you to the punch, I can make more money than you as a scribe.
Speaker A:And that to me is not really good motivation.
Speaker A:And you see it on the player side too, because the war between the PJ Tour and that is literally about making more money.
Speaker A:It used to be when you're a kid, you wanted to play golf and you wanted to compete, you wanted to be as good as you can.
Speaker A:You had a dream on the Masters of the Open, whatever it was, the dream came first, I promise you.
Speaker A:Now some of the younger kids, no matter what the sport is, they want to be Rich, that used to be this.
Speaker A:That used to be the secondary goal.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Just look at the nil and college football, for example.
Speaker B:You know, I mean, that's just crazy to me.
Speaker B:But I got gray hair like you do, Frank, so I can say that.
Speaker B:But I, I think you're right because it's, you know, it's all about the clicks, the downloads.
Speaker B:They.
Speaker B:They get paid per one, you know, so to speak.
Speaker B:And I have a problem too, with the quality of.
Speaker B:Of reporting.
Speaker B:I have a real problem with the quality of writing.
Speaker A:That's fair.
Speaker B:The writing is horrific sometimes.
Speaker B:And no chat GTP is not going to make a good article for you.
Speaker B:That's my thought.
Speaker B:But anyway, I'm old, so there you go.
Speaker A:No, no, no.
Speaker A:But, you know, I'm not trying to defend gray heads like yourself and myself, but to me, when I was a kid, you learn from all ages.
Speaker A:One of the things that I still love about this game is that you don't have to be 20 and.
Speaker A:Or, you know, between 20 and 30 to be like a golfers.
Speaker A:When you're a teenager or kid, you play with adults.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And then you play with older people, younger people or whatever.
Speaker A:I mean, the game is so diverse.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:That's one of the beauties of it.
Speaker A:Just about every other sport you.
Speaker A:You fit into a little window.
Speaker A:Like that's your.
Speaker A:That's the time when you can be vaguely good.
Speaker A:So, you know, we.
Speaker A:We allow people to play golf on a multitude of levels, so we of all people should be more tolerant than any other sport in any other industry.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker B:I agree.
Speaker B:Frank Nablo.
Speaker B:Good luck next week at 20 points.
Speaker B:Yeah, no, but you're gonna have some great weather, I'm sure.
Speaker B:Thank you again.
Speaker B:We'll be back next week with another edition of Grilling at the Green.
Speaker B:So until then, go out, play some golf, have some fun and be kind.
Speaker B:Take care, everybody.
Speaker A:Grilling at the Green is produced by JTSD Productions, LLC in association with Salem Media Group.
Speaker A:All rights reserve.
