Celebrating 20 Years
with CBS Sports
But the network was both lucky and good.
CBS Sports, which has been the longtime broadcaster of the Masters, was the first network to televise the PGA Championship when it garnered the rights for the 1958 edition at Llanerch Country Club near Philadelphia, won by Dow Finster wald. AFTER A LENGTHY ABSENCE FROM BROADCASTING THE SEASON’S final major championship, CBS Sports returned to the PGAChampionship in 1991and found one of the greatest stories in the long, proud history of golf had fallen into
their analog-generated laps.
Woody Allen was right: Eighty percent of success really, truly is just showing up.
That was the story 20 years ago this week when a relatively unknown, long-hitting, fun-loving professional named John Daly drove all night to play in the
73rd PGA Championship at Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Ind., as the ninth alternate and ended up winning the whole enchilada. And there was CBS Sports, which had not broadcast the PGA Championship since 1964, returning to the scene of the sublime to cover one of the great Cinderella stories in the modern era of sports.
“It was one of the great stories golf had ever seen ... and it still is,” says CBS Sports golf producer Lance Barrow, who worked the 1991 PGA Championship in the production trailer as the associate director.
“It was amazing to watch and amazing to
have the chance to cover. Those are the
things you get into the business for, to have
an opportunity to follow that kind of a story.
Working at a major championship is special
and exciting, and then to see the story
unfold with John Daly – it was the kind of
job you dream of.”
“It was a Bunyonesque story that now
we would call Dalyesque,” adds veteran
announcer Gary McCord, who along with
anchor Jim Nantz is one of only two
returning members from the 1991
broadcast team. “That was a tournament
for the ages, and for us to sort of just walk
right into it was dumb luck.”
COURTESY CBS SPORTS
Dating back to John Daly’s stunning victory in 1991, CBS Sports has televised every PGA Championship for the past two decades
By Dave Shedloski
Top right: Interviewed here by CBS’s Jim Nantz, John Daly’s triumph at the 1991 PGA Championship marked CBS Sports’ return to covering the season’s final major. Below: Ken Venturi (left) and Pat Summerall served as the lead announcers for CBS Sports during the 1991 PGA Championship.
166 THE OFFICIAL PROGRAM OF THE 2010 PGA CHAMPIONSHIP
