Nothing could distract from the marvelous golf being played. Because round three got off to such a late start due to round two being completed in the morning, DiMarco only got to play nine holes. He carded a 33 on the front nine, putting him at minus 13 through 45 holes. Remarkable. Tiger, however, was even better. He was five shots under par through nine, bringing him to nine under par after that tough start. Tiger got on a roll in that round, and continued it on the back nine on Sunday morning. Seven birdies in a row put him on top of the leaderboard. DiMarco struggled coming in on Sunday morning. A double bogey on his first hole of the day (at 10) set the tone. What was remarkable was that the over-par score was his first in 44 holes. Tiger made up seven strokes on DiMarco. As the final round opened, Woods was at minus 11, three shots ahead of DiMarco, four shots ahead of Thomas Bjørn, and six shots ahead of Mickelson. Fittingly, Phil and Vijay were paired for the final round. Neither man, nor Els, would figure much in the final round. It became a two-man story with Woods and DiMarco now dueling for the championship.
They came to the 16th tee with Tiger up by one stroke. They’d each birdied the par-five 15th hole. How they each played that hole was a study in contrasts. Tiger hit a mammoth drive that left him with an eight-iron to the green. DiMarco laid up and pinpointed a wedge within a few feet for a short putt. He had the honors at 16 and hit a solid shot to the traditional Sunday back left location—21 feet from the bottom edge of the green, 4 feet from the left edge. He landed it in the center of the green and the ball took the slope and rolled down it to about 18 feet, leaving him a putt straight up the hill.
Tiger stood over the ball and tugged one left and long, off the green. It rolled downhill and came to rest on the fringe but nearly resting against the second cut of rough. That increased the degree of difficulty immensely. He was going to have to bring the club nearly straight down on top of the ball. The 16th slopes precipitously back to front toward the pond and from right to left as viewed from the tee. The following year, I walked to the approximate spot where Tiger’s ball came to rest and paced it off. I had it at ninety feet away. Regardless of how imprecise my distance estimate may be, nearly everyone would agree that he had missed in the worst possible location. We showed the tee shots live, cut away, and then came back.
That year, former tour pro Lanny Wadkins had joined Jim Nantz in the booth at 18 as the analyst. He had succeeded Ken Venturi in that role. I asked him to assess Tiger’s shot—that’s his job. He said that it was probably the most difficult chip shot on the course. I mentioned that Davis Love III had chipped in from a somewhat similar position. After a bit more back-and-forth between us, Lanny stated that he doubted Tiger would be able to stop the ball from going down that slope and finishing inside DiMarco’s mark. I waited for Tiger to get over to the ball and complete his practice swings before I said, “Well, here were go.”
Tiger had to aim some twenty-five feet left of the hole. I didn’t know this at the time, but later on, Steve Williams, Tiger’s caddy, said in an interview that Tiger had picked out an indentation on the green, a ball mark, as his chosen landing spot. Well, as Tiger eyed that spot and then the pin, I went silent. For a good five to ten seconds, it was just the camera on Tiger, the late afternoon shadows, and the chirp of a bird. Once Tiger swung, the click of the ball and the murmur of the crowd chimed in. The ball landed far left of the hole. As it began its trip downhill and to the right, I said, “Well, here it comes.” As it got nearer to the hole, I said, “Oh my goodness.” By the time it got inches from the cup and then rested there on the lip, I let the patrons’ oohs and aahs tell the story. For 1.8 seconds the ball rested there before dropping, and, as the crowd exploded, I added my “Oh wow!” to the chorus of cheers. Only when Tiger bent over to pull the ball from the hole did I say, “In your life have you ever seen anything like that?”
I knew that I hadn’t, and I instantly knew that I’d been fortunate again to witness and give voice to a great moment in sports history. Tiger strode away, thrusting both arms skyward before high-fiving his caddie and letting out a roar of approval of his own.
As much as other people remember my call, I remember the great work that our team did in capturing those moments on-screen. Let me take you back to Wednesday of Masters week. Per usual, I climbed the tower behind the 16th tee and sat there with veteran camera operator Bob Wishnie. Bob had been at Augusta working that hole for longer than I had. That Wednesday he said to me, “I want to show you something.” He showed me a camera. He told me that it had a 100×1 zoom and a horizontal stabilizer. He said that very often, holding the camera steady when something exciting happens is difficult. He hated getting yelled at for a shaky shot. He then pointed the camera toward the front of the green where one of the players had marked his ball with a nickel. He zoomed in and asked me, “What do you see?” On the coin, I could read, “In God We Trust, 2002.”
The technology was clearly in place to capture that iconic moment when, in tight close-up, the Nike swoosh emblem on Tiger’s golf ball as big as a boomerang on your TV set, it hung suspended for that moment. What was also in place was a human being’s instincts. A whole team of people sit in the production trucks watching various monitors. Steve Milton was the director. He literally called the shots—the view from which at least five different cameras we had on that hole should go out on-air live. Norm Patterson, the technical director, who sadly is no longer with us, sat at the console to Steve’s right and presses the button corresponding to the camera shot that Steve called out. In this case though, Steve called out, “Ready ten, take ten.” Norm punched the button and Wishnie’s 100×1 camera went from a long shot of Tiger’s swing to a close-up of the ball rolling without losing focus. Try that sometime with your phone’s camera. Steve then called out, “Ready six. Take six.” That meant that he wanted to go to a flanker camera manned by Skip Shakleford to get a reaction shot of Tiger. Norm never punched that button. Something told him to stick with that close-up. Good thing he did. The ball wobbled nearly imperceptibly and then fell. We got that all live.
Truth is, Norm not doing what Steve had instructed could have gotten him fired. Instead he captured an iconic moment. The broadcast went on, of course, and none of you knew what was going on behind the scenes. I also don’t think that many of you gave any thought to the fact that instead of immediately going to a replay of that great shot, Steve stuck with live shots of Chris DiMarco as he looked over his putt and then slipped it just past the hole. Seven minutes lapsed between Tiger’s make and the replay. Steve’s choice did two things. It showed a lot of respect for DiMarco, who was tenacious in battling Tiger. It also heightened expectations and kept the drama going. When can we see that again? That was all great visual storytelling and great teamwork.
I mean no disrespect to Steve in relating this behind-the-scenes action. I can’t imagine doing the job Steve had to do that day. Sitting in front of a bank of monitors with more than fifty different views of the golf course and deciding which shot is the shot to go to would short-circuit my synapses. Covering one hole was enough for me, thank you very much. I always felt a mixture of relief and disappointment when the last group came through 16. Frequently the tournament was very much in play in those final two holes. That was the case in 2005.
Despite being behind by two with two to play, DiMarco didn’t back down in the face of that miraculous shot. He tied Tiger with a birdie on 18, but eventually lost the playoff. Tiger recovered from his late-round struggles to birdie the first playoff hole—18—by draining a fifteen-footer. He earned his fourth green jacket and his ninth major title. Tiger was masterful in keeping to his habit of winning after leading after 54 holes but DiMarco showed a lot of courage in not backing down one bit. It’s not as if his 2005 Masters performance was without precedent. He ranked in the top ten for quite a few weeks from 2002 to 2006. He took that punch from Tiger and battled back. He was great all week; Tiger was just a little bit better.
Tiger also proved to be a pretty good play-by-play man as w
ell. In an interview his description of the chip on 16 bears repeating: “All of a sudden it looked pretty good. And all of a sudden it looked really good. And then it looked like how could it not go in, and how did it not go in, and all of a sudden it went in. So it was pretty sweet.”
DiMarco’s summation wasn’t bad either: “You expect the unexpected, and unfortunately it’s not unexpected when he’s doing it.”
How appropriate. Tiger’s remarks were quite a bit longer, but DiMarco’s were more precise.
The 2005 Masters also marked sixty-five-year-old Jack Nicklaus’s final competitive round at Augusta National. He shot a 77-76 and missed the cut. On his final hole in his second round, he hit a six-iron to within a few feet but missed the birdie putt. Later that summer, he ended his run at the British Open with a birdie, demonstrating that sometimes you can really end on a high note.
Ultimately, these two moments at the Masters—Jack’s 1986 shot and Tiger’s 2005 one—stand at the forefront of my mind whenever I look back across the sweep of my career. I don’t know if this is a valid indicator of the role that shot plays in the game’s lore, but I’ll share this story anyway. My brother Dan and his wife, Herbie Kay, have two sons who are avid golfers. Both played at my alma mater and earned small-school All American honors while at Texas Lutheran. Their aspirations of playing on the tour eventually didn’t pan out, but not for lack of effort. The older of the two, Keith, says his major claim to fame is that in the medal (stroke play) rounds of a U.S. Amateur, he once finished four strokes ahead of Phil Mickelson. I learned to play the game later in life, and the lowest my handicap ever got was 14.
One day the two of them were at our home in Steamboat visiting along with their parents. I found them looking up at the two photos of Jack in ’86 and of Tiger in 2005. I told Keith and his brother that when I’m gone the two of them can claim one or the other of the two large photos depicting those classic shots and two players who defined their respective eras. I told them they could flip a coin, arm-wrestle, or do whatever else it takes to decide who gets Jack and who gets Tiger. This was years before Tiger’s fall from grace and his protracted slump. Shortly after the revelations of Tiger’s infidelities, Dean called me and asked if his brother had been in touch about the two pictures. I told him that he hadn’t. Good, he said, I want Jack.
No disrespect to Tiger, but I have to agree. Of the two players and the two shots, I’d have to say that Jack’s putt and his overall career top my list of great golfing achievements. Don’t get me wrong: Tiger’s chip-in and his dominance and influence on the game are both unquestionably impressive. Jack’s were just better. I enjoyed them both and they are both golfing geniuses, but just as I enjoy the music of Tchaikovsky over Stravinsky, Jack suits my sensibilities better than Tiger.
I also have to admit to a bit of an age bias. Jack and I are contemporaries. I first started following him when I was twenty-one. I was lucky enough to be in a position that he made the putt and took the lead and the abbreviated call of “Maybe,” and “Yes, sir” seemed to find an audience. For all those reasons—drumroll, please—Jack’s putt on 16 is my favorite moment in sports. Tiger’s shot is tied for second. I’ll leave it at that for the moment. You’ll have to keep reading to learn what the others are. All I will say is that not all my favorite moments happened on the golf course.
That’s what I’m hoping I can do by continuing to be a part of the Masters for the foreseeable future. I don’t know how long I will continue at 16, but I know that every time I set foot on the grounds of Augusta National, I may not feel like a sixteen-year-old, but I definitely feel at least sixteen years younger.
I’ve loved covering golf for CBS, and I have so many fond memories of the events I’ve broadcast, the players I’ve come to know, and the people I’ve worked with and come in contact with at the various tournaments. I would have loved to report from the British Open, but that was not to be. I don’t feel any kind of regret, but that omission in my résumé falls under the category of “It Would Have Been Nice, But . . .” I’ve got a few others in that column, but I prefer to focus on what I was fortunate enough to be able to do and not on what I wasn’t able to do.
I saw firsthand how bitterness and regret could leave a mark on some people’s lives. Ken Venturi was a wonderful broadcaster and an astute examiner of the game. That didn’t bring him much pleasure. He was on the tour well before players began to earn huge incomes. I roomed with him for seven years while covering the Masters. He frequently reminded me that his career earnings totaled $238,000—roughly the amount that the eleventh-place finisher in the 2017 PGA Tournament earned. As prize money grew, Ken felt more and more like he had missed out.
At times I tried to give Ken a better sense of perspective. Yes, some of the top players earned millions and millions of dollars—as they should. They were at the pinnacle of their profession. There were a lot more other guys trying to hang on to their tour card, going down to the wire at the end of the season, staying at the Red Roof Inn, driving their own version of the beat-up Chevy I once had. That’s how it is in any business. I could have spent my time lamenting the fact that I was born too soon to really enjoy the full benefits of the explosion of television outlets and the proliferation of opportunities afforded by cable, satellite, and streaming services. Ken really didn’t want to hear any of that, and I stopped trying to get him to see the lighter side of things. He’d sit there in the rented house we shared in Augusta, drink a Crown Royal and Coke, and watch Alex Trebek host Jeopardy!
He also felt that he was wronged in the 1958 Masters when Arnold Palmer played a second ball on the 12th hole due to a question about an imbedded-ball ruling. It turned out that Arnold’s decision to play that second ball to score a par three instead of the double-bogey with the first ball meant the difference between winning by a stroke and tying Venturi. Ken disagreed with the ruling and bitterness festered between the two for years. After Ken died in 2013, Arnold spoke up and said that he regretted how things had transpired between them. He still believed he was justified in doing what he’d done on the golf course, but not in how he’d responded to Ken’s complaints. It was a case of life being too short.
Ken suffered various hand injuries that cut his career short, and that added to his sense that things just hadn’t quite worked out for him.
I recently read where Rory McIlroy said that the Masters was the preeminent major in his and most players’ estimation. He had to walk back his statement that he didn’t “care about the U.S. Open and the [British] Open Championship.” Maybe he feels that way because the Masters has so far eluded him, but those comments shed some light on Ken Venturi’s attitude. Since he failed to win one of golf’s biggest prizes, regardless of how it happened, he felt a void. The green jacket is that treasured an honor. After years of sharing quarters with Venturi, I went to Frank Chirkinian and asked for relief from the hazard. Frank said that he couldn’t do that. I was one of the few guys from the on-air team who hadn’t played professional golf. Ken was able to tolerate me as a result.
High on my list of favorite colleagues on CBS’s golf coverage is David Feherty. David is the most spontaneously funny human being I’ve ever had the pleasure of being around. And that includes professional stand-up comedians. Of course, in mentioning a sense of humor, Gary McCord’s name springs to mind. Part of having a good broadcast team is having a variety of different personality types. Gary is a good friend, and I know he won’t mind me making this distinction. David can’t help but say funny and at times inappropriate things. He has a wellspring of humor deep inside that sometimes overflows and drowns the internal editor in there, too, who would normally hit the button to delete a thought before it went out of his mouth and into the world. Gary, on the other hand, is a bit more practiced in his comedic arts—he’s developed a shtick. It’s a very popular and entertaining routine and one that I really enjoy, but it’s not as off the wall or out of the blue as David’s extemporaneous expressions.
Early in my care
er I made a conscious decision to be judicious in how and what I expressed on air. I’m trying to be as equally judicious in selecting which of my favorite flamboyant Feherty tales to share. One that springs to mind has to do with my decision to ask David to come down to San Antonio to help me with one of my favorite events. I’m a loyal alumnus of Texas Lutheran. It’s an NCAA Division III school, so it doesn’t offer athletic scholarships. Budgets are tight to meet the demands of the fifteen intercollegiate sports the school offers to student-athletes. Each year for the past decade and a half or so, I’ve hosted what is called Front Row with Verne. I host it and do an interview and question-and-answer session with some celebrity from the world of sports. In 2015, David graciously agreed to come down to San Antonio to be the guest.
Nancy and I were sitting with David in an anteroom outside the main hall where we were going to do the show. This was before a brief meet and greet, dinner, and then the conversation. By this time I’d known David for more than twenty years and knew his propensity for getting caught up in the moment.
“David,” I told him, “keep in mind your audience.”
He looked at me quizzically. “What’s your point?”
“This is Texas L-u-t-h-e-r-a-n University.”
In my mind I envisioned the seven hundred or so prim and proper folks mouths agape in horror at some inappropriate remark.
David nodded. “You really think I would?”
“Yes,” I said, “I’m afraid you really would. I don’t want the F-word to come out.”
“I’ll try my best.”
After dinner, I conducted the informal interview. He was funny, gregarious, and charming. So much so that I wasn’t as calculated in my line of questioning as I should have been. I mentioned his wife, Anita, and how she saved him from his demons. David has been open about some of his substance abuse problems and he’s also someone who dives deeply into whatever catches his fancy—cycling, collecting rifles. David spoke eloquently and lovingly of Anita and the positive impact she’d made on his life. Things were going along quite nicely until he decided to compare her to a previous wife who “made it a point to try to fuck every man in Tarrant County.”
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