When at Fox, Joe Buck was primarily known for his MLB and NFL announcing. But as his tenure at Fox also coincided with the network’s golf coverage, he also found himself calling some U.S. Opens.
In a recent interview with Dan Patrick, he detailed some of the differences.
“Golf was so different than I thought going in,” Buck said. “And you can prepare yourself all you want. But we all fall asleep to it on the couch when we’re watching it. When you’re sitting in that chair, it’s why I have so much respect for Jim [Nantz], for Mike [Tirico], for Dan [Hicks]. For all the guys that do it regularly. Because it happens so fast.”
Buck noted the biggest difference. While most sports take place on a field, directly in front off all spectators and announcers, golf courses are spread out. Because of that, only a small portion of the play is directly visible to the commentators.
“Because you’re not watching any of it with your own eyes, like, live,” he said. “It’s all on monitor. So you’re getting information in your ear, like, ‘OK, we’re going to Spieth on four. It’s his second shot. He’s made two birdies in a row.’ So, you do like broadcast news. ‘Let’s go to Spieth on four. It’s his second shot. He’s made two birdies in a row.’ And it’s a little unnerving to be relying on other people’s information. I’d rather make my own mistakes or do my own thoughts, instead of just parroting what I’m hearing in my ear. So, long-winded way of saying, baseball, football, way easier, way slower than you would think, compared to golf.”
Patrick’s next question was, “How many times have you had to fake that you didn’t know what was going to happen to the golfer who is standing over a 20-footer to take the sole possession of the lead?”
“Well that’s the thing,” Buck said. “All the websites, which you find our when you do golf, how closed the community is. And like when Fox showed up and I’m calling it and it’s not Dan Hicks and Johnny Miller, it’s like, ‘Oh, my God. Aliens have landed on my TV and I cannot believe they’re trying to do golf. Their camera people suck. They can’t find the golf ball.’ We were at Chambers Bay. It was glaring. They’re the same camera people that did it for NBC. So, it wasn’t that. Now, the guy in the chair wasn’t that good. That’s me. But what you realize is, if you’re gonna have a TV event and try and build any drama whatsoever, you can’t just do live shot, live shot, live shot, live shot.
“You have to hold stuff to make it build a narrative as to where the thing is going,” he continued. “And it takes a while to get into that, too. I can see on my laptop that a guy made birdie. But it’s not on the scoreboard I’m looking at. And if it’s not on the scoreboard I’m looking at, he didn’t make birdie yet. We gotta act like he’s about to make birdie. It’s a lot of convoluted stuff that’s handled better by smarter people.”