It was only two years, but most golf fans fondly recall ABC’s three-man booth of Mike Tirico, Paul Azinger and Nick Faldo as the sport’s most fun and provocative golf broadcast team. The Man Out Front would concur, which made the news of Friday’s reuniting pretty exciting news.
Tirico is in town in his role hosting “Vantage Point,” his one-hour Golf Channel show airing during majors and other big events. So the longtime play-by-play man is sticking around for The Players Friday afternoon broadcast, where new NBC hire Azinger and longtime Golf Channel contributor Faldo will be working.
“I was happy to see that,” said Azinger, who credits producer Mark Loomis and Mike Pearl with the original grouping idea.
“I hope we get to actually not make it about us and see how we call golf together,” Azinger told The Forecaddie as he prepares to cover his first Players, an event he twice held the third-round lead in but could not win.
As for what made the trio such a great team, Azinger noted that some of the energy came from he and Faldo being rival Ryder Cup captains, some was Tirico’s ability as the “bus driver” of the banter and some was just the brevity of their run.
“We weren’t on long enough for anyone to get sick of us,” Azinger joked.
Before the three reprise their roles, Faldo, Azinger and Tirico will be talking alongside longtime NBC announcer Gary Koch in a state of the game roundtable during “Vantage Point.” The Forecaddie is pretty sure that discussion will be better than most.
