If you spend any time around the pool of television golf analysts, you realize something unusual: By the letter of the law, almost ANY of them are qualified.
The reason for this is not broadcast training or golf skill, but something much simpler. In the history of golf television, there have only been a handful of so-called “Top Analysts” — the talking heads at the top of each network’s broadcasts — and all but one of them have been major championship winners.
On Wednesday morning, that group added a surprise new voice to the mix: Jim Furyk, who will call two PGA Tour swing events in Florida — the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Players Championship — in the lead analyst chair for the Golf Channel.
The 55-year-old US Open winner and former Ryder Cup captain is no stranger to life inside the ropes. Over the past several years, he has been a fixture on the PGA Tour, winning the Tour’s rookie of the year award in 2021 and hosting an annual Champions Tour event through his charity, Furyk and Friends. His television and radio history is less complete, though he’s been no stranger to media blitzes in his three decades and 17 PGA Tour wins — and has served as a frequent guest on SiriusXM throughout the years.
“Maybe it’s on a trial basis, see how much I like it, get a feel for it,” Furyk said. THE Associated Press’ Doug Ferguson. “With every new effort, it’s a learning process. There’s a feel and flow to how the show plays out. I’m focused on doing my best work for two weeks.”
The 17-time PGA Tour winner may not have a preponderance of television experience, but he has a deep professional background to fall back on. He has competed as a professional for more than three decades and enters the Players Championship with five top-5 finishes in the event, including two runner-up finishes, most recently as a out of nowhere 48 year old in 2019. Furyk never won Arnold Palmer’s Invitationalbut he was only the third professional ever (behind Palmer and Bruce Fleisher) to win his first two starts on the Champions Tour.
It’s too early to predict exactly what the trial period will mean for Furyk’s TV future (in large part because he doesn’t currently have a TV the past so to speak), but he enters the job with something every fellow golf analyst covets: his 2003 US Open victory at Olympia Fields. While Furyk may ultimately choose not to pursue a path to a lead analyst role with any of golf’s major networks, his major championship origins offer him a potential path to a lead analyst chair that, to NBC’s Kevin Kisner, it had only ever been occupied by major championship winners.
Ironically, Kisner’s path to the premiership on NBC can provide clues for Furyk as he tries to navigate the journey ahead. Kisner was a full-time PGA Tour player when he first entered NBC’s “tryout” to replace Paul Azinger in the lead analyst chair, then spent a year flirting with the part-time job before being named Azinger’s permanent replacement at the end of 2024.
