Cara Banks is no stranger to recounting golf’s greatest moments.
If a play-by-play broadcaster is the captain of a golf telecast during the final moments of a tournament, then the interviewer is somewhat like the first officer. Yes, it is The task of the game by the player to land the planebut it’s the first officer’s job to make sure everything goes smoothly. To be good as an interviewer, you need a sense of timing and the player’s instincts for story selection.
In other words, it isn’t that strange that Cara Banks is doing the dance this weekend from the role of on-course interviewer, which she has played to great effect on NBC and the Golf Channel over the past several seasons, to play-by-play broadcaster, which she will take on at the Chevron Championship this weekend.
On Saturday afternoon, Banks will serve as the first player in the inaugural women’s golf game, according to a report from Golfweek’s Beth Ann Nicholsstepping into the main chair for NBC’s coverage of Chevron.
This won’t be Banks’ first trip to the main chair — she has served in a play-by-play role for Golf Channel and NBC’s coverage of several LPGA events over the past calendar year, including the Mizuho Championship – but it will certainly be her biggest role yet. Thanks to a deal with NBC, Chevron is the beneficiary of five and a half hours of network television airtime throughout the weekend, making this weekend one of women’s golf’s biggest opportunities to reach large numbers of casual television viewers who watch their sports primarily on primetime network television. Banks will be the person to bring those fans all the action from Memorial Park in Houston, Texas, where she will replace longtime NBC anchor Terry Gannon, who is covering the NBA playoffs for the Peacocks.
So far, the script couldn’t have played out better for Banks or the LPGA. At the halfway point of the tournament, the biggest star in women’s golf, Nelly Korda, leads by a country mile, shooting back-to-back 65s to lead the rest of the field by an astonishing stroke. seven shooting as of this writing. It’s hard to say exactly how Banks might have framed her big championship debut on a play-by-play basis, but it’s safe to say that the biggest star to win one of the sport’s biggest events was on the list.
Interestingly, if Korda got away with things at the weekend, the Bank’s work might go a bit more difficult. As many sports television productions like to point out, golf is a different animal because of its immensity. Unlike most other professional sports, where there is only one ball and only playing field, televised golf takes place on 18 courses, with up to 72 balls in the air at the same time (assuming there are no reserves). In other words, TV golf is an exercise in controlled chaos, and in a strange way, the orchestra seems to play best when there’s a lot going on at once.
It’s only when the scope of a tournament has narrowed and the story lines have diminished that a golfer’s work really begins. And when there’s only one story for, say, an entire final round? The main job is even harder: Keep people interested even when the leaderboard is boring.
Thankfully, Banks’ day job as an interviewer has required her to flex those muscles a lot over the past few years. She has learned to be a relentlessly efficient advocate for the viewer and has honed her skills as a narrative builder and selector. Now the only big question that remains is whether she has the skills to land the plane.
Rest assured, she is up for the challenge.
