Above all, Colt Knost’s work takes the place.
It requires him to visit three of the most beautiful golf courses on earth each year: Augusta National, Riviera and Pebble Beach. It requires his presence in two majors and at least two-thirds of the significant golf events on the calendar. It sees him traversing from the corrugated steel city of the Phoenix Open to the treeless expanse of the Scottish Open, and just about every golf setting in between.
But if you want to know what makes Colt Knost qualified to be some kind of professional golf broadcaster promoted on the CBS “super tower”. on Wednesday morning – if you want to understand why he can fly to all the beautiful and important places in the golf world just to talk about them – you really have to ask him about somewhere else. Somewhere … less honorable.
John Deere.
“John Deere week is, like, a sneaky favorite of mine, and honestly it’s because of a restaurant there,” Knost says with a laugh. “It’s called Duck City. And, I mean, the chef — Chef Jeremy — who’s been there forever, he got it from his dad, Chef Charles. I mean, it looks like the player who’s having dinner every time you walk in there.”
Duck City is a special place for Knost, and his daily 7 p.m. tee is one of the rhythms of the annual schedule that keeps his personal golf world spinning (to say nothing of Duck City’s Famous Veal Jalapeno — Knost’s favorite). But its sure to single out John Deere week above all the glorious places listed above? This is it special sauce.
“It surprises everybody,” Knost said. “It’s not the biggest field in the world, but every year we turn it into such a fun week.”
In most ways, the job of a successful television sports analyst is perspective. Emerson said that a man is sober “from the angle at which he looks at the objects,” and if that is true, then a good sports TV voice is measured by its sharpness, its separation from bland bromides and unpleasant axioms — “boy, he’s a great driver of the golf ball” – that have filled hours of golf broadcasts since the dawn of time.
In other words, the job of a successful television sports voice requires the ability to visit Augusta National but WILL to set John Deere apart.
On Wednesday morning, Knost’s acumen was recognized in the form of a promotion from his bosses at CBS. He will join the “super tower” of Frank Nobilo, Trevor Immelman and Jim Nantz in 2026, replacing the retiring Ian Baker-Finch. The new job is Knost’s third since joining the golf media following a successful career as a tour pro, the latest in a meteoric rise from a golfer with a good sense of humor to one of golf’s pro broadcasters.
Knost admits he’s a work in progress as a broadcaster, but the lessons painted in the lines of his first few years in the booth show plenty of promise.
“I remember, after the first couple tours I did as a test, (Legendary CBS Sports producer Jim Rikhoff) sent me this great text basically saying, ‘Look, we hired you because of who you are and because of who we know, and I want you to be that on the air.’
Rikhoff’s message flow?
“If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, but you can’t be somebody else,” Knost recalls. He took it to heart.
He quickly learned that it can be difficult to be your most honest self in front of an audience of several million viewers. Criticism circulates quickly, even when it’s warranted.
“Charles Barkley is one of my broadcasting heroes and he said it best,” Knost said. “He told me, ‘you can praise these guys 90 percent of the time, and they’ll never call and thank you, but the moment you criticize them, they’re going to call you and wear you down. You just have to be prepared for that.’
It’s an added challenge for Knost. When Barkley criticizes hoopers, he’s mostly talking about men a third of his age; when Knost criticizes golfers, he often talks about his friends.
How do you manage? The honest answer is that it is difficult. The lines on sports television are difficult to navigate for any former athlete, even if the essential requirements of honesty and objectivity are clear. Knost is expected to speak candidly within milliseconds of witnessing decisions that decide fate and legacy. Sometimes those decisions are mistakes and it’s his job to say so.
“It’s never anything personal against them,” Knost said. “But if a player ever has a problem with something I’ve said, I’m always happy to talk about it.”
Apparently, it’s working. Knost’s jump into the CBS booth is his third promotion in half a decade working in golf television. His responsibilities will expand from covering a group to covering the entire field. His dream of one day ascending to the highest office in golf television, lead analyst, just got a jolt.
“Look, there’s the resume factor,” says Knost, acknowledging golf’s long tradition of hiring only major leaguers for the lead analyst role. “But I think I absolutely could one day.”
Knost isn’t a big winner, not just if you’re counting US amateurs, but he’s okay with that. If one day he gets the job of chief analyst, it won’t be because his brain can approximate a big winner. It will be precisely because he can’t – because Knost sees things that some big winners don’t.
Like Duck City in John Deere.
