Like any job, there’s a learning curve, even for guys like Joe Buck. Buck and his Fox Sports team called the US Open and US Women’s Open from 2015 to 2020, until the broadcast partnership ended abruptly in June 2020.
Buck joined this week Subpar podcast to discuss his time calling golf on TV, what it’s like to work a Super Bowl, the Mount Rushmore of broadcasters and more. During the golf talk, he went deep into the learning curve of calling golf on TV.
While he said it was difficult to get used to things like the exact terminology the broadcast wanted – eg. or the location of the hole, not the needle, etc. – he said he learned his biggest lesson when he fell into a trap he had long warned young broadcasters about.
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“I found that I was trying to prove how much I knew about the players and their recent history and where they are in the official world golf rankings – all the other things – and what was missing was, OK, we just saw Spieth putting for par, and he missed, putt, putt, and now we’re back to Spieth. Like putting together the narrative and what we’re looking at and trying to build that versus trying to prove what I knew. I fell into every trap I tell new streamers to avoid in marrying your notes and research instead of just looking at what was going on and commenting on it.
“It was a big learning curve, and I’m not saying I learned it, but in the end I was like, man, I’ve been missing the point here for a couple of years now. I’ve got to go back to what I do, which is see and react and try to figure out why somebody’s hot, what kind of run it is and where somebody’s tournament broke down. That’s interesting for the viewer.”
Subpar co-host Colt Knost added that when he first started calling golf for CBS, veteran Frank Nobilo told him to “look at the screen” and “react” versus focusing on the notes. Buck agreed.
“All those things (in your notes) are things that happened,” Buck said. “What’s happening on the screen has never happened before, and if you miss it because you’re digging through your notes for something you wrote a week ago, you’re missing the boat. If a strong wind comes in and blows every note out of the cockpit, you should still be able to make the game or the tournament. And I fell into the trap I warned the guys about all the time.”
You can listen to the full interview with Buck hereOR watch it on YouTube below.
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