Making Beautiful Music Together

Paul Azinger and Nick Faldo hardly spoke as longtime competitors, but they've teamed up to give ABC's golf telecasts a whole new sound

By John Hawkins

Photos By Joey Terrill

March 4, 2005

They probably walked a hundred miles of fairways together, yet neither man felt even remotely compelled to learn something about the other. Two of the best golfers of a generation, the lead characters in several Ryder Cup dramas, both players had reputations cast in cement: the fiery Yank, the fastidious Brit. "He was quoted as saying I had a homemade grip and a hatchet swing," Paul Azinger recalls. "I was quoted as saying he's the slowest player on earth, but in all those years, I'd never had a conversation with him. Who has?"

If a rivalry needs animosity to arouse curiosity, this one succumbed to healthy pomposity. "I never had conversations with a lot of guys," Nick Faldo says, as if six major titles aren't enough self-defense. "I wasn't a small-talk type of person in competition -- that's my makeup." During yet another rain delay at the recent Nissan Open, Faldo seems antsy in a trailer alongside the ninth fairway at Riviera CC, shuffling around the confines like a man whose personal cocoon has been threatened, the terms of idle chatter not completely his.

Azinger has a confession: "Working with Faldo is shockingly enjoyable. We even drive to the course together. There are some quiet, awkward moments once in a while, but I'm four or five up in on-air heckles."

To what do we owe all the irony? Having safely ignored one another for the better part of 20 years, a couple of warhorses from opposite ends of the pasture find themselves sitting side by side as twin propellers of ABC's revamped golf coverage -- two rookie television analysts whose assignment is to interact on the most public platform possible, to inform and entertain, to stimulate and articulate. By year's end Azinger and Faldo will have shared approximately three full days' worth of live airtime (that's 11 tournaments together), and if the first dozen or so hours are any indication, Oscar and Felix are as compatible as green eggs and ham.

"I'm pleasantly surprised by the natural chemistry," says Mike Tirico, the splendid anchor whose role has evolved to include duties as traffic cop and referee. "It eventually develops over time between every group of [commentators], but there's a lot of natural chemistry here for two people who were in the same small circle of 50 guys for [two decades], who were at a lot of the same events and in the same locker rooms but didn't know each other."

From this chemical alloy comes water-cooler buzz, something ABC's golf presentation has lacked for years. With Curtis Strange in the lead-analyst chair from 1997 until last spring, the product wasn't so much flawed as it was nondescript. In his prime as a player, Strange was opinionated, even acerbic. In the booth, however, that sharp voice became diluted by a reluctance to criticize fellow tour pros or embark on insightful, imaginative tangents.

The network hired Mike Pearl as executive producer in the fall of 2003, and an overhaul was quick to follow. Longtime golf producer Jack Graham was relieved by Mark Loomis, who had been handling ABC's college football telecasts. Strange departed about six months later. "I did feel our coverage needed a shot in the arm," Pearl says. "That was obvious by the changes we made from top to bottom."

Corey Pavin and Hal Sutton were the first to spend a weekend alongside Tirico, neither very effectively. Loomis doesn't like the word "tryout," but semantics aside, he had talked to Azinger back in late '03 and knew he hadn't been brought in by Pearl to maintain status quo. "You want somebody who is interesting to listen to," Loomis says. "You also want somebody who says what they think and won't second-guess themselves. If you go after someone who is trying to be controversial, it's not going to work. You need somebody with [inherently] strong opinions, and that's how both these guys are."

And how. Faldo wasted little time establishing an ultra-candid tone at the Buick Invitational, ABC's first event of '05. When Tiger Woods fanned his 2-iron approach at the 72nd hole, jeopardizing a one-stroke lead, St. Nick reacted as if he were watching a 16-handicap, lambasting Woods' faulty position at the top of the backswing and clumsy position at impact. In a voice teetering on incredulity, Faldo wondered aloud how one of the greatest players in history could miss 20 yards short and 20 yards to the right at such a crucial moment -- a shot so poor that it turned out OK, avoiding the pond fronting the left half of the green.