Cherishing the Sweetest Sounds in Golf Television: Player-Caddie Conversations

The rare moments when someone like Jordan Spieth debates a shot with his bagman pull viewers in like nothing else in sports.

Jordan Spieth was being Jordan Spieth, combining a two-way miss off the tee and his magical recovery skills to grab a share of the lead in the opening round of the PGA Tour’s second 2022 playoff event. His man on the bag, Michael Greller, had brought his own trusty combo to Delaware, employing staunch optimism and pure common sense in his role as the partnership’s Edith Bunker.

Speaking of bunkers, Spieth’s drive had wandered into a patch of sand bordering Wilmington Country Club’s fifth fairway. No big deal, except that a pond fronted the green and the ball was on an upslope, leading to a high-risk second shot with modest reward and perhaps the most interesting two-minute discussion on a golf telecast all year.

As one might have expected, Spieth projected and Greller objected, to which Spieth rejected before chunking his Titleist into the water for a double-bogey 6. However relevant to the final outcome—Spieth finished T-19, eight shots back—the dialogue with Greller was a player-caddie conversation at its absolute finest, clearly audible to viewers and as close to the action as they’ll ever get in any sport.

"Why does Greller even try?!" 😂

Jordan Spieth couldn't be talked out of this shot on No. 5 @BMWchamps 

📺 Golf Channel pic.twitter.com/6l84oZrYcF

— Golf on CBS ⛳ (@GolfonCBS) August 20, 2022

“It’s like having a camera in the huddle or following a pitching coach out to the mound,” says NBC on-course analyst John Wood. “After a while, it became pretty obvious that Jordan wasn’t going to be talked off the ledge.”

Whereas other sports are presented to the public from what might be called a safe distance, its proximity to the participants is one of golf’s more endearing traits. Since the players don’t wear helmets, their facial expressions are highly accessible, and of course, Tiger Woods’s potty mouth once reminded us that microphones are everywhere, whether they’re handheld or stuck in the ground near a tee marker.

It all adds up to an enjoyable diversion from the evening news or a prime-time game show. As fascinating as the back-and-forth between a tour pro and his looper can be, however, those moments don’t happen very often, especially when a roving crew is nearby. “There are times when Tommy tells us to lay out,” Wood adds, referring to NBC producer Tommy Roy and the industry’s term for remaining quiet, “but it probably doesn’t happen [more than] once a week. It’s a special set of circumstances. You need to have a boom mike there, and there has to be indecision. Things have to fall in place.”

Things certainly did for Tiger, at least throughout the first stage of his career, but even in his prime, those moments when viewers could eavesdrop on his strategic chats with Steve Williams bore little fruit. Stevie did almost all of the talking. If Woods responded, it was almost always with a quick mumble, as if he was fully aware the entire world was listening with both ears. Since Woods replaced Williams with Joe LaCava in 2011, little has changed. LaCava is a master at getting right to the point, meaning a lot of their verbal communication is over before it starts— before a crew can get close enough to transmit anything worthwhile.

Spieth, meanwhile, has become the game’s undisputed heavyweight champion of free speech for universal consumption. He yells at his golf ball on a regular basis, begging it to get down, pleading for it to go or demanding some help from the wind with the same urgency a 9-year-old imparts when talking to their mother. The Texan seems to have no problem with three dudes from the network following him around all day and documenting every syllable of his atypically demonstrative behavior.

Unlike Woods, the Golden Boy doesn’t resort to profanity when a shot goes awry, perhaps because he misses so many of them, but Spieth’s relationship with Greller has developed into a fascinating mini reality show featuring the stoic older brother and his hyperemotional sibling. On an otherwise meaningless Thursday afternoon, it can make for some wonderful TV.

“I just don’t see it, Jordan,” Greller confessed after his man missed left off the tee and had a fully grown oak tree staring him in the face near the end of his opening round at Colonial.

Spieth: “What don’t you see? I was going to hit a straight punch at the cameraman with a punch cut and just get it to cover the water and hit it hard.”

Greller: “I’m just saying how it’s coming out of here. If it pops up, you know …”

Spieth: “That’s why I have a 6-iron.”

Greller: “No, just hit it here and then hit a wedge onto …”

Spieth: “I think I can get this one either on the green or over the green, or over in the right bunkers. Those are still easier than a full wedge.”

"I just don't see it Jordan." 😆 @JordanSpieth sees the game differently than all of us. pic.twitter.com/PCqL7Yikk9

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) May 26, 2022

And with that, the guy holding the 6-iron ended this difference of opinion with the three words that clear the caddie of any wrongdoing or jeopardize his job security.

“It’s on me.”

Spieth took one quick practice swing, then sent his ball just left of the trunk with enough flight to land it maybe 20 yards short of the putting surface. It bounded up a slight incline and almost went in the hole, rolling three or four inches right of the cup before stopping on the fringe three feet off the back of the green.

A lot of tour pros would have attempted such a shot. Some would have hit the tree; others would have left it in the rough. Perhaps 25% would have executed the task successfully by getting their ball back to the fairway. Only a handful would have wound up with a 30-footer for birdie, and it’s fair to think that only Spieth could pull off a punch cut at the cameraman with another cameraman right behind him and a half million people watching at home. Golf’s best TV often occurs when a player finds himself in a spot of bother, when the caddie sees things one way and his boss sees them from a very different perspective.

Nobody remembers the results of a decision to play it safe. If the heroic shot after a lousy one is what gets people talking, it’s the conversation right before the heroics that lures people back.

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