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Verne Lundquist on Iconic Handshake With Tiger Woods, Goals He Had for His Final Masters

Lundquist set out to accomplish three things at Augusta for the final broadcast of his career.

Jimmy Traina

1. CBS broadcaster Verne Lundquist ended his legendary career a few weeks ago when he called his 40th and final Masters.

There was a buzz surrounding the event because it would be Lundquist’s swan song, but then he unexpectedly went viral thanks to a moment he had with Tiger Woods when the two shook hands while Lundquist was behind a tree.

In an excellent interview on the latest Pardon My Take, Lundquist revealed that thanking Woods was one of the three goals he set for himself during his final Masters.

“There’s another view of that meeting,” said Lundquist, “and I understand that Tiger was on Jimmy Fallon’s show and there was great sport made of the fact that he’d seen me. I was behind the tree. And there is another shot of Tiger and me.”

This is that shot.

Lundquist continued to talk about the Masters.

“Guys, I had three goals going into what I knew was going to be my last one. I wanted to meet Scottie Scheffler. I'd never met him. I did that.

“I wanted to say goodbye to Tiger. I was able to do that. And I also wanted to thank Tiger.

“And to say goodbye to Jack [Nicklaus]. I was able to do all three, so mission accomplished as the old television show used to say.”

You gotta love that the immenseley likable Lundquist went out accomplishing everything he wanted to accomplish.

2. In yesterday’s Traina Thoughts, I covered the NBA’s expected television deals, which will see many games going to Amazon and possibly Peacock.

The NFL has already shown that it loves selling its games to streaming services, with Amazon owning the Thursday night package and Peacock airing an exclusive regular season game and a playoff game. In addition, ESPN+ had a few exclusive international games last season.

Well, there’s a chance the NFL may partner up with yet another streaming service.

WFAN’s Boomer Esiason coyly, and yet strongly implied, on his Wednesday morning radio show, that the NFL will sell its two Christmas Day games this season to Netflix.

“I believe, Netlfix, are you ready for this," teased Esiason. “What I think is gonna happen, I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am. I’m gonna give you one of these things, if you wanna take it with a grain of salt, you can take it with a grain of salt. Do not be surprised if the NFL and Netflix get in bed for a nice little Christmas Day football games.”

3. If you are a longtime Traina Thoughts reader or SI Media Podcast listener, you know that I’m not interested in hockey and I don’t follow the NHL. So, cut to Tuesday night and my Twitter timeline starts going crazy because ESPN had cut away from an overtime game to show the intro to another playoff game that was about to start.

This intrigued me, so I decided to investigate the situation. Talk about much ado about nothing. ESPN did not “cut away” from one game to another. Somebody in a control room or truck made a mistake and hit the wrong button. This was not done intentionally.

In the end, a total of 15 seconds of the overtime game was missed and nothing happened.

4. Thanks to the Marlins being a truly awful baseball team (they are currently 10–28), MLB Network studio host Greg Amsinger tried to pump up Tuesday’s telecast of Florida at Los Angeles by saying there was a no-hitter alert for Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto before the game even started.

So, what happened?

On the game’s very first pitch from Yamamoto, the Marlins’ Jazz Chisholm went deep.

5. Click into this Twitter thread and follow the story of how TNT’s Ernie Johnson helped make one NBA fan’s Bar Mitzvah a memorable and special event.

6. Here are some recent editions of SI Media With Jimmy Traina for you to catch up on in case you missed them.

Last week’s show featured an interview with Puck’s John Ourand about the latest news regarding the NBA’s future television rights deals.

Two weeks ago, the newly retired voice of the Yankees, John Sterling joined the podcast to discuss his storied career.

ESPN‘s NBA studio host, Malika Andrews, also joined SI Media With Jimmy Traina for a conversation about working her first playoffs and how she rose in the business.

And if you’re a WWE fan, make sure you check out my interview with the new Undisputed World Champion, Cody Rhodes, who joined SI Media With Jimmy Traina just days after finishing his story at WrestleMania 40.

You can also listen to the SI Media With Jimmy Traina on Apple and Spotify. You can also watch it on Sports Illustrated‘s YouTube channel.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: On this date, May 8, in 1997, Elaine Benes introduced us to something we didn’t realize we needed in our lives: Muffin tops.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. 

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Jimmy Traina

JIMMY TRAINA

Jimmy Traina writes the daily column Traina Thoughts and hosts a weekly Sports Illustrated Media Podcast. Jimmy created the daily Hot Clicks feature in 2007, which he wrote until 2013.