Even though the field at the PGA Championship is being led by slimmed-down LIV Golf defector Bryson DeChambeau, CBS sportscasting legend Jim Nantz can’t stop himself from taking shots at the Saudi-backed circuit. Broadcasting the opening round of the tournament on Thursday, Nantz took a shot at LIV’s ratings as Dustin Johnson was set to tee off at the PGA Championship in Rochester. “Not sure if you had a chance to see it, but he was the winner last week in Tulsa in a playoff over Cam Smith,” Nantz said on the broadcast.
It was a subtle dig, but a dig nonetheless as Johnson’s win in Tulsa last weekend was pulled off the majority of CW affiliates for other programming because LIV’s tournament ran long because of a two-hour rain delay. That being the case, the only fans who saw Johnson’s win over Smith and Branden Grace in extra holes were those who switched to the CW app. Most didn’t and instead watched programming including Murdoch Mysteries, Dawson’s Creek and Black-ish.
It was a good shot by Nantz and certainly an intentional one as he also needled LIV and its relationship with The CW last month during the Masters when Brooks Koepka was playing the 15th hole during the third round in Augusta. As the LIV golfer was heading to take his third shot, Nantz described his destination by saying, “There he is right on the CW.” After a long pause, he clarified that he only meant “the crosswalk.” (Right…)
Afterward in an interview with Jimmy Traina of Sports Illustrated, Nantz addressed the comment. “It definitely was not a shot,” Nantz said. “It just was something that I could see for the first time that his second shot at 15 had ended up on the crosswalk. And that’s a rarity, you see a player on the crosswalk. It’s just the way my brain works, sometimes. I said that, ‘There he is on the CW, the crosswalk.’ I was just, maybe being a little cheeky. I certainly didn’t mean it to be a shot. It was not a shot at all. Maybe it was just trying to be a little whimsical.”
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Famed “Freakonomics” writer Steve Levitt is convinced the PGA’s rival tour will soon failWhat Nantz was being was a little bit of a pest and, as his comment about Johnson at the PGA Championship demonstrates, he continues to be. And don’t let Nantz tell you otherwise. After all, he’s a guy who is enough of a noodge that he carries around a laminated picture of burnt toast in his wallet to make sure the bread he gets with his bacon and three scrambled eggs is just how he likes it. “When I order, I present the photo to my server. I get some strange looks, but I can assure you, the toast now arrives black and scary, just the way I like it,” Nantz told Golf Digest.
Cool.
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