World Golf Hall of Fame member Lanny Wadkins ends 13 yearsth season as lead analyst for Golf Channel’s coverage of the PGA Tour Champions this week at the Charles Schwab Cup Championship at Phoenix Country Club in Phoenix. This will also be his last full season.
“I made it through my race,” said Wadkins, who turns 75 next month. Golf Week in a telephone conversation. “It’s time.”
Wadkins will retire after working one final television broadcast at the season-opening Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai on the Big Island of Hawaii in January, which also coincides with the Tour’s transition to a television broadcast team which calls PGA Tour Champions and Korn Ferry Tour events from its new studio built next to the Tour’s Global Home in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. (A test of how this will work next season is being conducted this week for the first time.)
Wadkins, who won 21 PGA Tour titles during his playing career, including the PGA Championship, and was a former US Ryder Cup captain, knew for several years that this move was coming and that he would require flying to Jacksonville. 15+ weeks a year to be part of the broadcast team with host Bob Papa (and occasionally John Swantek) and other commentators such as John Cook, John Mahaffey, Billy Ray Brown and Phil Blackmar.
“I think broadcast television is going to lose something compared to all the positives they can bring,” Wadkins said. “I think personal interaction with players is one of the best things you can do. I know, for example, when I call the tournament in Hawaii, I have breakfast every morning with different players and you bring them together in an environment like that, you can get more information from them on what happens in their games, who they work with, how they achieve it and what they are trying to achieve, everything else.
This week, Wadkins is in Phoenix, but he noted that cost cutting means he doesn’t even call the action from a booth anymore.
“I’m going to call this tournament, which is arguably the biggest on the Champions Tour, and I’m going to sit in the compound, a small 10×10 windowless room, and call it off on the monitors. You know, they just went that direction,” he said.
Wadkins said he found it less appealing to fly from his longtime home in Dallas to Jacksonville between 15 and 20 times a year to sit in a studio. Dad once moved his family to Ponte Vedra Beach and Swantek is a long-time resident of the area. (An on-course journalist will always be present at each tournament.)
“They want most of the people who are going to work there to move there, otherwise, I mean, for me, for example, they would still be paying a plane ticket there, a hotel and per diem and , you know, they I wouldn’t save any money by not living there if I was doing the telecast So that seems to be the bottom line I just hope the product doesn’t suffer,. That’s what concerns me,” Wadkins said. “A lot of times we were in the same hotel as most of the players, so we would see them at the bar and you know, I think that interaction is crucial to getting information that would improve the broadcast. It doesn’t always come from me, but it could come from Dad or Cookie or whatever, but just having, you know, a walker there, it seems like a really lonely life, just being the only person there, no one there. other there, you know, that. is going to be a little weird.
Talent for PGA Tour Champions coverage is chosen by PGA Tour Entertainment and not Golf Channel. A replacement for Wadkins will be announced at a later date, and Wadkins will be honored at the tour’s annual awards ceremony in Hualalai.
Wadkins may be hanging up his helmet, but he plans to stay active in the game through his design work.
“I have six projects in the works right now for Invited, so I’m covered. I have two guys who work for me. We’re having a very successful run and I’m really enjoying it,” Wadkins said. “And I can also control my schedule better, which is good. I’ve got grandkids on the way and things like that, so, you know, all the other things you can do in life. Think about it: I’ve been traveling 25 weeks a year or more since I was 21. So it’s been well over 50 years. So that represents a lot of driving time.
He will be able to leave on his terms after a 13-year career with the PGA Tour champions, following six seasons as lead analyst for CBS Sports’ PGA Tour coverage, which ended on a sour note.
“It’s a profession they don’t really train you in. They throw you in there and see if you can do it. I think it took me a few years to get comfortable with CBS, for example. I think that’s why the ending was so hard, because I think I had gotten my bearings. I remember the last PGA Championship, which was the last TV show of the year that Jim Nantz and I did over those six years and Jimmy looked at me and said, ‘You were right about money.’ You and I have hit our stride. We’re going to be great in the future. And a month later, it ended, and I still had three years left on my contract. So, it’s a weird deal, you know, it’s hard to tell what’s going on.
But Wadkins knows one thing: he really enjoyed broadcasting the senior circuit.
“It kept me in the game and I was around guys I’ve known my whole life,” he said.
When asked what he would miss most, Wadkins said he would miss people and went on to compliment everyone from his broadcast partners to his producer. Then he remembered another thing he would miss: a martini night with Dad, Cookie and Billy Ray.
“We all like the same vodka, so it was a lot of fun for a while,” Wadkins added.
What night was Martini night?
“Oh, whatever night we are all together,” he said. “We weren’t picky.”
This article was originally published on Golfweek: Lanny Wadkins determines his final broadcast as lead analyst for PGA Tour Champions and explains why ‘it’s time’
