Paul Azinger returns to the broadcast booth in 2025.
Golf Week has learned that the 64-year-old former 12-time PGA Tour champion and 1993 PGA Championship winner will replace Lanny Wadkins, who announced his retirement on Fridayas lead analyst for Golf Channel’s coverage of PGA Tour Champions for 10-12 tournaments next season on a one-year deal.
“It’s not like a full-time job or anything, which I don’t want, but to be able to go there and play golf part-time, really good golf, it’ll be pretty fun,” said Azinger. Golf Week during a telephone interview Monday. “I’m just going to be as frank as possible and enjoy it.”
Peter Jacobsen and John Cook will split time in the analyst chair when Azinger is out. (Cook will serve as a traveling reporter on site when he is not an analyst.)
“Paul brings a lot of credibility to this seat and has a lot of creative ideas that we think can just add to our overall television show,” said PGA Tour Champions Chairman Miller Brady. “It’s hard to replace a Hall of Famer like Lanny week in and week out, but I think Paul will be great for us.”
Azinger was the lead golf analyst for NBC Sports’ PGA Tour coverage for five years until the network surprised him by choosing not to renew his contract last December.
“I was thinking of doing at least one more year and then signing a four-year contract. They made the offer, my agent said “No, we’ll make a counter offer the next day.” And they said, “Sorry, we’re moving on.” “You know, it wasn’t a conversation with me, like, ‘What do you need, Zinger?’ What should we do? Here is our situation. You know, that’s why we need you to agree to this deal. There was no reason, it was just that it was complicated, it was complicated. I thought to myself, “How complicated can it be, buddy?” It’s money”, Azinger said Golf Week in March.
The Peacock still hasn’t hired a replacement for Azinger, but is rotating this season with a cast of veteran players, including Kevin Kisner and Luke Donald, Golf Channel commentators Paul McGinley and Brandel Chamblee, who competed in the U.S. Open , and caddy Jim “Bones”. Mackay, who has since joined Golf Channel as an on-course commentator.
Although Azinger appears on Golf Channel, he is not employed by the network but rather by PGA Tour Entertainment, which has final say on talent for PGA Tour Champions coverage. All parties involved said the relationship was reconciled despite the messy split nearly a year ago.
“I hope it’s water under the bridge and everyone moves on.” I know Paul wants to move on, and we want to move on,” Brady said.
“Paul has competed in some of golf’s biggest events and been a part of the PGA Tour as a player or analyst for more than four decades, and we’re excited to see him bring that experience to the PGA Tour Champions broadcasts on Golf Channel , “said an NBC Sports spokesperson.
During his interview with Golf Week in March, Azinger hinted that he would be interested in convening the 50-and-over tour.
“I prefer to call the Senior Tour rather than the PGA Tour to tell you the truth. I’m done with the PGA Tour. To call the best senior players in the world, at least they are the best,” Azinger said, a not-so-subtle criticism of the Tour’s loss of talented players to LIV Golf.
Brady said he and Greg Hopfe, Tour senior vice president and executive producer of live programming, met with Azinger in February to gauge his interest in the Champions Tour.
“And, you know, he wasn’t entirely sure,” Brady said. “It took a lot of time to think about it. We continued to answer his questions and we said, look, at the end of the day, we’re not asking you to come in and make a full schedule. We ask you to dip your toes in the water and see if you like it.
Wadkins has been the lead analyst for Golf Channel’s Champions Tour coverage for 13 years. He said Golf Week On Friday, he will make his final broadcast in January at the Mitsubishi Electric Championship, kicking off the 2025 Champions Tour season, and Brady said the tour will honor Wadkins’ contributions in a special ceremony to be held before the tournament . In its newsletter, The quadrilateralGeoff Shackelford called Wadkins “one of the most underrated analysts in the history of golf television.”
Azinger, who was the winning U.S. captain in the 2008 Ryder Cup, started in television in 2005 with ABC and ESPN, sharing analyst duties with Nick Faldo in a three-way booth with Mike Tirico. When ESPN lost its rights to the British Open in 2015, Azinger signed with Fox Sports as a lead analyst when it outbid NBC for the U.S. Open and other USGA championships. NBC hired him in 2018 to replace Johnny Miller when he handed over and signed the 2019 WM Phoenix Open. Azinger’s last broadcast was the 2023 Ryder Cup in Rome.
In January, Golf Week asked Brady about Azinger and he noted that he saw him shortly after he left NBC during the World Champions Cup, which was being played not far from Azinger’s home at The Concession in Bradenton, Florida. Brady wondered if he could convince Azinger to bring his vast talents to the senior circuit stand.
“At the right time, I want to go see if maybe he will jump into the cabin here. Why not? But money is very different. He must want to do it. So I have to find the right time,” Brady said. “If I’m with him, just to say, Hey, do you want to do some events? It’s too raw now.
It turns out the time is right for Azinger.
“For Paul, it’s not about the money and he’ll tell you it’s not about the money,” Brady said, “it’s just about staying involved in the game and being close to many of his contemporaries.”
When Azinger was reminded that if he liked it enough to stay a second year, he might get the opportunity to call Tiger Woods back, Azinger’s voice lit up.
“I hope so,” Azinger said. “He says he will. I mean, if I could do five, six or seven Tiger events, I’d be thrilled. I’ll be thrilled either way. Trust me, it’s going to be a lot of fun.”
This article was originally published on Golfweek: Paul Azinger Returns to Broadcasting in 2025 as PGA Tour Champions Lead Analyst
