Lanny Wadkins Enjoying Transition To Broadcasting
5/28/2002 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
May 28, 2002
By Jay Reddick
Lanny Wadkins' career credentials are beyond reproach. The 52-year-old has won 22 tournaments as a professional golfer on the PGA and Senior PGA Tours, and his career earnings of more than $7 million rank him 23rd all-time.
Now that Wadkins has conquered the sport he loves on the course, he's able to contribute to it in a different way: as a broadcaster.
Wadkins will become CBS Sports' lead analyst on its PGA Tour telecasts in July, after the retirement of Ken Venturi. He worked at five tournaments for the network last season and was an analyst at The Masters April 13-14.
The new job will mean cutting back his playing schedule, but Wadkins said it was time for a change.
"I played hurt for the last three years, and all of a sudden, something that didn't hurt sounded good," said Wadkins, who played in the annual Wake Forest Pro-Am at Bermuda Run on April 15. "I didn't know what shape my golfing career was going to take, and I'm too young to quit doing anything, so it gave me something to do."
Wadkins joined the Senior Tour with a bang in 2000, winning his first tournament, the ACE Group Classic, in a playoff. But elbow and wrist injuries limited his schedule in 2000 and 2001, and he had managed only one more top-10 finish entering this season. That led to the decision, which was announced by CBS Sports president Sean MacManus on Jan. 31.
The decision to put competitive golf in the background, ironically, has led to something of a renaissance in Wadkins' game. He has three top-10 finishes on the Senior Tour this season, including a third-place finish at the Emerald Coast Classic. He fired a single-round 63 during that event.
"I think the good thing is that by not playing so much golf, I won't beat my body up," Wadkins said. "I'll be healthier, enjoy golf more when I play and enjoy the broadcasting too. It'll be the best of both worlds."
Of course, Wadkins won't stop playing. He's scheduled to play in 20 Senior Tour events this season (two more than last year), and broadcast 11 for CBS. Next season, with 19 events on the CBS schedule, Wadkins estimates he'll play between eight and 11 senior tournaments.
Wadkins said he never expected to move upstairs into the broadcast booth, but it has obviously come naturally to him. At The Masters, he fit in well with others who have been on TV a lot longer.
"I'm really hired as an analyst to say why things are happening - why a player is making this decision, why he's hitting this club, why it's a tough shot - not only do I say it's a tough shot, but then I've got to tell why it's a tough shot," Wadkins said. "Like (during the Masters final round) I kept making the point that Tiger (Woods) had shallowed out his swing, taking less of a divot and keeping the spin off the ball because the greens were soft, and he didn't want them sucking back off the greens like you saw some other players' do. He's got enough talent to do that in a major championship, some other players don't."
Broadcasting The Masters, which Woods won, was a thrill for Wadkins, but the tournament itself left him a little cold.
"We're all anticipating one of the best Masters in years, and I think it was kind of a dud, quite honestly," he said. "I don't know why the other players didn't step up and have a better day. Tiger was in control of his game. I think he played conservative for him in places and played some very smart golf.
"One thing he did that was exceptional was he chipped great. When he missed the green, his chips were stone dead for simple pars. He was the only one who looked like he was under control yesterday. Everybody else looked like the event or Tiger was intimidating them."
Of course, broadcasting isn't all knowing what to say, it's knowing when to say it.
"A lot of it's timing, working with people, knowing when they're finished with their thought and not repeating that," Wadkins said. "If (Jim) Nantz asks me a question but also refers to something, I don't think it's my job to echo what he just said. I have to elaborate and define it a little bit better."
Wadkins is a perennial participant in the Wake Forest Pro-Am, which annually brings many of the school's top golf alumni back for a Captain's Choice tournament to benefit the program. The April 15 event included Scott Hoch, Billy Andrade, Jay Haas, Curtis Strange and Len Mattiace from the PGA Tour; Wadkins, Joe Inman and Jay Sigel from the Senior Tour, plus former PGA player Robert Wrenn and the Senior Tour's Walter Hall, a Winston-Salem resident. Members of the 1986 national championship team were also honored at a banquet on April 14 and given championship rings, along with their coach, the legendary Jesse Haddock.
The event, and the school, mean a lot to Wadkins.
"Wake Forest has been like family to me for 30-some years now," he said. "I'm about to start my fourth term on the Board of Trustees. I've put a lot of money into a scholarship fund. The golf program is special, but the whole university is special. My daughter came here, and my two young boys are already saying that they want to go to Wake Forest. That thrills me to death, and I hope they both do. I wouldn't push them here, but if they want to, I'm sure going to make it available.
"It's a wonderful institution, good people, and something I've always had to fall back on as far as friends. They've been with me when things are good or bad, it's never wavered."