With more than 30 years in TV commentary as a lead analyst, swing coach Peter Kostis has been an eyewitness to the biggest changes in modern professional golf. Here, he speaks candidly about the decline in golf broadcasting, the state of men’s professional golf and the future of LIV Golf.
Let’s start at the beginning, at least in terms of your television career. When did that kick-off and when did it end?
I started at the 1989 Ryder Cup at The Belfry. I worked there for the USA network and my last telecast for CBS was at the end of 2019 (pictured above back in 2010).
It actually happened quite by accident. Until 1989 the PGA of America hadn’t charged a rights-fee for the Ryder Cup in the U.S and, when they did, the major networks all passed on it. They couldn’t make any money from it. USA was a cable network just getting into doing early-round coverage of the PGA Tour. They paid $250,000 for the right to cover the ’89 Ryder Cup.
To do that they needed announcers. They had Ben Wright, Gary McCord and a football guy called Jim Simpson. But they needed one more, to go on course, which turned out to be me only because I was over there anyway coaching Mark Calcavecchia, Ken Green and Bernhard Langer. That was how I got started.
From there, USA developed a relationship with CBS and I was hired as USA’s lead analyst after that Ryder Cup. That led to me working with the legendary producer, Frank Chirkinian, at CBS. In 1990 I did a few events for them and in ’92 they hired me full-time. So, I was on television for three decades.
How much did it change in that time?
Unbelievably. Chirkinian used to produce and direct because the shows were much slower and had a lot fewer commercials. But when Tiger came along in ’97 the rights-fees exploded and the tour did that multiple-times over the course of Tiger’s career. As a consequence, the networks had to get the money somehow, which is why today’s telecasts are so inundated with commercials. Today’s shows are a lot messier.
So, we can blame Tiger for all the TV commercials?
(laughs) You can actually ‘blame’ Tiger for a lot. He is both the best thing that has ever happened to golf and, in some cases, the worst thing.
The PGA Tour has used Tiger as a hammer to bludgeon its partners. They had Tiger so the tour’s business partners had to do all sorts of things. There was no recourse either, no partnerships per se. Not that I could see. They had arguably the most visible sportsman in the world and they rode him and ‘putting him away wet,’ as the old saying about horses goes. There was no questioning what the Tour did.
As a result, the Tour never felt an obligation to improve its product. They had a formula and they stuck to it. As far as the PGA Tour was concerned.’ growing the game’ meant growing its own income and its own dominance.
How would things have gone had there not been a Tiger?
Golf is a niche sport. It always will be. Regardless of Tiger’s brilliance, it is never going to be a mainstream sport on television. Not in the U.S, anyway. Had he not been around, that false hope would never have been dangled in front of us and people wouldn’t have been trying to make it more than it really is. There would have been no constant need to suck money out of the game.
How would that have impacted on television commentary? Would it have stayed more like the BBC-style, where the commentators – like Peter Alliss – were given time and space to expand on what we were watching?
I saw something on social media this year. A player once made an eight out of the pot bunker on the 14th hole at Hilton Head. The great Vin Scully did the commentary. He did two minutes of brilliant commentary. That would never happen today. No one gets that long to talk about anything. I understand the need to see lots of shots. But attention spans have shortened.
Back in the day, I did a 27-page instruction story for U.S Golf Digest.…
I wrote it!
(laughs) You did. But do you think there will be a 27-page story in any magazine today? Not a chance. If you can’t read a story while you’re in the bathroom, they don’t want to print it. Golf is the same. Sometimes it needs to be slow; sometimes it needs to be quick. But to make it ‘bang-bang-bang’ all the time is hardly representative of what golf is.
Isn’t it a waste of your expertise to give you so little time to talk?
That started when CBS did a survey that discovered people wanted to watch golf on TV for a) the competition and b) if they wanted to see a favourite player in action. All of which would help them in their own golf. So, they came up with the high-speed camera. When we started those sequences, I had up to a minute to talk and put in graphics etc. I was able to give them a little lesson, as best I could in that time frame. It was a huge success in the beginning.
Over the next 16-17 years that I did those, I was eventually down to ten seconds. What am I supposed to say in that short a time? They completely bastardised that whole segment. You can’t teach anyone anything in ten seconds, which is a microcosm of golf on television over the last 30 years.
What came first? Did that cause shorter attention spans? Or did the public call for that sort of thing because of their shorter attention spans?
It’s hard to say. But there was a time when that segment was the most popular part of every CBS broadcast. But as it got shorter it eventually became an annoyance. It was basically neutered.
Can’t you apply that word to the commentators generally? Any expertise they might have is never going to show if all they do is say, ‘he’s hitting 5-iron, back to the 16th.’
There are way too many announcers and way too little time to talk. Take CBS. They have two or three on-course announcers. They have three more, plus Jim Nantz, in the towers. So, they often have three people trying to talk over one shot. You can’t do that. It stops being teamwork and becomes one-upmanship. If one announcer says something, the next one says, ‘yeah, but…’
So, what’s the solution?
I’d have way fewer announcers. That would alleviate part of the problem. In fact, this is where LIV Golf has an opportunity. They are never going to be truly successful until they have a successful product on television. They have the money to do it commercial-free. And, if they hire the right producer and announcers, they can make it a really interesting product.
We could get to the stage where you can follow a group or a player all the way round and never have the announcers describe shots. I joke with people about this. Play a drinking game where, every time the announcer, tells you what you’ve just seen, have a drink. You’ll be drunk pretty quickly.
Chirkinian used to tell us if we ever said something he’d just seen, we’d be fired. He trained us. LIV Golf can re-invent that process. Let them wax poetic over swings, whatever. Then you can compile eight or ten shots from different people – not just putts – and show them rapid-fire on tape. You can still jump around. Let the viewers see the shots. There are so many things you can do when you are not burdened with promotions and commercials.
When did this decline set in?
There is nobody in PGA Tour or network management that give a rat’s arse about the quality of the product. They don’t care about the viewer experience. They care about the bottom line. Once the Tour purses rose substantially, the networks had to cover those costs and so the quality of the production went downhill. It was all so cluttered. So, if there was a genesis to the decline, it was the increase in prizemoney.
There was a time in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s when CBS golf accounted for over 20 percent of the profit for the whole network. That’s why Chirkinian had so much freedom. But when the rights fees went up and the profits went down, the quality of the product disintegrated.
What about the announcers across the networks? Some don’t seem too suited to the jobs they have. Others don’t have anything to say. And there is a general sameness. Shouldn’t there be a mixture of people all with different areas of expertise?
The Tour tries to whitewash everything. I know they have made a concerted effort to get jobs for ex-players who will be nothing but pro-PGA Tour. That is one reason why Gary McCord (pictured right) and I were released. We weren’t beholden to the Tour all the time. I was reprimanded several times for telling a first-time winner during the interview on the 72nd green that they now had a full-time job for two years and a trip to the Masters. The PGA Tour got upset because I didn’t mention that the guy won x number of FedExCup points. You think that’s what a player thinks of after his first victory? I doubt it.
So, the Tour looks for yes-men. And that’s what they’ve got. Every ex-player is pro-PGA Tour. All the magazines, the Golf Channel, the networks – they are all in the Tour’s pocket. So, there is no objectivity. There is no one like Henry Longhurst or Ben Wright out there now. They added a dimension to telecasts, which was the brilliance of Chirkinian. He put together a diverse ensemble.
When I went to work for Frank, he told me he didn’t hire me to be funny. “Do not be funny,” he said. “You are not funny. You are smart. So be smart. I’ve got McCord and Wright for funny.” We worked as a team and never tried to step on each other. We always tried to be additive. Frank never cared if a viewer liked me and hated McCord. Or vica versa. He just wanted people to like the show.
That’s gone now. all we have is a bunch of ex-player commentators trying to outdo each other with Tour-speak the average person doesn’t begin to understand.
For example?
“Oh man, did you see how he laid the shaft down in transition? That was gorgeous.” That means nothing to a 15-handicapper. It’s all so incestuous. No one is talking to the viewer anymore.
Let’s transition into LIV Golf. How have you been viewing this whole thing?
I have yet to see anyone taking both sides to task. Some of the bigger media organisations are in bed with the PGA Tour. It looks to me like there are journalists out there who are not allowed to write anything negative about the Tour’s reaction to LIV.
If someone’s income is either directly or tangentially tied to the PGA Tour, then their opinion is jaded or compromised. In my opinion.
On the other hand, many have taken Greg Norman to task for accepting what many describe as ‘blood money’, which is ridiculous. The United States are in bed with so many different countries with dreadful human rights issues. It’s a joke.
Then again, Greg says that LIV Golf is going to be profitable. Show me how. Tell me. What are your plans? What is your one-three-five-year game plan? They must have one. But we never hear what it is. All we get is Greg saying that he can do it without actually showing us how. So, both sides in this deal deserve to be attacked.
How do you think the argument over ranking points is going to play out?
The only good thing about being my age – 75 – is that I can remember how the rankings came to be back in the early 1980s. A friend of mine was head of Sony in America. Mark McCormack’s International Management Group came to him and asked Sony to sponsor the world golf rankings.
"Along the way, the PGA Tour did not invest in their product. In terms of television, it has actually gotten worse. In order for the TV companies to pay the ever-increasing rights-fees, they have ads every two minutes." – Peter Kostis.
At that time, IMG basically “owned” the European Tour. They managed many of the top players. They ran many of the big events. They sold the television rights for the Tour. So, this was all about elevating the status of the European players, which is why, initially, the ranking was skewed towards Europe. It has bounced back and forth since. But today America is dominant. The PGA Tour has the rankings in its pocket.
My point is that the rankings have never been pure, or sacrosanct.
What would you say to someone like me who thinks they should be abandoned? Comparing events and players from different events is nonsensical.
There is some truth to that. The only thing that gave the rankings some degree of standing was the use of them by the majors. So, you are right. It all needs to go away.
The majors could come up with any number of ways to fill their fields. They did it before.
Sure.
Shifting gears slightly, the idea of a World Tour is hardly new.
Back in the 1950s and 1960s, Peter Thomson was advocating just such a thing. Greg Norman did the same in 1994. And now Norman again.
The PGA Tour has been steadfast in its insistence that the game doesn’t need a World Tour because it would interfere with their dominance. In fact, all the Tour has done since 1996 is ride the coat tails of Tiger Woods. They have bullied their corporate partners in television and sponsorship.
“Well, Tiger isn’t actually going to play in your event. But you still have to pay $X.”
Along the way, the PGA Tour did not invest in their product. In terms of television, it has actually gotten worse. In order for the TV companies to pay the ever-increasing rights-fees, they have ads every two minutes.
But, hang on a minute, just recently when under pressure from LIV, the PGA Tour magically found hundreds of millions of dollars they could give to the players to keep them from jumping ship.
Funny that.
The PGA Tour also portrays itself as this pinnacle of competition. “We’re pure. We have a 36-hole cut.” But now they are going to have 20-events where players can qualify through their popularity? Come on. What has that got to do with competition?
When it appeared, what did you first think?
‘Here we go again.’ A few years ago, I had dinner in Ponte Vedra. There were three of us at the table and between us we had ten Open Championships. It was Tom Watson, Peter Thomson and me. Five, five and zero.
We talked about a lot of stuff, but Peter spoke of the World Tour he had suggested eons ago. Norman did the same in ’94, but the tour rebuffed his and took his idea when they created the World Golf Championships. Now he’s back, with funding from what many people feel is a questionable source.
How do you deal with that issue?
There is no country in the world that is free from human rights abuses. It is only to what degree. The journalists who are really angry at the Saudi money are angry because it was a journalist who was killed. Which was, no question, horrific. But what goes on in China is also horrific. There is inhumanity to man almost everywhere.
I try to stay out of that. I’m not going to be hypocritical. I hate selective hypocrisy.
Some will argue this is an opportunity to effect change in Saudi Arabia.
It may very well. I don’t know that it will happen though. I don’t know that it has happened in China.
The Chinese government clearly doesn’t care what people think of them and their human rights atrocities. The Russians are the same. The whole world is intertwined with abuses on some level. So, who decides where the line is that you cannot cross?
In this case, I’m thinking that we have someone willing to put billions of dollars into golf. In the long-run that might do golf some good.
But the PGA Tour turned up its nose at money from Saudi Arabia. Do you think Greg Norman, with his history, is the right man to be approaching the PGA Tour?
"Phil (Mickelson) has always been full of himself. But he’s not an idiot. In some respects, he’s not the smartest guy in the room." – Peter Kostis.
He is, no question, a lightning rod. I have no way of knowing this, but I’m not sure he was even the first person the Saudis approached.
Greg is Greg. We know of his past and his opinions. So yes, he is a lightning rod. So is the source of the money.
But it baffles me that the PGA Tour Commissioner doesn’t take the initial phone call or the meeting. He has an obligation to have that conversation. You might very well say ‘thanks but no thanks,’ but you have to listen.
Refusing to even listen does seem irresponsible.
He is supposed to be the Commissioner for the players, not of the players. So yes, it was a dereliction of duty for him to do what he did. His stubbornness now, along with Greg’s stubborn streak, is going to make this really difficult to resolve.
Will any resolution have to be preceded by the departure of both men?
That I don’t know. But it is going to get ugly when the lawsuits and the depositions take place. All the skeletons in a lot of closets will be revealed. It will get even nastier than it is now. I don’t like that.
What did you make of Phil Mickelson’s role in this? And how do you feel about how he has been treated subsequently?
Phil (pictured right) has always been full of himself. But he’s not an idiot. In some respects, he’s not the smartest guy in the room. He’s had issues, gambling being just one of those.
I go back to the Ryder Cup at Gleneagles when he threw Tom Watson under the bus at the post-match press conference. But look what happened after that. You can argue that the way he went about it was completely wrong. But he was completely right in what he was arguing. The players had no say in what was going on. Now they are and the Americans are doing better in the Ryder Cup.
The same is true about what Phil said about LIV Golf and the Saudis. But the players have been arguing for change on the PGA Tour for 30 years. And there has been nothing but deafening silence in response. Now the players are getting a lot of what they want. Phil maybe went about it the wrong way, but look what has happened. All of a sudden, the PGA Tour finds hundreds of millions of dollars that previously weren’t available. Really?
So, the attacks on Phil have been completely over the top. Way over. All the good he has done has been forgotten. No one has signed more autographs than he has. Now all of a sudden, he’s a dirt-bag?
That is a big part of my issue with this whole thing. As I said, the PGA Tour has everyone in its pocket. Because those people are tied to the financial success of the PGA Tour. That means journalists. That means television networks. That means magazines. That means everyone who is directly or tangentially connected to the PGA Tour is not going to be objective in their commentary.
What do you think the PGA Tour could and should have done with the Saudi money?
First off, more than half of the PGA Tour’s sponsors have business dealings with Saudi Arabia. I believe that is correct. So, you can’t claim to be morally pure when you are taking money from companies who work with the Saudis.
I find it really funny that the Royal Bank of Canada dropped Dustin Johnson as soon as he signed with LIV. RBC is part of the IPO of Aramco, which is the largest oil company in the world. Talk about being hypocritical.
Anyway, to answer your question, there are a multitude of ways this could have been done. They could have opened up a subsidiary of the PGA Tour that is elite.
So, you don’t think that some of the things we’ve seen the PGA Tour do in the last few months would have happened without LIV Golf appearing?
Nope. The PGA Tour wasn’t going to ever change unless it was absolutely forced to do so. That’s my opinion.
How would you characterise your reaction to what they have done?
Let’s just say that, on a scale of one to ten, on honesty and believability, the hierarchy of the PGA Tour don’t come close to 50 percent. I don’t trust them and I don’t believe them.
Are you being too cynical?
I would concede that to an extent. But I’ve watched them for 30 years and I fully admit that, when I worked for CBS, I couldn’t say what I wanted to say. I tried to push it as much as I could. I tried to be as honest as I could but there were times, I had to bite my tongue because I didn’t want to lose my job. That has been amped up even more over the last few years.
There’s a line between cynicism and being free to say what you really think.
What do you say to players like Lee Westwood when it comes to LIV Golf. It’s easy to see why, at his age and stage of career, he took the money? But isn’t it harder to see why Cam Smith would do the same?
Lee is probably not going to qualify for many majors at his age. Actually, to me the winners in this whole thing are the four majors. They hold all the cards now.
Cam Smith, having won the Open, is exempt for all of the majors for at least the next three years. In the back of his mind, he might be thinking this will all get resolved in the next few years and so he won’t lose anything. He’s in the majors.
Those guys have both made their decisions with regard to money, but also with one eye on their future participation in majors. A youngster who is exempt – and I don’t think the majors will take those away – is in a different place from an older guy who probably isn’t going to play in many more anyway.
The majors have differences though. The two Opens are, by definition, open. But the Masters is an invitational. What do you see happening?
They are going to be ‘must-see’ TV. They will be the only places where you can see all of the best players competing against each other.
So, no change as far as they are concerned?
They may end up making some new rules. But I think it is extremely unlikely that the Masters will not invite past champions who have gone to LIV. Then, if you win at Augusta, you are in the next three majors regardless of where you are coming from.
I laugh when I hear pros say they play for trophies, not money. Or that they play for honour and integrity. Or history. If that is the case, why the hell did they turn pro?
You can qualify for the Masters through the U.S Amateur or the (British) Amateur. You can win the Masters as an amateur, albeit that is unlikely. Now you are into the other majors. You can play as an amateur if that is what you want to do.
Okay, specifically, what do you think the majors will come up with?
it is time to re-evaluate the rankings as they currently exist. And to do that, you need to understand how and why they began. The people on the board of the OWGR are tied to the PGA Tour, the European Tour and the four majors. They are in direct conflict with the LIV Tour. And they are deciding whether or not the LIV Tour can get points. That doesn’t strike me as a very fair scenario for the LIV Tour.
It was hysterical when, after arguing that 54-hole events and a shotgun start is not ‘real golf,’ we saw the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth reduced to 54-holes and, a couple of weeks later, the Dunhill Links was forced to employ a shotgun start. You couldn’t make it up.
What do you make of the LIV Golf format?
I go back to my view that we need a new way of televising golf employing four or five channels. In other words, offering what people want. The LIV Golf format is not for everyone. But because it isn’t, doesn’t mean it is for no one. It doesn’t mean it is corrupt. It doesn’t mean it isn’t competition.
I find it intriguing. I’ve always wanted to see fewer players participating in the elite events. I always wanted to have 72-players in a PGA Tour every week.
And this business about no cut? No one seems to study history any more. I see Byron Nelson’s cut-streak cited all the time. But they didn’t have cuts back then. Everyone played every round almost every week. What was defined as ‘making the cut’ was getting a cheque. They only paid so many spots.
So, Byron finished in the money x-weeks in a row. He didn’t make a cut. That’s new terminology. Cuts only exist because of the excessive number of players they have to get round over four days. But the guys who ‘miss the cut’ contribute to the product for two days. So, they deserve to be paid.
There is some logic to that. They are professionals so they should be paid.
Exactly. Especially when luck can be a big factor. Every year at the Open Championship players worry about what side of the draw they are going to be on. There’s nearly always a good and bad side Thursday and Friday. A shotgun start eliminates that. So, I don’t have a problem with it.
It can never be completely ‘fair’ though. Take Sawgrass. Starting on the 18th tee there is a lot harder than starting on the first.
I know. I’m not sure how LIV are doing it. But here’s an idea. They have 48-players in their fields. So, they could have the 46th, 47th and 48th ranked players starting on the hardest hole. That’s the penalty for being at the bottom of the pile. 1-2 and 3 get to start on the easiest hole.
It still isn’t fair though. It can never be fair.
No. But it is fairer when everyone is on the course at the same time playing in the same conditions. Weather variations are way more influential than course design.
Take the 18th at Sawgrass. A bogey there is never a terrible score. So, while it can never be really fair, I don’t want it to be fair.
There is a lot of bad feeling around the globe towards the PGA Tour. Their perceived insularity and selfishness has made life difficult for every other Tour around the world. The Australasian Tour, for example, has been all but destroyed.
That is 100 percent correct. Australia and Australian golf has been obliterated. I find it interesting that the players who have been most vocal about a World Tour are both Australian.
When the PGA Tour says it is ‘partnering’ with, say, the European Tour, I roll my eyes. They’re not. They are raping and pillaging the village. They are going to take the top-ten players on the European money-list every year and give them exemptions onto the PGA Tour. Who does that help? Not the European Tour.
Every Tour that can’t match the PGA Tour financially is going to be ‘relegated’ every year. Being a partner with the PGA Tour is …. I’m going to go off the record but you can imagine what I think. I find it incomprehensible that people can’t get together and sort out this stuff. I put the blame for that on Jay Monahan and Keith Pelley and on Greg Norman. They all need to stop their temper tantrums and do what is best for the professional game.
What did you make of the European Tour’s decision to go into an alliance with the PGA Tour rather than the Saudis? They had that option.
I have no insight into the inner working of all that. But I have to think it came about after pressure from the PGA Tour and the European Tour complied.
RIGHT: Tour chiefs Jay Monahan (left) and Ketih Pelley need to do what is best for the game. PHOTO: Getty Images.
I know a lot of European players would rather have gone with the Saudi money.
Correct. I’m sure there was a pressure campaign about the source of the money that would make the European Tour look bad. But the Saudis are in soccer. They are in Formula One. They are all over and they will continue to be. So, you have to be realistic. I find it hard to believe Pelley keeps his job when all of the information when we hear about all the options he had. And it’s going to be interesting to see if Monahan keeps his job if he doesn’t eventually come to the table.
If you were a European Tour player when that was all on the table, what would you have voted for?
My initial reaction would have been to say we had two options. We could dissolve the PGA Tour and the European Tour to form a World Tour, one where everyone was equal but there was a system of promotion and relegation between the elite tour and the secondary circuit.
So, either I am going to be part of that as an equal partner, or I am going to take the Saudi money and fight like hell against the PGA Tour.
What I am not going to be is the PGA Tour’s little brother. That is the worst of all the available options.
– Interview by John Huggan
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