[Photo: Chris Condon]<\/p>\n
For golf viewers interested in what CBS broadcasters might have to say about Tiger Woods during coverage of the upcoming Masters Tournament, the network\u2019s position is one of respectful silence and adherence to tradition over the past 70 years of delivering the best possible production of the year\u2019s first men\u2019s major championship.<\/p>\n
This assumes, of course, Woods will not be playing in the 90th Masters after his automobile accident, DUI arrest on Friday near his home in Jupiter Island, Fla.<\/p>\n
The question about Woods\u2019 latest travails was bound to come up Monday during a CBS zoom conference call that included broadcasters Jim Nantz, Trevor Immelman, Dottie Pepper and producer Sellers Shy. CBS is preparing to broadcast the Masters for the 71st consecutive year, the longest-running sporting event airing on one network.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s obviously a big topic,\u201d David Berson, president and CEO of CBS Sports, replied when a reporter raised the question of how CBS might handle the subject of Woods. \u201cI first want to just say that thankfully nobody\u2019s injured. That\u2019s the most important thing coming out of the news from this past week. I definitely want to lead there.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs for Tiger playing or not playing or being in Augusta, not being in Augusta, we don\u2019t have information. It\u2019s not fair to anyone for us to speak about it or to speculate. We just won\u2019t do that. He and his team are going to have to be the ones who speak about it. It\u2019s only fair if that\u2019s the case. So we hope you\u2019ll respect and appreciate that, but we just really don\u2019t want to speculate on something.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not to say that CBS will shy away from any news involving the five-time Masters champion, but if Woods is not in the field next week as a competitor, then he is not part of the story involving who will be the next winner of the green jacket. Woods has not competed in a PGA Tour event since July 2024 and only returned to limited competition last week in the finals of TGL, the simulator league that he co-founded with reigning Masters champion Rory McIlroy.<\/p>\n
\u201cListen, Tiger\u2019s a story, obviously, wherever he is, but our job during the tournament itself will be to cover the tournament,\u201d Berson said. \u201cTiger obviously has a tremendous legacy at Augusta National with all his Masters victories, his voice in the sport. So of course, we\u2019ll touch on things as necessary as news dictates. For coverage of the event itself, we\u2019re going to cover the event.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another human interest story that might garner more coverage is Gary Woodland\u2019s emotional victory Sunday at the Texas Children\u2019s Houston Open that earned him a Masters berth. Woodland won for the first time since the 2019 US Open, only weeks after revealing his battle with post-traumatic stress disorder following brain surgery in 2023.<\/p>\n
Woodland\u2019s five-stroke victory resonated with the CBS crew, particularly Immelman, the network\u2019s lead golf analyst, 2008 Masters winner. Woodland and Immelman were neighbours for some time at Lake Nona in Orlando. Woodland also stood as best man for Colt Knost, who is making his debut on the network\u2019s Masters coverage this year.<\/p>\n
Shy pointed out \u201chow special [Woodland\u2019s] win was for Team CBS\u201d and \u201chow close we are to him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure everybody can agree, just such an amazing weekend of golf. I was glued to the TV, rooting on my great friend,\u201d said Immelman, who soon after the last putt dropped sent Woodland a text. \u201cWe used to play and practise together quite a lot. It was right when he was joining the tour, learning the ropes. Immediately you could see, feel the incredible talent that he is. The charisma \u2026 there\u2019s something special in the swagger that he has, the quiet self-confidence that he has. Obviously the last few years with what he, his family have been going through, it\u2019s been real brutal on his friends, family, everybody that loves him to see him struggling through this.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just amazing to me in sports how you get these kind of comeback stories. I don\u2019t say this at all without acknowledging that, as he said yesterday, he\u2019s still got to keep fighting. He still has hurdles ahead. But to see him have that moment, his family have that moment of reprieve where he\u2019s living out his dreams, lifting trophies, enjoying being out there with his peers was just \u2026 It\u2019s hard to not get emotional watching it yesterday. It\u2019s hard to not get emotional now talking about it, quite honestly.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not a stretch, Immelman said, to think Woodland, 41, has a good chance to contend next week. He last played in the Masters in 2024. His best finish in 12 starts is T-14 in 2023, while he has missed the cut six times and withdrawn once.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s clearly coming in there with a ton of confidence, feeling great about his game,\u201d Immelman said. \u201cHe\u2019s a major champion, so he knows everything that that entails, how to construct and manage those weeks. Quite honestly, this is one of those stories where in a certain sense, it\u2019s bigger than the game, bigger than sports. I just want to see the guy, give him a hug, tell him well done, tell him how proud I am of him. I look forward to that moment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[Photo: Chris Condon] For golf viewers interested in what CBS broadcasters might have to say about Tiger Woods…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1763,188684,67309,175308,188685,188686,58253,111,43,139,69,133879,213,188687,152201],"class_list":["post-357089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-article","tag-augusta-national","tag-cbs-sports","tag-gary-woodland","tag-golf-news","tag-jim-nantz","tag-masters","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pga-tour","tag-sports","tag-tiger-woods","tag-trevor-immelman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}