Paul Azinger is returning to the broadcast booth in 2025.
Golfweek has learned that the 64-year-old former 12-time PGA Tour champion and winner of the 1993 PGA Championship will replace Lanny Wadkins, who announced his retirement on Friday, as the lead analyst on Golf Channel’s coverage of PGA Tour Champions for 10-12 tournaments next season as part of a one-year deal.
“It’s not like a full-time gig or anything, which I don’t want, but to be able to go in there and part-time some golf, some really great golf, it’ll be kind of fun,” Azinger told Golfweek in a phone interview on Monday. “I’ll just be as candid as I can and enjoy it.”
Peter Jacobsen and John Cook will split time in the analyst chair when Azinger is off. [Cook will serve as on-site walking reporter when he’s not an analyst.]
“Paul brings a lot of credibility to that seat and has a lot of creative ideas that we think can just add to our overall telecast,” Miller Brady, president of PGA Tour Champions, said. “It’s hard to replace a Hall of Famer like Lanny week in and week out, but, I think Paul will be tremendous for us.”
Azinger was the lead golf analyst for NBC Sports’ coverage of the PGA Tour for five years until the network stunned him by electing not to renew his contract last December.
“I thought I would do at least one more year and then sign a four-year deal. They made the offer, my agent said ‘No, we’ll counteroffer 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 do we need to do? Here’s our situation. You know, this is why we need you to accept this deal.’ There was no reason, it just was it’s complicated, it’s complicated. I was like, ‘How complicated can it be, bud?’ It’s money,” Azinger told Golfweek in March.
The Peacock still hasn’t hired a replacement for Azinger, instead rotating this season through a cast of veteran players including Kevin Kisner and Luke Donald, Golf Channel commentators Paul McGinley and Brandel Chamblee, who did the U.S. Open, and caddie Jim “Bones” Mackay, who has since rejoined Golf Channel as an on-course commentator.
Sep 24, 2022; Charlotte, North Carolina, USA; Paul Azinger holds up a fish at the lake near the 14th hole during the foursomes match play of the Presidents Cup golf tournament at Quail Hollow Club. Mandatory Credit: Peter Casey-USA TODAY Sports
While Azinger will appear on Golf Channel, he isn’t 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 that the relationship has been reconciled despite the messy parting nearly a year ago.
“I hope that that’s water under the bridge and that everyone just moves on. I know Paul wants to move on, and we want to move on,” Brady said.
“Paul has called some of golf’s biggest events and has been a part of the PGA Tour as a player or analyst for more than four decades, and we’re excited to have him bring that experience to the PGA Tour Champions telecasts on Golf Channel,” an NBC Sports spokesperson said.
During his interview with Golfweek in March, Azinger hinted that he’d be interested in calling the 50-and-over tour.
“I’d rather call the Senior Tour than the PGA Tour to tell you the truth. I’m over the PGA Tour. To call the best senior players in the world, at least they’re the best,” Azinger said, a not-so-subtle jab at the Tour’s loss of talented players to LIV Golf.
Brady said he and Greg Hopfe, the Tour’s senior vice president and executive producer of live programming, met with Azinger in February to feel out his interest in the Champions Tour.
“And, you know, he wasn’t quite sure,” Brady said. “It took a lot of time to think about it. We continued to answer questions that he had, and we said, look, at the end of the day, we’re not asking you to come do a full schedule. We’re asking you to dip your toe in the water and let’s see if you like it.”
Wadkins has been the lead analyst of Golf Channel’s coverage of the Champions Tour for the last 13 years. He told Golfweek on Friday that he would do his final broadcast in January at the Mitsubishi Electric Championship, the kickoff to the 2025 Champions Tour season, and Brady said the tour would honor Wadkins’ contributions in a special ceremony to be held before the tournament. At his newsletter, The Quadrilateral, Geoff Shackelford called Wadkins “one of the most underrated analysts in golf television history.”
Azinger, who was the winning U.S. captain at the 2008 Ryder Cup, started in television in 2005 with ABC and ESPN, sharing analyst duties with Nick Faldo in a three-man booth with Mike Tirico. When ESPN lost its right to the British Open in 2015, Azinger signed with Fox Sports as 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 passed the baton and signed off from the 2019 WM Phoenix Open. Azinger’s final broadcast was the 2023 Ryder Cup in Rome.
In January, Golfweek asked Brady about Azinger and he noted that he had seen him shortly after his departure from NBC at the World Champions Cup, which was played not far from Azinger’s home at The Concession in Bradenton, Florida. Brady wondered if he could talk Azinger into bringing his vast talents to the booth on the senior circuit.
“At the right time, I want to go see if maybe he’ll jump in the booth here. Why not? But the money’s vastly different. He has to want to do it. So I’ve got to find the right time,” Brady said. “If I’m with him, just to say, hey, do you want to do a couple events? It’s too raw now.”
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 about just staying involved in the game and being close to a lot of his contemporaries.”
When Azinger was reminded that if he enjoys it enough to stick around for a second year, he may have the opportunity to call Tiger Woods again, Azinger’s voice lit up.
“I hope he does,” Azinger said. “He says he will. I mean, if I could do five or six or seven of Tiger’s events, I would be thrilled. I’ll be thrilled anyway. Trust me, it’s gonna be good fun.”
Source: Golfweek https://ift.tt/GbMKcLQ