Carson Daly on caddying at Riviera and winning the Pebble Pro-am
Carson Daly was once near-scratch in his peak golf years.
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GOLF: You have to be on air for The Today Show at 7 a.m., so I’m guessing not a lot of morning tee times for you.
Carson Daly: No. But morning tee times my whole life have prepared me to get up early for The Today Show.
G: Touché. And getting up early to caddie as a kid, too.
CD: Yeah. The weather was so nice growing up in Santa Monica that I’d get up at five and sit in the caddie shack at Riviera. If I got an early loop, then I’d be done by noon and I had my whole day. I don’t mind getting up, being productive and trying to monetize the time that you lazy people waste on your beauty sleep.
G: In the ’80s, how much did a caddie at Riviera earn?
CD: Well, there’s a lot of rich people there. Probably 40 bucks for a single.
G: Any celebrity bags?
CD: A few. Marcus Allen. Peter Falk. I caddied for Columbo!
G: What’s the best tip you ever got?
CD: Don’t ever caddie for O.J. Simpson again.
G: You went to college on a golf scholarship and dropped out to try and qualify for the U.S. Open, right?
CD: I wasn’t feeling school, and I just loved golf so much. I thought, I really want to give this a shot. But at the end of the day I wasn’t good enough. I didn’t have the game. When I tried to qualify for the U.S. Open, I had a disastrous hole and blew up the round.
G: A Tin Cup disaster?
CD: Totally Tin Cup. Palm Springs, hot as hell. I shot one or two over my first round; even through the next nine; but on my last nine, on a par-5 dogleg right, I snapped. Made, like, a nine. Round over. Never had a chance.
G: Then what?
CD: I started interning for Jimmy Kimmel, who was a DJ in Palm Springs. That was my foray into radio, which would be a whole new chapter of my life.
G: Did you ever get Kimmel out on the golf course?
CD: Unfortunately, many times. I love him like a brother, but he’s a terrible golfer.
G: What’s your handicap?
CD: I was a one or a two. Now, with four kids, I’m a 10. But a good 10.
G: Who’d crush it the longest off the tee: Savannah, Hoda or Al Roker?
CD: Wow, what a question. Al’s got banged-up knees and new hips and stuff. Hoda, I have no idea about. But Savannah is an excellent tennis player. She does yoga. Eats one meal a day. So I’m going to say Savannah. She’s competitive as all hell.
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