Two years ago, on a blisteringly hot practice range at the U.S. Open, Johnson Wagner arrived.
It wasn’t that Wagner was a stranger to these parts before arriving in Pinehurst — Wagner had played in two U.S. Opens, in 2004 and 2007, before arriving at the national championship as a broadcaster in 2024. Before joining Golf Channel in 2020, he’d been a successful PGA Tour player for more than a decade, earning $12.5 million on the course and winning three times.
But it wasn’t until that U.S. Open at Pinehurst, weeks after the launch of his now-infamous on-course segments at Golf Channel, that Wagner transformed from a TV analyst into an internet sensation.
He stuck out on the range, wearing a light-blue NBC Sports polo over his six-foot-three frame, his jet-black mustache glistening in the sun. And, because he stuck out, it wasn’t long before the well-wishers arrived. Fellow broadcasters first, then fellow media members, and before long, players and caddies.
It had been a dizzying few weeks for Wagner in the lead-up to that U.S. Open. First, at the Players Championship, Golf Channel had announced plans for Wagner to try out a new content idea: “acting out” the biggest golf stories of the day. At the time, it seemed as though Wagner would be utilizing his playing pedigree to take fans deeper into the biggest shots and moments. But a different outcome had materialized by Friday afternoon.
After a few days of flubbed chips and goofy laughs, cameras captured Wagner heaving golf balls into a bank along the left side of the 7th hole at TPC Sawgrass with a crow-hop. One viral video led to another, and then another, and then, finally, to Tuesday at Pinehurst, when every person he encountered shared the same sentiment with a grin.
“Thanks for the laugh.”
Two years later, that Tuesday at Pinehurst stands out as the moment everything changed for Wagner.
After two years of viral hits on Golf Channel, sources confirmed that CBS had hired Wagner as the network’s No. 3 “walking reporter” behind veteran walker Mark Immelman and industry legend Dottie Pepper.
Wagner’s ascension at CBS ends an offseason of transition for the network following the retirement of longtime analyst Ian Baker-Finch. Baker-Finch’s spot in the CBS “super booth” will be filled by former No. 2 walking reporter Colt Knost, who moves upstairs after five years as an on-course analyst for the network, and Knost’s spot on the course will be filled by Wagner. According to the same sources, Wagner will not continue in his viral role on Live From, though he could reprise segments in a similar style for CBS.
For CBS, the previous sentence is the only case it needs to justify Wagner’s hiring. Most viewers know of Wagner in late 2025 solely for his social media escapades, which is to say they know him principally as a form of comedic relief. Wagner won’t do much to dispute those accusations: His hiring at CBS would not have been possible without the viral, on-course segments that have dominated social media over the last two years, and hell, he certainly looks the part. His stocky, mustached build gives him the general appearance of a newsman from the 1970s, while his penchant for hosel-adjacent short-game shots is unmatched in the current (or former) golf media. CBS won’t dispute the value of Wagner’s comedic timing, either: Laughter can be medicine during the dull hours of a mid-July PGA Tour telecast, and Wagner’s ability to create viral moments works in a media environment increasingly dominated by “personalities.”
