In recent years, Jack Nicklaus has not been one to hold back his opinions, especially at his own Memorial Tournament. And on live TV during last week’s event at Muirfield Village, Nicklaus, who is 85, expressed his strong distaste for a new golf-TV innovation: the walk-and-talk interview.
And he highlighted his disdain with a hilarious prediction for what fellow legend Ben Hogan would have done if a reporter had approached him on the course during a tournament.
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Nicklaus pans golf walk-and-talk interviews
During Friday’s second round of the Memorial, Nicklaus joined the Golf Channel TV booth as he often does at the tournament.
But in the middle of this appearance, Golf Channel decided to conduct a walk-and-talk interview with then co-leader Ben Griffin. They may have regretted it.
Why? Because as soon as Griffin’s mid-round interview finished, the 18-time major champion lit into the controversial format.
“I can’t stand that, the interview on the golf course,” Nicklaus said, before repeating himself. “I can’t stand that.”
His initial comment drew awkward laughs from the Golf Channel announcers in the booth. Then Nicklaus fleshed out his feelings.
“Let me tell you how I think, how I feel,” Nicklaus said. “I mean, seriously, here’s a guy who’s leading the golf tournament, he’s just hit the edge of the rough, he’s got a very difficult shot on a very difficult hole, and you’re talking to him about stuff that totally takes his mind off of what he was doing.”
He then asked the Golf Channel analysts to imagine how Ben Hogan would have reacted if approached to do a walk-and-talk interview.
“How would you think [Ben] Hogan would respond to that question?” Nicklaus asked.
But before anyone could respond, Nicklaus answered the question himself, suggesting any reporter who did so would have put their safety at risk.
“You would not have any teeth left if you did,” Nicklaus quipped. “[Hogan would] hit you right in the face with it.”
Mixed reactions to PGA Tour mid-round interviews
Taking a cue from other pro sports that started the practice years ago, the PGA Tour debuted mid-round, walk-and-talk interviews during the 2023 season. The reaction was mixed.
Max Homa was the first player to get involved at the 2023 Farmers Insurance Open. He went on to win the title that week, suggesting the interview didn’t negatively impact his game.
But after a walk-and-talk interview at the 2023 Masters, Homa did admit it was somewhat distracting.
“It’s like being on a phone call for 10 minutes. It’s not the end of the world,” Homa said. “It might be a shade distracting, but I think if it’s 5 percent distracting and it’s 95 percent something positive for golf, I can get past that.”
A year after his walk-and-talk debut at the Farmers, Homa defended the controversial practice again.
“I think that the walk-and-talk at least was kind of something risky and different, but I think it turned out quite good,” he said at the 2024 Farmers. “I’m sure there’s other variations that we could do, but just in general I think that’s kind of the direction at least, I’ll just speak for myself, I’d like to see golf go do. It’s not too crazy, it’s not too unbelievable to have people do something like that. I thought that it was nice.”
Not everyone has felt the same way.
In an interview conducted after the 2023 Masters, where Rory McIlroy agreed to his first walk-and-talk interview, McIlroy’s former manager Chubby Chandler suggested the interview was one of many the reasons McIlroy struggled to win the Masters. Chandler also claimed Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus would never have agreed to do the mid-round interview at Augusta, as McIlroy had.
Nick Faldo admitted he was “shocked” by McIlroy’s decision.
Two years later, McIlroy finally won a green jacket to complete his career Grand Slam, becoming just the sixth golfer in history to do so.
A crucial question still unanswered about PGA Tour walk-and-talk interviews is whether golf fans enjoy them. Ultimately, it’s likely that will TV viewers’ opinions will determine the fate of the golf-TV innovation.
