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Chesson Hadley would be Amanda Balionis. 

“Chesson Hadley would be really good at that,” Balionis said. “I’m going to go with Chesson Hadley as my interviewer.”

Jon Rahm would be Nick Faldo. Jordan Spieth would be Ian Baker-Finch. Phil Mickelson “has to be up there.” Balionis, in her fourth year as the interviewer for CBS’ golf coverage, was light-heartedly asked on this week’s episode of GOLF’s Subpar podcast which PGA Tour players would best work on the other side of the camera as a broadcast team, and the answers were, not surprisingly, among the best talkers on Tour.

Balionis and co-hosts Colt Knost (also a member of the CBS team) and Drew Stoltz started in the booth. Rahm was the pick for lead analyst, currently held by Faldo. But what about the man typically to Faldo’s left, announcer Jim Nantz?

Rory McIlroy. 

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“I know who I’d go with,” Knost said.  

“You do? Who would you go with?” Balionis said. 

“Toss it out,” Stoltz said.  

“Spieth.”  

“Jordan Spieth? You think he would be the one?” Balionis asked. 

“He’s the golden child,” Knost said. “He’s very well spoken.” 

“He’d be good at directing traffic?” Balionis asked.  

“Have you seen him out there on the golf course?” Knost said. “He’s directing everyone. Talking to his ball.” 

“Yeah, OK. I feel like I would put Spieth on a hole,” Balionis said. “I’d put him at like 17 tower.” 

What about the on-course reporters? CBS currently uses Dottie Pepper, brother Mark and Trevor Immelman and Knost in the role. 

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Amanda Balionis says this player is her favorite to interview

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“I’m going to have Pat Perez walking,” Balionis said.  

“Oh, god,” Knost said.  

“There we go,” Stoltz said. “And we’re canceled.” 

“Everyone’s fired,” Knost said.  

“You got to have someone who’s going to shake it up a little bit, right?” Balionis said. “Colt’s that guy right now, where I’m like, OK, maybe, it’s almost too far but not quite. OK, we’re good. OK, we’re good.”

And for a second on-course reporter?

Justin Thomas, who already worked in the role alongside Balionis in May of 2020 during the second Match, between the team of Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning, and the team of Mickelson and Tom Brady.  

“Oh my god, dude, he slayed,” Balionis said. “When we were there and he would look at me and he’s like, ‘Am I doing this right?’ I’m like, ‘Are you doing this right? You are a hall of famer already.’ It was insane.”

To watch the complete interview with Balionis, please click below. 

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Amanda Balionis has morphed into a household name for golf fans. She first entered the golf space at PGATour.com and then moved on to gigs at Callaway and TNT. Now you’ll see her as a reporter for CBS Sports, conducting player interviews and reporting from the grounds at PGA Tour events (she also works football games).

Balionis recently joined GOLF’s Subpar Podcast to talk about breaking into the business, what she’s learned, memorable moments on the job and more. She also told co-hosts Drew Stoltz and Colt Knost about her biggest on-camera disaster, which she said happened in 2011 when she was covering her first Tour Championship.

Balionis was working for PGATour.com at the time and conducting live post-round interviews. She said if players were going to talk to the media after their rounds, she was usually one of the last stops, so she never expected to get many of the big names to swing by. But on this day she got at least two — Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson.

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But she was ready. Still relatively new at the time, Balionis said she often over-prepared, so for the Tour Championship she had 30 index cards — one per player — filled front-to-back with useful nuggets she might want to discuss.

“You get two questions,” Balionis said. “What did I think was going to happen here? It’s not like a network special.”

After Johnson, 27 at the time, finished his round, he agreed to talk to Balionis. So she grabbed her index card.

“And I see on the index card it says third Presidents Cup, and I’m like OK. And this is what, 2011, so you do the math. But I trusted that handy dandy index card. And I said to Dustin, I looked down at it, and I asked him something about the season and then my second question was, ‘Well, you know you are about to go tee it up in your third Presidents Cup. What have you learned from those past events that’s going to prepare you moving forward?’ And in true Dustin form he looks at me and goes, ‘It’s my first.’ [Laughs]

“I was like, ‘Are you third in points?'” she continued. “I was just trying to figure out what I wrote. There’s something here (on the card). And he goes, ‘I don’t know.’ He looks at me and is just like, I don’t know who you are or where this is going, but I was like, ‘OK, thanks for the time.’ And he’s like ‘Yeah,’ and walks away.”

A minor misstep. But, Balionis said, “it gets worse.”

“I’m in full panic,” she said. “I’m sweating. I’m like, ‘I’m never going to recover. Dustin Johnson thinks I’m an idiot.’ I can’t get out of my own head. Then they say in my ear, ‘Hey, Phil is walking off the green, let’s see if he will talk to you.'”

Balionis had never talked to Mickelson and didn’t think he’d be game to chat, but Mickelson agreed.

“And I am not in the headspace to do this,” Balionis said. “And I look directly at the camera, and he doesn’t know me from anybody, and I look right at the camera and I’m like, ‘Thanks, Phil. Guys, your Phil.’ And he’s just like, no laugh, no anything. And he just stone-cold stared me down and was like this is never going to happen again. And then we did the interview and then I proceeded to have a massive meltdown in my car — and that was the last time I did index cards.”

Balionis can laugh about it now and does a good job poking fun of her blunder, but at the time it was eating her up.

“It was like two back-to-back hot-mess moments, and live, with two really high-profile players,” she said. “And we are such a traveling circus, everyone kind of remembers everything, so like I knew that was my first impression with those two guys and that was going to take me a long time to dig myself out of that hole and gain some credibility.”

“I’m sure there’s a tape of it somewhere,” she said, “but I hope it never resurfaces.”

You can check out Balionis’ complete Subpar interview below.

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CBS Sports broadcaster Amanda Balionis is now in her fourth year on the job for the network’s golf and football coverage. The 35-year-old’s charisma, astute interviewing skills and easy rapport with players have quickly made her one of the game’s biggest media stars.

While Balionis is responsible for conducting dozens of interviews over the course of a tournament week, it turns out there is one player who stands out as her favorite. On this week’s episode of Subpar, hosts Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz asked Balionis is there’s anyone in particular that she always looks forward to interviewing, and she didn’t hesitate.

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Amanda Balionis' yoga tips for instant zen

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“Jon Rahm,” she said. “Always, always. I mean, and since our very first interview — you know, there are those guys that you’re just like, you’re built different. And it’s so obvious that he thinks differently, he handles himself differently. He studies philosophy in his downtime because he’s interested in it. He’s just such a well-rounded person, and looks at golf and life in this really holistic way. Really, I had to do a lot of introspection at some point in my life when I went through my yoga teacher training, and then my dad passing away, and figuring out, like, how do you balance life with work when all of those things are kind of all-consuming and intertwining. The things that he talks about, journaling every day, meditation, accepting where you are and who you are.

“I thought he embraced the whole thing — he was under fire for having a bad temper on the course,” Balionis continued. “A couple years ago it was all people talked about. But then you talked to him off the course, he’d be like, yeah, you know what, I had to let it out, and now I’m good. It’s not like he ever gave angry interviews. He was never doing things that were offensive. He was literally just letting it out, and then he was good. He just can’t keep it in. And I loved his acknowledgment, he’s a 20-something-year-old, just saying, yeah, you know what, I’m pretty fiery, I’m pretty passionate, but that’s what makes me great and it’s what makes me who I am and yeah, I’ll try to work on it if everyone’s upset about it.

“He just comes from this place of acceptance — this unbelievable acceptance of himself, and who he wants to be and the golfer he wants to be,” Balionis concluded. “He’s always working at how to be a better player and person in a very holistic way. So I feel like every time I interview him you learn something really insightful, not just about him the player, but him the person.”

For more from Balionis, including her biggest on-camera disaster and her picks for a broadcast dream team made up of PGA Tour players, check out the full episode below.

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Subpar’s Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz are joined by CBS Sports reporter Amanda Balionis who builds her dream broadcast team made up of PGA Tour players.

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Subpar’s Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz are joined by CBS Sports reporter Amanda Balionis who breaks down her biggest on-camera disaster.

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On this week’s episode of GOLF’s Subpar, CBS Sports reporter Amanda Balionis joins former PGA Tour pro Colt Knost and jicky jack legend Drew Stoltz for an exclusive interview. The face of CBS Sports talks her dream broadcast team, her journey to covering the PGA Tour, and her most regrettable moment on air.

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Subpar’s Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz are joined by CBS Sports reporter Amanda Balionis who talks her favorite player on the PGA Tour to interview.

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Golf can be stressful. Practicing Child’s Pose — feet under glutes, forehead on mat, arms extended — can help that.

This basic yoga position centers the mind, lowers the heart rate and stretches the hips, thighs, ankles and back. By adding a shoulder opener, you’ll also release those delts for an extra dash of turn and power.

Starting from Child’s Pose (1), slide your left arm underneath your right arm, perpendicular to your torso and flat on the ground, palm up. As you do this, change your head position so that your left temple rests on the mat (2). Hold this position for a few seconds, then fully extend your right leg with only your toes touching the mat (3). Again, hold briefly. Return the right leg to its original position and then the rest of your body so that you’re again in Child’s Pose. Switch sides.

Later, calmly bomb drives.

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The gears were already in motion as Tom Brady and Phil Mickelson drove to the 11th tee at Medalist Golf Club on Sunday. Mickelson prepared to pull driver, sensing a glorious opportunity to wield his vitality before a national television audience (and shift the momentum of a slowly widening match). Several hundred yards away, Brian Anderson and Trevor Immelman were in the broadcast booth, separated by a sheet of plastic but sharing a wavelength.

Two days earlier, Immelman and Anderson had toured Medalist for the first time together. When they came upon the 11th, a short, 342-yard par-4, Immelman’s instinct tingled. If Brady or Manning could find the fairway, Woods and Mickelson would have the green light to attempt to fly the trees and drive the green.

As it turned out, Mickelson wasn’t going to wait for his partner to find out.

“Tom, whatever you hit is fine,” Phil told his teammate. “I’m hitting driver no matter what.”

First, Immelman fired into action, describing Mickelson’s line and what he’d need to reach the green. Seconds later, Phil gripped with all his might and wired a driver. TopTracer tracked his ball as it soared over the trees and touched down just a few feet from the hole before coming to rest just off the green. Anderson and Immelman rejoiced.

Mickelson stepped back into his cart and the production truck readied itself. Director Steve Beim flipped to a tiny camera installed in Mickelson’s cart and opened the line to Phil’s microphone. Lefty flashed a million-dollar smile as he reached the green. Anderson teed him up.

“Hitting…”

“BOMBS!” Phil woofed, throwing down the alley-oop.

Fans — 5.8 million of them, Turner says, were watching the Match II, making it the most-viewed cable golf broadcast — exploded on social media. It was a moment of broadcast poetry, however hokey the punchline. Brady’s 20-foot eagle putt was merely the exclamation point.

For a few hours, the Match II was everything golf on television could be, complete with open microphones, short-game lessons, TopTracers and cart cams. You can debate whether it was everything golf television should be, but those involved in the broadcast are content to view their show through the prism it which it existed: of a made-for-TV charity event, as one of the first major sporting events since the worldwide shutdown and as a miraculous concoction of planning, preparation and luck.

Fifty-two people, fewer than an NFL roster, were permitted on-site Sunday for the broadcast. Producer Jeff Neubarth and Beim, the director, sat atop the live-production totem poll, both of them holdovers from the Match I. The pair helped assemble what Neubarth called an “all-star team” of producers, replay operators, camera crew and on-air talent.

The small team that made the Match II’s broadcast roster were tasked with following a laundry list of safety protocols. Every person was required to undergo a temperature reading every morning and were required to test negative twice before they were allowed on the course.

“We worked with the tournament organizers, the state local government, the PGA Tour,” Neubarth said. “The most important thing we did was to ensure everyone’s safety.”

Even the production truck — typically a cramped, tight-cornered space — was fit to social-distancing guidelines. Turner brought in the cavernous truck used by ESPN for Monday Night Football, while the crew used measuring tape to ensure they were maintaining 6 feet of distance.

Neubarth and his assistant director were the closest of any two people in the truck at 7 feet, 10 inches apart.

“That’s how careful we were,” Beim says. “We could’ve just spread out our arms and said, ‘OK, yeah, we’re more than six feet.’ But we didn’t want anyone to say ‘you guys were not socially distant.'”

Before long, Neubarth and Beim found themselves sorting out the pieces to a nationally televised jigsaw puzzle.

“You get 52 people, so if you wanted to add a camera you had to take away from somewhere else, which we actually did. ” Beim said. “We took away the [super slow-motion] camera because we needed an extra coverage camera. We took away hair and makeup because we needed an extra guy in the tape room.”

Ultimately, the pair settled upon 10 on-course cameras, three studio cameras and a small army of tiny, remote-operated cameras. Each player would also be equipped with a microphone and earpiece.

“With what we wanted to do, the players were the story,” Neubarth said. “You want to be intimate. The closer you to get to the players, the better the story can be told.”

There was also the compressed schedule. For the Match I, Neubarth and Beim had three months of lead-up. For Sunday, they had three weeks.

And yet, the crew was prepared. On Saturday afternoon, a three-hole dress rehearsal with Woods, Mickelson, Brady and Manning went flawlessly. From the booth, Anderson could barely contain his excitement.

“Oh my god, [Saturday] was so good,” he said. “Everyone was talking.”

But then came Sunday morning. Heavy storms, flood warnings, thunder and lightning. A broadcast that planned to bridge the gap created by safety restrictions with innovative tech was suddenly handcuffed. The blimp couldn’t fly in the cloud cover, so there would be no aerial shots. Half of the tiny cameras attached to each cart weren’t operational (including a neat overhead angle of each player’s bag for a vantage point of club selection). There was no way of to know whether each player’s microphone would withstand the rain. A pregame shot showed one of the greens almost entirely underwater. It seemed as though the event was on the verge of floating away.

At 3 p.m. ET, Anderson welcomed cable audiences around the country to Medalist Golf Club in the middle of a monsoon. But even as it rained buckets on Turner’s outdoor set, Anderson was cool, relaxed even. At 3:45 p.m., after a brief delay, the golfers teed off. Four hours later, shortly after 8 p.m., the group had raised $20 million for Covid-19 relief and provided a memorable, highly entertaining event.

Anderson, Neubarth and Beim have differing theories on how it all came together.

“Everybody had their role, and everyone checked their egos and stepped into those roles,” Anderson said. “When it was their time, they delivered.”

“If you think about it, the weather actually added the element of likability to it, because Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson went out there in epic, monsooning rain conditions and played through it all in the name of charity,” Neubarth says. “That’s almost more compelling than watching them on a beautiful, sunny day.”

“Without making a bad pun, it was the ‘perfect storm,'” Beim says. “It was the right time at the right place with the right players and the right weather. Everything just worked.”

It’s fair to wonder whether the model set forth Sunday at Medalist is how golf should look. But those who worked the Match II agree, it’s how golf should feel.

“As we were talking on the way home, we helped America smile,” Beim said. “That’s really a good feeling.”

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This is not a suggestion, people. This is a command. You need to watch The Match: Champions for Charity on Sunday, because it’s going to be good. Really good. We know, we know, the first match between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson received mixed reviews. But this one will be different, and in a very good way.

Woods teams up with Peyton Manning to take on Mickelson and Tom Brady at 3 p.m. ET on Sunday, which will be broadcast live on TNT, TBS, truTV and HLN. They’ll play at Medalist Golf Club in Hobe Sound, Fla., where Woods is a member. Here’s why you should watch.

1. The competition

Tiger and Manning vs. Phil and Brady. Two golfing legends and two football legends. This is for charity, but these are also four of the most competitive athletes we’ve seen in the last 25 years. They won’t want to lose. Moreover, they won’t want to be embarrassed on national TV.

2. The format

Let’s be honest, 18 holes of a fourball would be boring. Nine holes of it? We’ll take it, especially since the back nine, in this writer’s opinion, will be a lot more fun with a modified alternate shot. The simmering pressure of an alternate shot for Average Joes like Manning and Brady — dealing with the anxiety of potentially letting your parter down — will be real. And the results might be fascinating. (Give us at least a shank or two, please?)

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3. The challenges

There will be a handful of these, although not all of them have been announced yet. There’s already been reports of one that sounds like a lot of fun. According to Yahoo Sports, all four golfers will play the par-4 5th hole with one club, a la a one-club challenge.

4. The betting

FanDuel said betting for last Sunday’s Seminole skins match was “nearly double that of a normal PGA Tour event.” That’s nuts, and proves people are eager to throw down a few bucks on live sports. This Sunday, an event with even bigger stars that will almost certainly bring in a bigger audience, should easily see a betting increase from last Sunday.

5. It’s for a good cause

A total of $10 million will be donated to Covid-19 relief via WarnerMedia and the four golfers, and additional funds for charity will be raised through the on-course challenges.

6. The broadcast team

Brian Anderson will host the broadcast with Trevor Immelman and Charles Barkley as analysts. Sir Charles was entertaining when he called the first match between Tiger and Phil, so he should add a nice change of pace this time around too. Justin Thomas and Amanda Balionis will be the on-course reporters. Here’s hoping Thomas, a Medalist member who knows Tiger and Phil well, shares some fun and useful insight. Balionis, a friend of GOLF.com, has been a mainstay on TNT and CBS golf telecasts over the last couple of years.

7. The course

Medalist is an exclusive club that many pro golfers call home. It’s also a place few fans have seen, both inside the gates and on the course. Now we’ll get that chance. Greg Norman founded the club in 1995 and co-designed the course with Pete Dye. It was renovated by Bobby Weed five years ago. Oh, and it’s hard. Good luck, Peyton and Tom.

8. The members

Few clubs, if any, have more pros as members than Medalist, which includes Woods, Thomas, Rickie Fowler, Brooks Koepka and more than a dozen others. And like noted above, the typical golf fan doesn’t get a glimpse of Medalist very often. If nothing else, it’s a cool experience to see a place that some of the best in the world choose to call their home course.

9. Tiger Woods

No need to elaborate.

10. Phil Mickelson

See above.

11. Tom Brady

Even Patriots fans will watch. And perhaps cry. He has an 8.1 handicap index.

12. Peyton Manning

The Augusta National member holds a 6.4 handicap index and loves to antagonize. This should be a perfect setting for him.

13. It WILL be better than the first match

The Las Vegas Shadow Creek match between Tiger and Phil was a trial run of sorts. What went well? What didn’t? Organizers and producers have had lots of time to mull, so it’s safe to say this one will come back better because of it.

14. The entertainment

The original Tiger-Phil match had lots of forced trash talk that didn’t come off as genuine or enjoyable. But throw in guys like Manning and Brady, both known to stir things up themselves, and it makes it easy for the entire group to loosen up. All of the pressure won’t be on Tiger and Phil anymore, and that should make the entire show better in general. Plus, no baseball. No basketball. No hockey, etc. Every sports fan you follow on social media will be locked into this match, or at least they should be. It will be fun to follow along, discuss what’s going on, praise a fun element or rip it to shreds. Everything is better when we can do it together, no? But let’s not forget — golf is back, on TV, for the second straight Sunday. Just like the glory days two or three months ago, right? Let’s enjoy.

15. What else is there to watch?

Good point. See you on Sunday.

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