As the co-anchor of CBS Evening News, Maurice DuBois is always looking for the story. But he struggles to find one in professional golf these days.
“What is the story?” Dubois said on a recent episode of the Destination Golf podcast.
The question was not rhetorical. He was asking me, turning the tables in a conversation in which I’d mostly been interviewing him.
Because DuBois is a big name in broadcasting at a network with deep ties to professional golf, I’d pressed him for suggestions on what the game — and the outlets that cover it — should do to boost television ratings.
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DuBois’ answer was as old as Aristotle: golf needs narratives. Great shots and nifty graphics are not enough. People might tune in to catch the latest scores. But they only stay tuned in when the action has an arc, replete with characters to tease it out. Golf needs heroes, villains, rivals, foils. It begs for epic feats and crushing failures.
It’s been said that all great stories follow one of two plot lines: a man goes on a journey and a stranger comes to town.
A golfer seeking redemption is a pretty good one, too.
It happened this past spring, when Rory McIlroy won the Masters. But otherwise, DuBois said, great stories in the pro game are few and far between
“When it was Tiger’s time, he was a story every week,” he said. “Whatever he did, everyone wanted to see it. They were excited by it.”
Times have changed. The current alpha in the men’s game, Scottie Scheffler, is playing at near Tiger-like dominance but without the resonance that makes must-see TV.
“Right now,” DuBois said. “I can’t think of the story that’s going to make people want to watch.”
DuBois’ own story in the game deserves brief telling here. The son of Caribbean immigrants, he was raised on Long Island, surrounded by great courses and involved with many sports, golf excluded.
“It wasn’t even on my radar,” DuBois said.
Tiger turning pro captured his attention. But what really did the trick was a golf outing with colleagues in 1999 when DuBois was working for NBC. At the event, he took an on-air putting lesson from a teaching pro and made a long-range putt.
That’s another old story: one good shot, and he was hooked.
In 25-plus years of golf addiction since, DuBois has indulged his habit in New York and beyond. He gets in his hacks whenever he can. Lately, though, the those chances have been slim.
The news is unrelenting. Big stories abound. And DuBois stays busy covering them all. Politics. Culture. Economics.
As for golf, find him a big story, and he’ll be on it, too.
In the meantime, DuBois loves talking about the game. To hear his thoughts on his favorite pastime, what makes it so compelling for everyday players, and why he feels that parents who play golf are duty-bound to introduce their children to the game, tune in wherever you get your pods: APPLE | SPOTIFY | IHEART | AMAZON
