Rolfing Has Developed a Niche in Golf

Sometimes it pays to recognize your limitations.

Once Mark Rolfing saw he wasn’t going to be the next Jack Nicklaus, he looked for other worlds to conquer, and things worked out quite nicely.

Rolfing went on to fortunes as a resort developer on the Hawaiian island of Maui and also became one of the best-liked and most respected golf announcers in the business.

This week, the NBC announcer is working the U.S. Senior Open at Riviera Country Club, mainly as an on-course reporter for the coverage on ESPN and NBC. Roger Maltbie is the other on-course reporter.

Rolfing, 48, never planned to be an announcer. It just worked out that way.

Rolfing grew up in suburban Chicago, raised by his mother after his father was killed in a plane crash when he was 11. He attended DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., where he and his roommate, former Vice President Dan Quayle, both played on the golf team.

He twice tried to qualify for the PGA Tour and failed both times. He spent two years (1975-76) playing in Europe and Asia before deciding there were easier ways to make a living.

He ended up in Maui, where his first job was washing golf carts in the starter shack on the Bay Course, the first of the Kapalua Resort’s three courses.

“I had been promised a job as assistant pro, but I started at the bottom,” Rolfing said.

By 1982, he was the Kapalua Land Co.’s director of marketing and recreation and in charge of golf operations.

In that job, he created the Kapalua Open, a PGA “postseason” tournament, the first of its kind. A year later came the Skins Games, and a glut of made-for-TV tournaments followed. The Kapalua Open had a successful 16-year run that ended last year.

Rolfing was playing in the 1985 tournament, and after a second round of 71, he was invited up in the TV booth for an interview. Vin Scully was working with Lee Trevino on the coverage that was shared by ESPN and NBC--just like at this week’s Senior Open--and Scully asked Rolfing to explain a controversial ruling.

Rolfing did such a good job, the producer, Don Ohlmeyer, asked him to come back and join Scully and Trevino after his round the next day. That led to a job as an on-course reporter for ESPN at the World Cup at La Quinta the next weekend, and an announcing career was born.

He was with ESPN for three years until 1988, went to NBC for three years, spent six with ABC, and is now back with NBC.

The key factor in his return, Rolfing says, was NBC’s strong schedule that includes such U.S. Golf Assn. events as the U.S. Open and the U.S. Senior Open. Also, he prefers working as an on-course reporter, the assignment NBC gave him, rather than as a tower reporter.

“I have a good relationship with the players, and I think my strength is to be down there among them,” Rolfing said. “I think what the players like is I’m just myself out there, with no shtick.

“Another thing about coming back to NBC was rejoining a lot of my friends, people such as [executive producer] Tommy Roy. It feels like I’m back home.”

Rolfing, along with two business partners, started a corporation in 1984 that, in conjunction with the Kapalua Land Co., developed the resort there, which is regarded as one of the finest of its kind. With the development pretty much completed, he says he now considers himself a full-time announcer.

He is also the host of a syndicated winter series, “Golf Hawaii,” which ended its fourth season on ESPN in March.

Life for Rolfing and wife Debi, who also have a summer home in Montana, is good, no doubt better than if Rolfing had spent years trying to make it as a pro golfer.

SHORT WAVES

Fox’s entry into golf will come Nov. 21-22 with the World Cup at Auckland, New Zealand. Then on Thanksgiving Day, Fox will televise the $1-million Par 3 Challenge, which will be taped Aug. 31 at Aviara, a Four Seasons resort in Carlsbad. . . . The Golf Channel and the LPGA on Thursday announced a five-year extension on an agreement that calls for 10-12 events a year and now runs through 2004. . . . CBS has completed its NFL lineup of announcers with the addition of John Dockery as a commentator. He returns to CBS after a seven-year stint at NBC. CBS’ executive producer, Terry Ewert, said the hires were made from more than 130 applicants. He said he viewed more than 60 demo tapes and conducted 15 auditions.

Chris Myers, in an exclusive interview on ESPN’s “Up Close” Thursday, got Tim Floyd to say he would step aside from coaching the Bulls for any other coach Michael Jordan would prefer, not just Phil Jackson. . . . Summer Sanders, an Olympic gold medalist in swimming, is making her mark in broadcasting in basketball. She has moved up from special correspondent to co-host of “NBA Inside Stuff,” replacing Willow Bay, and makes her debut on Saturday’s show on Channel 4 at 10:30 a.m.

RADIO DAZE

It goes without saying that the real reason XTRA Sports 1150 is finally showing in the Arbitron rating book is the Dodgers, even though night-time hosts Ben Maller and Dave Smith continue to take full credit. Actually, they deserve about 1% of the credit. The nighttime slot got a 2.3 share in males 12-plus but only a 0.9 in males 18-34, the hip group Maller and Smith are supposed to attract. . . . XTRA 1150’s Joe McDonnell this week got Jelani McCoy to admit the statement that UCLA issued after he resigned from the team last season was not his. Asked about the part of the statement in which McCoy supposedly blamed media scrutiny, McCoy said, “I never said that.” But on the same program McDonnell looked bad when he made light of a Vancouver station calling his station to ask if Hollywood Park’s R.D. Hubbard had died. Hubbard hadn’t died, but Hollywood Park vice chairman Harry Ornest had.

IN CLOSING

Now that the Hollywood Park meeting is over, one thing Tony Allevato, the producer of the “Hollywood Park Live” telecasts on Fox Sports West, can do next time around is provide more racing analysis from Kurt Hoover and Mike Willman and less Hollywood entertainment puff. Little-known actors and actresses kept showing up on the show with zero knowledge of racing. One actress couldn’t even read the cue cards. Allevato says he was trying to reach a wider audience, but what he was doing was turning off racing fans.

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What Los Angeles Is Watching

A sampling of L.A. Nielsen ratings for July 18-19, including sports on cable networks :

SATURDAY

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Over-the-air Channel Rating Share Golf: British Open 7 4.4 14 Baseball: Dodgers at St. Louis 11 4.0 11 Cycling: Tour de France 7 1.7 5 Basketball: WNBA, New York at Phoenix 4 1.7 5 Golf: LPGA Big Apple Classic 4 1.3 4 Soccer: MLS, Chicago at Washington 7 1.1 3 Golf: Senior Ameritech Open 2 0.8 2

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Cable Network Rating Share Boxing: Roy Jones Jr. vs. Lou Del Valle HBO 2.6 5 Baseball: Baltimore at Angels FSW 1.4 3 Boxing: Carl Thompson vs. Chris Eubank ESPN2 1.4 1 Tennis: Davis Cup, Belgium-U.S. ESPN 1.1 3 Goodwill Games: Opening ceremony TBS 0.8 2 Arena football: Houston at Milwaukee ESPN 0.4 1 Auto racing: NASCAR Craftsman Trucks ESPN 0.4 1 Baseball: Chicago Cubs at Florida WGN 0.3 1 SUNDAY Over-the-air Channel Rating Share Golf: British Open 7 6.2 21 Goodwill Games: basketball, track 2 2.8 7 Golf: Senior Ameritech Open 2 2.7 7 Auto racing: IRL Pep Boys 400K 2 2.4 6 Auto racing: CART Molson Indy Toronto 7 2.1 6 Golf: LPGA Big Apple Classic 4 1.7 5 Horse racing: Swaps Stakes 2 1.7 5 Soccer: MLS, Columbus vs. N.Y./New Jersey 34 1.1 3 Cable Network Rating Share Baseball: Dodgers at St. Louis ESPN 3.5 7 Goodwill Games: Women’s gymnastics TBS 1.2 2 Auto racing: NASCAR Kenwood 300 ESPN 0.3 1 Baseball: Milwaukee at Atlanta TBS 0.4 1 Cycling: Tour de France ESPN 0.4 1 Baseball: Cleveland at Chicago White Sox WGN 0.2 1 Tennis: Davis Cup, Belgium-U.S. ESPN 0.7 2

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Note: Each rating point represents 50,092 L.A. households. Cable ratings reflect the entire market, even though cable is in only 63% of L.A. households.