Oh My! Real Master Is at the Masters

You can’t blame Dick Enberg, who tends to be a little on the emotional side anyway, if he is a little more so than usual.

He just finished working his first NCAA Final Four since 1981, and now he moves to his first Masters.

Enberg, the longtime NBC announcer who signed with CBS earlier this year to do NFL football, U.S. Open tennis and a variety of other sports, has been to Augusta only once, as a spectator.

“It was in 1983, shortly after Barbara and I got married,” he said. “We went out on the course on a Wednesday. I remember we followed Jack Nicklaus on the back nine.”

Enberg will bring a fresh perspective to the Masters coverage on the USA network and CBS. He will do interviews from the Butler Cabin, plus daily essays. On Sunday, it will be up to Enberg to wrap things up in about 2 1/2 minutes. Knowing Enberg, he’ll do it nicely.

Terry Ewert, the executive producer of CBS Sports, said, “One reason Dick’s essays are so good is that he agonizes over every word, spending tons of hours sculpturing his pieces and searching for just the right word.”

Enberg likes the backdrop golf offers for being creative.

“There is a wonderful poetry about golf,” he said. “It is the closest thing to baseball I’ve ever covered. It allows you time to appreciate its strengths and beauty, and its foibles.”

With the addition of the Masters, there are hardly any major events Enberg hasn’t covered. He has done eight Super Bowls, 19 Wimbledons, four Olympics, nine Rose Bowls, the World Series, the NBA playoffs, U.S. Open golf, the Breeders’ Cup and on and on. Even the Indianapolis 500--for the Indiana University radio station when he was a graduate student.

“I’ve never done a Stanley Cup,” he said after racking his brain to name what he hasn’t covered. But he did cover the minor league Los Angeles Blades hockey team for KTLA in the mid-1960s.

Golf isn’t his favorite sport to play--tennis is--but he believes his inability to master golf gives him a greater appreciation for those who can play the game well.

Enberg was NBC’s lead announcer on golf for his last five years at that network, and when he got the assignment he decided it was time to learn how to play the game. What he learned is just how difficult it is.

“I tried but I never got past the stage where I continually embarrassed myself,” he said. “I envy people who can go out and, no matter how poorly they play, love every minute of it.

“I think what I can offer [to the coverage] is the experiences of a total newcomer.”

As if returning to the Final Four and then working his first Masters don’t stir enough emotion, he, Barbara and their three children are moving from Rancho Santa Fe to La Jolla, where the children attend school. There are 18 years’ worth of memories in the Rancho Santa Fe house, plus a tennis court Enberg will be leaving behind.

“I fly back home Monday and we have to be out of the house on Tuesday,” he said.

Enberg has been packing for weeks--and making discoveries.

“I’ve found letters from my mother and father, writing about their divorce; I found letters from my kids,” he said. “Maybe the most amazing thing I found was a videotape of a trip to China in 1973, when I did a game between a U.S. all-star [basketball] team-- UCLA turned down the trip--and a Chinese team. It was an Eddie Einhorn production, so I called Eddie to see if he had a tape. He didn’t, so mine may be the only one in existence.”

The La Jolla home has no tennis court. But the Torrey Pines Golf Course is nearby. Maybe experiencing the Masters will turn Enberg into a golfer after all.