CBS Remains Goodwill Ambassador for Masters

This weekend, CBS celebrates its 50th consecutive year covering the Masters in the same manner it celebrated its 49th year covering the Masters, and its 48th, and its 38th.

It will celebrate everything stamped with the official Masters logo, and then some. Shake a golf club at it and there will be hushed hosannas -- the azaleas, the pine trees, Amen Corner, Magnolia Lane, the dogwoods, Tiger Woods -- along with the obligatory lilting strings and muted flutes.

It has been a very cozy marriage for the last five decades, and you know what they say about couples that have been together for that long?

Eventually, they begin to resemble each other.

Take, for example, Augusta National’s long-standing hear-no-evil temperament. This is paradise with a 72 par, the masters of the Masters want you to know, and anyone diverging from that happy one-note message is asking to be axed, discarded, discounted or simply ignored.

Isn’t that right, Martha Burk and Gary McCord?

CBS, which has spent the last 50 years catering to Augusta National’s every whim and desire, has grown accustomed to covering this event with blinders on, and really wishes the rest of the international sports media would get in line and work with the same equipment.

During a Monday conference call to promote the network’s 50th consecutive Masters telecast, CBS Sports President Sean McManus bristled when the questioning briefly veered away from puff-balls, with one reporter wondering if the reason CBS has lasted 50 years with the Masters and Augusta National is “because you’ve been so reverential with them in some ways?”

A very good question. Rhetorical, almost, but one still worth asking.

“No,” McManus replied. “We’ve never gone into any Masters telecast saying to ourselves, ‘Let’s be reverential.’ The people that are producing the telecast and the people that are broadcasting it from the towers have a great affection for Augusta National and the Masters. They speak about the tournament and the club from the heart. I’ve been in this job now for eight years and I’ve never had one discussion with one announcer or one production person saying to them how they should or shouldn’t talk about Augusta National.

“They go up to the broadcast towers, they speak as they think they should speak about the club. And there’s never any direction from me or from the club about how we should treat Augusta National, how we should treat the Masters, what kind of language we should use.”

So that’s it, then? CBS simply assembles its Masters coverage team by polling the cafeteria, by asking “Who in this room loves the Masters and Augusta National more than life itself?” and then arms the biggest enthusiasts with credentials and microphones?

To be revoked when one of the crew, such as McCord with his infamous/innocuous “bikini wax” line, dares to utter something ... hush again ... irreverent?

“I think that the reason we’ve been doing the tournament for 50 years is because it is unquestionably the best golf telecast of every year,” said McManus, who evidently never watches ABC, NBC or the BBC. “Even our competitors quite frankly will acknowledge that. I think we’ve done a magnificent job of presenting both the golf course and the golf tournament, and I think we’re about to complete 50 years with the club because of the quality of our broadcasts and the way we present the event.”

The same reporter had a follow-up question, asking McManus if there had been times when CBS “backed off the news angle of the Masters a little bit to present kind of more of a point of view that’s more palatable to Augusta National?”

“I’m not sure where you’re going with this,” McManus countered. “Because I think I answered that. And the answer is no.”

Give or take CBS’ turning a blind eye when Burk launched her high-profile campaign to protest Augusta National’s no-female membership policy, of course.

“Our job is to go there and to produce a golf tournament,” McManus said. “This is the 50th year we’ve done that. And there is no preconceived direction from anybody at CBS or the club on avoiding the news.

“We go there to produce a golf tournament. And we’ve done it pretty much, except for the fact that there’s a lot more equipment and a lot more technical wizardry involved, [the same way] for 50 years. We bring our cameras, we bring our announcers, we try to tell the stories and capture the pictures.

“The other elements that people like to talk about, at least again I can only speak for the last eight years, are non-existent. They really are.”

Or at least they are non-existent when Augusta National and CBS determine they are.

CBS has protected its property by installing Jim Nantz, the industry standard for reverence behind the mike, as its Masters host for the last 18 years. During the conference call, Nantz was asked about a published report in a British newspaper (and elsewhere) about Phil Mickelson’s alleged gambling problem and “whether, as reporters, is that something that you might address” this weekend?

“You know, that newspaper didn’t arrive at my door today,” Nantz said. “I didn’t read that one. I know nothing about that at all. And I would very seriously doubt it’s anything that we would address. To try to respond to a tabloid in Great Britain is not something that we normally do.”

But in terms of players and their personal lives, is that something CBS’ announcers would rather stay away from?

“You know,” Nantz said, “I have never in a telecast ever engaged in rumor. And never will.”

If you’re interested in controversy this weekend, you’ll need to watch the Lakers or the Dodgers on other networks. At Augusta National, same as it’s been for the last 50 years, CBS would rather just stop and smell the azaleas.