Roger Maltbie begins another year with NBC’s golf team, but it nearly didn’t happen | Golf News and Tour Information

Unbeknownst to most, Roger Maltbie envisioned last yr to be his curtain phone with NBC Sports activities. The previous PGA Tour professional turned on-class reporter had been element of the network’s golfing coverage for 30 years. He turned 70 in June. Wonderful spherical figures. No regrets.

He had 1 foot out the doorway just before NBC golf producer Tommy Roy pulled him again in. Jim “Bones” Mackay, slated to get over Maltbie’s purpose as direct announcer on the ground, made the decision in September to re-enter the caddie ranks on the bag of Justin Thomas. Maltbie, right after remaining told he was no extended wanted except for most likely three or 4 activities, acknowledged a a single-yr offer.

All this doesn’t suggest the well known broadcaster with the affable shipping is carried out immediately after this calendar year. He may well effectively be. But he is not likely to suppose nearly anything at this stage.

“No, it’s not accurate to say this will be it for me,” Maltbie explained Tuesday during a cellphone interview with Golf Digest. “I have a one-yr contract. I may possibly have one more a single-yr contract subsequent calendar year. I really do not know. Let’s see how this calendar year goes. Nonetheless, it is precise that I imagined my announcing times were being above. I was prepared to journey off into the sunset at the PNC Championship in December, but in this article I am back again in Florida.”

Maltbie, a 5-time winner on the PGA Tour whose profession was derailed by a shoulder injury, returns to the airwaves this 7 days with Golf Channel/NBC’s coverage of the Honda Typical in Palm Seaside Gardens, Fla. He’ll function the subsequent 6 weeks during this extend of activities on NBC’s program, and you are going to listen to him at various other tournaments, like the U.S. Open up and the Presidents Cup.

“For the report, we never ever announced that Roger was carried out,” Roy reported. “He”s with us in his identical position, and we’re energized to get going on the new time on NBC.”

What probably impacts Maltbie’s upcoming will be his overall health. The California indigenous has a knee that hasn’t rather healed totally from medical procedures in late December 2020, and, in change, that has brought about a back problem that will require fixing. In the previous handful of yrs Maltbie usually has jumped in a cart to get about the study course extra efficiently, which is why he won’t be working the Open up Championship at St. Andrews in July. The format and logistics at the Previous Course rule out cart use.

You may possibly say he’s arrive whole circle. Maltbie created his broadcasting debut with NBC at the 1991 Bob Hope Common (now The American Categorical) as he was recovering from a second surgical treatment on his remaining shoulder in the fall of 1990. He agreed on the ailment he also could get the job done the Ryder Cup at Kiawah Island, the so-called “War by the Shore.”

His vocation looked brief-lived when he butted heads with producer Terry O’Neal about interviewing Mark Calcavecchia, who shed the final 4 holes to Colin Montgomerie in Sunday singles and assumed he experienced price America the victory by having only a half-stage. Calcavecchia was in no shape to do an job interview, and Maltbie held his floor and defied O’Neal’s get to check out to get the inconsolable golfer on the air. “I’m still a player I had no visions of a Television career, so what did I treatment,” Maltbie mentioned.

3 weeks afterwards, NBC presented him a contract, a 3-calendar year deal. This will be his first agreement with the network that isn’t for various yrs.

“It’s a minimal awkward, but it’s not like I’m not relaxed simply because I have been all-around a large amount of these fellas a extensive time,” Maltbie mentioned. “They [NBC] treated me in a reasonable and straightforward way, and I have no complaints, but it is difficult to listen to you are no lengthier desired. I could have just claimed no thanks, but we all have an understanding of the deal.

“In the stop, I under no circumstances left, and nonetheless it is superior to be back again.”