GolfTube: Johnny Miller-Nick Faldo pairing fails to impress
We all care about what's happening on the golf course, but for the rare few who actually care about what's going on in the television booth each week, well, this spot is for you.
For the third year in a row, we'll give our take on the weekly tournament coverage -- good or bad -- and tell you what you missed while you were out hitting range balls.
We kick things off by sizing up the TV coverage from the winners-only Hyundai Tournament of Champions event.
Rarely do golf scribes start off the season writing about the guys in the television booth, but for the first time in a while, the most talked-about pairing wasn't on the course.
[ Related: Stricker gives start of 2012 season a namebrand feel ]
It was actually on TV, as the Golf Channel and NBC made an interesting call for the first event of 2012, putting Johnny Miller and Nick Faldo, two of the most opinionated talking heads in the sport, in the same booth for the Hyundai Tournament of Champions.
It was billed as a big move by the network -- one that was supposed to bring fans to their television sets for a knock-down-drag-out war of words that was going to play out before our very eyes.
But by the time the dust had settled on Monday evening, the pairing left many wondering what the hubbub was all about. With the exception of a couple moments in the telecast, there were very few sparks between the analysts.
If anything, the pairing looked incredibly forced, as co-anchors Terry Gannon and Dan Hicks tried multiple times to engage the duo in some verbal banter. But every time it appeared we might see something -- anything! -- Miller or Faldo would kill the rally and defer to the other.
"I think [the Miller-Faldo] duo is going to intensify as the rounds go on." Hicks said during Friday's broadcast.
However, as the week went on, you almost forgot at times that both were in the booth at the same time. That may have something to do with the Golf Channel only keeping Miller on the set for half the coverage (he left the booth about an hour in and returned for the third hour). But that's neither here nor there.
Quite honestly, if the network really wants to see if the two can co-exist, it would make sense to get rid of the co-anchor and let Miller and Faldo go it alone. That would at least give us the chance to see if they have enough chemistry to make this work in the future.
"It's gotta come naturally," Faldo joked. "We're going to come with intensity, which will come from the players. We're going to respond that way. If they jump in and have a few fights out there, I think we will."
Unfortunately, we didn't see a single fight on the course. And the same can be said for the booth, where we learned it's going to take them a while to gel and get used to each other.
Remember that both are used to running the show when they step in front of the camera. As Faldo noted, things are going to have to come naturally for the duo. It's hard to say if this was a case of first tee jitters or a lack of chemistry, but after one week of watching the Faldo-Miller duo, it's unclear if they'll be able to find the spark needed to captivate an audience.
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