NBC’s Chevron Championship coverage will have a new lead voice
Cara Banks is known for recounting golf’s greatest moments.
If the play-by-play announcer is the captain of the golf TV broadcast during the final round of the tournament, the interviewer is like the first official. Yes, it’s the player’s job to land the plane, but it’s the first officer’s job to make sure everything goes smoothly. To be good at a dialogue role, you need a sense of timing for an actor and an instinct for choosing a story.
In other words, it is not that Amazingly, Cara Banks jumps this weekend from the role of course announcer, which she has successfully played on NBC and the Golf Channel for the past few seasons, to playing host, which she will host at the Chevron Championship this weekend.
On Saturday afternoon, Banks will make his debut as a first-time golfer, according to reports. Golfweek’s Beth Ann Nichols, is stepping into the lead role for NBC’s Chevron.
This won’t be Bank’s first foray into the post of executive chairman — he’s served in a play-by-play role on the Golf Channel and NBC’s coverage of several LPGA events over the past calendar year, including the Mizuho Championship — but it will certainly be his biggest role yet. Thanks to the deal with NBC, Chevron won five and a half hours of network TV airtime during the weekend, making this weekend one of the biggest opportunities for women’s golf to reach TV viewers who watch their games primarily on major network television. Banks will bring those fans all the action at Memorial Park in Houston, Texas, where he will replace longtime NBC anchor Terry Gannon, who will cover the NBA playoffs for the Peacock.
So far, the script couldn’t have played better for Banks or the LPGA. At the end of the tournament, the biggest star in women’s golf, Nelly Korda, leads by a mile, shooting consecutive 65s to surprisingly lead the entire field. Seven photos as of the time of this writing. It’s hard to say exactly how Banks might have drawn his first play-by-play championship, but it’s safe to say he’s a superstar who won one of the biggest events in sports on the list.
Interestingly, if Korda gets away with things on the weekend, Banks’ career will pick up a bit Harder. As many in sports TV production like to point out, golf is a different beast because of its size. Unlike many other professional sports, where there is only one ball and only one fairway, televised golf covers more than 18 courses, with up to 72 balls in the air at one time (assuming no backups). In other words, golf on TV is an exercise in controlled chaos, and oddly enough, the orchestra seems to play best when many things are happening at once.
It is only when the level of competition has subsided and the news has subsided that the work of playing golf really begins. And if there’s only one story line for, say, the entire final round? The main task is even more difficult: Keep people interested even when the leaderboard is dull.
Thankfully, Bank’s day job at interviewer has required him to put on a lot of that muscle over the past few years. He learned to be a fierce advocate for the audience, and honed his skills as a narrative builder and selector. Now the big question that remains is whether he has the ability to land the plane.
Make sure you’re up for the challenge.
