Davis Love III: Looking forward to rookie season with CBS

According to Sean McManus, Chairman, CBS Sports, Davis Love III will start as an on-course reporter for CBS at the Farmers Insurance Open.

“I’m excited to get going at Torrey (Pines),” Davis Love III said about his new career. “I’m proud to be on the best team in golf.”

Love noted that his first introduction to CBS actually came decades ago through former PGA Tour player Steve Melnyk. Melnyk worked as a CBS on-course and as a CBS tower announcer and later went to ABC.

"“Steve Melnyk introduced me to Lance Barrow as a teen,” Love recalled, “so I’ve been hanging around the compound or the trucks or dinners for a long, long time.”"

McManus has a plan for Love’s career path at CBS.

"“Davis is starting on the ground, which I think is the best way for him to learn the business and get used to and be comfortable working in live television,” McManus said. “When we first met with Davis a couple of years ago, he said to us, ‘Listen my main motivation now is to learn this business. If you guys want me to go pull cable, I will go pull cable.’”"

(Pulling cable means laying and picking up the long lines of cable that are strung over the golf course in order to televise a tournament. Cameras and audio gear hook up to cables at various points on the course so we can see what the golfers are doing and hear what they are saying. )

According to McManus, at that time Love expressed an interest in learning from the ground up and as McManus said, he will be doing that, literally.

"“He’s going to do the west coast swing as an on-course reporter, and after that we’re going to see where he fits in best,” McManus added. “(After the west coast swing)The next tournament we do is the Masters and we want to make sure that we carve out a prominent and the appropriate role for him at the Masters.”"

Beyond that, McManus said, it would be about how Love develops.

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"“It’s a perfect fit, though, to have Davis as a part of this CBS team,” lead anchor Jim Nantz said about Love. “He’s got a lot of friendships here.”"

Nantz noted that Love also won at a lot of the sites that CBS covers, like Pebble Beach, where he has two titles, and Harbour Town, where he won an amazing five times.

Love has already been through what he called two different “bootcamps” with producer Lance Barrow. The bootcamps involved learning how to use the microphone, headset, rest of the equipment, and listening to the producers or other announcers.

"“I think he’ll hit the ground running,” McManus said about Love’s debut at the Farmer’s Insurance Open next week. Then he discussed some of the other talent on staff.“(Frank) Nobilo will be full-time. Trevor Immelman will also join the team as an on-course reporter. Dottie Pepper is now lead on-course reporter,” he continued. Ian Baker Finch will return as well.“We have five major champions working on the CBS golf team, which I think is unprecedented for any golf announce team,” McManus added. ( The five: Sir Nick Faldo, Ian Baker Finch, Trevor Immelman, Davis Love III and Dottie Pepper.)"

But just because Love is learning a new career doesn’t mean he is giving up playing golf on either the PGA Tour or the PGA Tour Champions circuit.

"“I have a chance, if I stay healthy, to break the all-time record of most PGA Tour events played,” he explained."

The record is held by Mark Brooks with 803 tournament starts. Love does have one advantage because he has won 21 times on the PGA Tour, and that means he can enter any regular PGA Tour event he wants to play for the rest of his life. His 769th start was at 2019 RSM Classic, just before Thanksgiving and his 770th was last week at the Sony Open. He is not in the field at the American Express. So, he’s now counting toward 33 more victories for a tie and 34 to surpass Brooks.

At last week’s Sony Open, Davis Love III said, “I am committed to playing at least two events a month all the way through the start of the next season.”