Jim Nantz is 'thrilled' about the CBS Golf team adding Johnson Wagner

The CBS golf team feels they have momentum carrying over from last year as they kick off their 2026 PGA Tour coverage this weekend at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines.

“Last season was our most-watched golf season in seven years, our most-streamed golf season ever on Paramount+, and The Masters delivered the most-watched final round since 2018,” said David Berson, the President & CEO of CBS Sports said in a conference call earlier this week. “Interest in the sport is incredibly high with the game’s biggest stars performing at their best.”

The highlight was the Masters telecast, which featured Rory McIlroy winning his first green jacket to complete the career Grand Slam. McIlroy fell to his knees and wept in a monster TV moment, viewer moment, and golf moment.

While most of the CBS golf cast will return, the retirement of Ian Baker-Finch opened up an opportunity for Colt Knost, a former U.S. Amateur champ, to move from his on-course reporting position to the super tower, where he will now typically handle coverage for the 16th hole at most venues. The rest of the well-known crew, Jim Nantz, Trevor Immelman, and Frank Nobilo, will guide viewers through play at the televised holes, with Amanda Balionis conducting interviews.

Dottie Pepper and Mark Immelman, intrepid on-course storytellers, will be joined by newcomer Johnson Wagner, who previously worked for Golf Channel.

Wagner became known for demonstrating shots that had been hit during tournaments, even though some of them were shots that had been problems for him during his playing career. His attempts to conquer his chipping yips were on full display for viewers. Wagner’s efforts to hit shots he couldn’t hit endeared him to viewers, and he won them over.

“We’ve worked with him numerous times on Thursday and Friday,” said Sellers Shy, Coordinating Producer. “It has been seamless in the way he just gets along with everyone in the compound and our production team.”

It did not hurt that Johnny Harris, whose father was a founder of Quail Hollow CC in Charlotte, N.C., host to the Truist Championship on the PGA Tour, is a friend of Wagner’s.

Wagner got ringing endorsements from all members of the announce team.

“CBS golf has always been a tapestry with a blend of a lot of different perspectives and voices,” Nantz noted. “I’ve loved watching as a viewer, and I’m thrilled to have him join this CBS team. It’s going to give us one more different kind of look at the world of golf, and I think he’s going to be a wonderful addition.”

“I’ve always been a huge fan of his. He has the credentials as Sellers says. He’s easygoing. He’s authentic. What you see is what you get. And he has an amazing ability to be able to make his point quickly. And as you know, that’s something in the TV world that’s very important,” Trevor Immelman explained.

Dottie Pepper has played what she called “a decent amount of golf” with Wagner.

“I think what he brought out of his playing days into his broadcasting days was an element of vulnerability. Because he did struggle with parts of the game, and he never hid behind it,” she added.

Instead of hitting golf shots on weekends, Wagner will now take to roaming the edges of courses, the fringes of greens, lurking in the background to give viewers his perspective on upcoming shots, just as we have come to expect from all the best walking reporters.  

Expect CBS to find some new ways to utilize Wagner's talents in the weeks and months ahead.  Hopefully, it includes replicating the occasional skulled shot that bangs off a porta-john or the buried bunker lie from which Wagner is unable to extract the ball. Perhaps a tree limb that he has to go over or under, God forbid, both in the same shot.  

There are just so many ways to make errors in golf, and heaven help us, we love to see other people suffer the same way we do. When viewers see that a shot is hard for someone who has played the game for a living, they feel better about not being able to hit perfect shots during their own rounds.

And that’s what makes watching Johnson Wagner such fun. He’s trying his best. Sometimes he makes a great shot, and sometimes he messes up just like we do. We can relate.