Steve Sands: The Anchor Weighs In

On the eve of the 2015 Masters, Colorado State grad Steve Sands broadcasts his opinion on Tiger, Rory, and more

How’s this for a job description?

• Spend a week at each of a few dozen of America’s greatest golf and country clubs, and visit a few in other parts of the world.

• Watch the best golfers in the world demonstrate their skill in tournament after tournament, including the Masters and the Ryder Cup.

• Interview the stars of the PGA Tour after their rounds, one on one, at every stop. Steve Sands has been paid to do just that for Golf Channel and NBC for the last 14 years, and is quick to agree that it can’t get much better.

“It beats working for a living,” he joked when his work brought him to Cherry Hills for the BMW Championship last September. A Washington, D.C. native, Sands graduated in 1991 from Colorado State University. His road to the PGA Tour began in Fort Collins.

“I realized I was not going to be the next Art Monk and be a wide receiver in the NFL,” said the former high-school football player. “I figured being a sportscaster or being involved in sports would be the best thing possible, because sports is the only thing I ever really cared about.”

Sands initially wanted to be a sportswriter for The Washington Post, “but the journalism professors at Colorado State said, ‘Nah, you’re not a good enough writer for that.’”

So, he explains, “I gave this a shot. I went from Scottsbluff (Nebraska) to Oak Hill and Martinsburg (both in West Virginia) to Utica (NY) to Richmond, then to the local NBC affiliate in Orlando. There I got a break on national TV on Golf Channel, then a few years ago got a break to go over to the network and go to NBC.”

Usually, Sands is the one asking the questions. But during the week he was at Cherry Hills to cover the BMW, the interviewer agreed to be interviewed. He was frank and entertaining, his insights fascinating. That conversation follows.

Let’s talk about Tiger. Do you think he’ll win another major?

After all of the nonsense happened in 2009 away from the golf course, I’ve always thought: “He’s gotta win one, doesn’t he?”

He was the best player of his era, and I never thought, up until this year, that there would possibly be a way he wouldn’t win another one. I have more doubt now than I have ever had, and not just because of his game, but because of his physical condition.

I think he’s going to go away and get it right, and come back. But will his game come back? Will his mental approach come back? His mental strength was so much stronger than every other player’s for so long. It was a way-wider-margin-than-his-game better than the other players’. And that’s not the case now.

It’ll be interesting to see if he gets it back. But I would be shocked if he never won another major.

It sounds like breaking Jack’s record now is a real long shot.

I definitely think it’s a longer shot now than it was. No question. Think about it: He turned 39 in December. He’s won 14 majors; Jack won 18. For the first time in his career he’s actually behind pace of Jack.

Another thing: Take his absolute biggest competitor out here in the last two decades, Phil Mickelson. He’s one of the top 15, maybe top 12, players in the history of the sport. He’s won five majors. That’s his career. Tiger would need to match Phil’s career in majors to beat Jack’s record, beginning at the age of 39, with injuries, with some mental scars. That’s tough to do.

Don’t you think the group of young players now is also a factor?

There’s no question. This generation is a much deeper pool of talent. So week in and week out, absolutely anybody can win. I think, though, at the majors it’s a little different. I guess I’m an old-school guy. But I think guys like Greg Norman, Nick Faldo, Nick Price, Lee Trevino, Tom Watson— those were greater players going against Jack. But it wasn’t a deeper pool then.

So I don’t know what school people are in. Can the deeper pool attack each week better than the greatness at the top but not having the depth toward the bottom of the tour? It depends on how you look at it.

I think Rory McIlroy is sitting in a great spot. He has won three of the four majors. If he gets the Masters out of the way in the next couple of years, look out. I don’t think he’s going to win as many tournaments as Tiger in his career, but he could win more majors than Tiger.

Is Rory a threat to Jack?

No question—if he wins Augusta in the next three or four years. You’ve got to get that one out of the way, because then he has all four and he can put his foot on the pedal and go get them.

Adam Scott is a great player. Justin Rose is a great player. Jason Day is a terrific player. Rickie Fowler is a terrific player. Bubba Watson has won two Masters; he clearly is very comfortable on that golf course. That said, I don’t see Rory having the people in front of him that some of his predecessors had. He just needs to win that Green Jacket before the vultures come after him in the next four to five years.

Rickie Fowler did something really unusual, finishing in the top five in all four majors in 2014. Do you think it’s remotely possible that one player could win all four majors in the same year?

I think that would be the absolute greatest achievement in the history of the sport, maybe even all sports.

The way this sport is lined up, the four majors are played on different golf courses, different climates, different grasses, different times of the year. Just so many different factors have to fall into place for you to be successful one week, let alone one week at a major. For that to happen four times in a row—from April all the way to August, in the same calendar year—would be an astonishing accomplishment.

But I do think if somebody gets hot, it can be done. I think the only person right now who could do that is Rory. Rory is the kind of guy whose game translates to all four major championships. But the conditions need to be right. He is incredible when the conditions are soft.

If it’s going to happen I would put my money on Rory. But, man, that would be really tough to do.

Talking about Tiger’s injuries, The Wall Street Journal ran an interesting story last August about injuries among Tour players and today’s training. Do you think they’re related to the increased training?

I do.

Tiger Woods came out in the mid to late ’90s and made his run through the 2000s, and made the game cooler; made the game hipper; made the game slimmer, more athletic. I think every player out here will tell you the game has become more athletic.

And I think as the game has made an adjustment with its athleticism and its equipment and all the things that go into playing the game, away from the course the training has become different. There are going to be more injuries because the guys are tighter. They don’t look like you and me out there anymore. They’re finely tuned athletes, a lot of them. I think that’s important.

But I also think that the nature of the game is that, while your core needs to be strong, you need great flexibility. You don’t need to look like you’re a strong safety in the NFL to play golf. And I think a lot of players are realizing that, and finding out the hard way that you cannot look that great and do this sport for more than a couple decades at the highest level.

In that story they talked about the stance on the drive, and the pivot and keeping the feet planted. Do you see that changing? Do you see players saying, “Wait a minute, I can’t do that. I’ve got to be able to move my feet a little bit.” Do you see the fundamental of the swing changing at all because of the threat of injury?

Just like in every other sport, like coaches in team sports and players in team sports, the players out here and the teachers out here—everybody’s a copycat. Everybody wants to do what the best players are doing. So when you see Rory McIlroy have a classic golf swing, you want to play like Rory McIlroy.

In the old days, Arnold Palmer with his crazy swing; Raymond Floyd with his action; and Lee Trevino with his action—and all these different guys who were multiple major champions and some of the best players in the history of the game, and all of them in the World Golf Hall of Fame—those days were a little different.

Now with the teacher, and the trainer, and the sports psychologist and everybody involved in this individual sport that seemingly has become a team sport, everybody wants to swing with the nice beautiful arc and classic swing. So I don’t see a lot of dancing with the feet on tee boxes on the PGA Tour coming soon. These guys—amateur golfers, collegiate golfers, Web.com Tour golfers, and PGA Tour golfers– they all want to have classic swings.

Talk a little more about the culture of the Tour.

One of the things that’s amazing to me about golf—and I’ve been very fortunate to have covered every major-league sport—is the great majority of athletes on the PGA Tour, the European Tour, or wherever they are in the world are just fantastic. They’re well educated; they’re good guys; they give you time; they’re nice to fans, to the media; they respect the game; they respect their fellow competitors. So from our standpoint, a pleasure isn’t the right word; it’s just nice to cover a great sport with good guys who get it.

Don’t you think that’s in part just the nature of golf? If you grow up a serious golfer, you learn etiquette, honor and responsibility that probably carries over.

No question. No matter what you see in team sports, in this sport you always see the hat come off at the end, the shake of the hand, the look in the eye—whether that player shot an 80 or a 62. They might not like it, but they will give you a tap on the shoulder, look you in the eye and say, “well done,” and walk off.

There’s an etiquette to this game that is unlike any other sport’s. I don’t know whether it’s because of the tradition, or because they call rules on themselves. But you’re never going to see an offensive lineman for the Broncos call holding on himself; I can promise you that. You’re never going to see a defensive back say, “Nah, I touched him. Give me the 15.” It’s just the way it works in this sport.

It’s one of the things that makes this sport fun to be around and fun to cover.

So who is your pick to win the 2015 Masters?

I think Rory’s going to win it. I think he has become more comfortable in his own skin. He has now played Augusta a few times.

He had that great chance a few years ago when he played so poorly on Sunday. I’m okay with that because Augusta is the one major where they go back to the same course every year, and only a couple guys have ever won it their first time. Fuzzy Zoeller was the last one in 1979. It’s just so hard to win there.

I think if Rory gets off to a decent start, look out. He’s the best driver of the golf ball. He’s figured out his equipment change when he went over to Nike more than a year ago.

Pretty shaky at first, wasn’t it.

It was. But I think he knew what he was doing. He needed to make sure that he not just took the money—which all of us would have done, so anybody who criticizes him for that is out of their mind—but he also had to make sure he was comfortable with the equipment. He certainly has done that. The latter part of 2014, clearly, he showed he was comfortable with it.

Going into this year’s Masters, I cannot imagine anybody being a more prohibitive favorite. As long as he’s healthy and driving the ball the way he does, I think Rory McIlroy is going to be a tough customer at Augusta.

Final question. Do you have a favorite venue, favorite tournament— other than the Masters?

That’s a hard one. If you’re looking to have a great time, a little bit of craziness and some fun, you want to go to the Waste Management Phoenix Open. If you want tradition and all of the things that golf is about, you want to go to Augusta. I prefer to see great golf during the day and also have a good time when the sun goes down. So somewhere in the middle are Charlotte, Hilton Head, The Memorial and many other places we go to.

But I will say this, and not because I went to school here. There’s nothing like coming to Colorado. It’s the best. The weather’s great. The people are great. The golf courses are great. The PGA Tour belongs here on a regular basis, and hopefully one day it will come back like it was with The International.

For more from Steve Sands, click here.

RELATED LINKS

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Stadlers First Father/Son Duo to Compete in Same Masters Field

Tiger Withdraws From Masters

What’s the Story, Rory McIlroy?

Denny Dressman is a CAG contributor. Colorado AvidGolfer is the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it. It publishes eight issues annually and proudly delivers daily content via www.coloradoavidgolfer.com.

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