10 Questions: with David Feherty
A native of Northern Ireland, 49-year-old David Feherty, played on the PGA and European Tours in the 1980s and ’90s, winning several events overseas. He has become a media icon for his unique on-course reporting with CBS and for being the meddling voice on the EA Sports video game, Tiger Woods Golf. This weekend, he was at the John Deere Classic.
Q: If you could have given live color analysis on the life of any historical figure, who would it be and why?
A: I think it would be Winston Churchill. Probably the greatest man of the 20th Century and a great wordsmith. I love the way he spoke. Once he was accused by some other gin-swilling old fart in parliament of ending a sentence with a preposition, which is supposed to be a no-no, but it’s impossible really to follow in English, and he was a pragmatic man. He said, “That is the kind of nonsense up with which I shall not put.” He was absolutely superb. I know I would have loved him, the old windbag.
Q: How have you spent your down time here in the Quad-Cities?
A: I’ve been riding my bike up and down the Mississippi. We did 40 miles (Sunday) morning. It’s been very interesting to see where the water has come over and where it stayed dry. This is one of my favorite places to ride. It’s beautiful, just going up one side and down the other.
Q: When you visited the troops in Iraq, how were you received by them? And did more of them know you from the CBS coverage or the Tiger Woods video game?
A: It was probably about 50-50. I got a lot of recognition from the Tiger Woods game because my voice has been on it for 10 years — I get hate mail from 12-year-olds on that one. All of us were received well. They were just grateful to see anyone from home. It was a wonderful experience for us. We got more out of it than they did. To see how extraordinary they are and how well they do their jobs.
Q: In your mind, what makes golf a great game?
A: It’s the fact that anybody can hit that great shot. Not everybody can throw a 60-yard touchdown pass or a 95 mph fastball, but anybody can make a 70-, 80-footer or hit a great tee shot. It’s something to do with the size of the ball and how you influence it. You can move it large distances and make it end up in a place that you want to. It gives you a sort of master-of-the-universe feeling — once a round. The other times you feel like a Klingon or something.
Q: What was the greatest golf shot you ever called and what was your call on it?
A: The greatest shots I’ve ever called, I’ve usually gotten wrong, because they were all Tiger Woods — he’s deleted other people’s great shots like e-mail. It’s my job to predict what he’s going to do, and quite often I’ve come up very, very, hopelessly short in that. Because he does things human beings aren’t meant to do. I think the shot I saw him hit at Hazeltine was a 3-iron from a bunker from a stance that a giraffe couldn’t have got a drink at a water hole from and a human would have chopped it out sideways. He hit a high hook with a long iron over the face of the bunker and a big tree in the front. I threw the microphone away. Basically, I said, “OK. I give up.” I’m not an expert on that.
Q: What’s the best thing you ever drank from your Scottish Open trophy, and have you found the trophy yet? There are reports that it was lost.
A: No. Trophy’s still gone. The only thing I remember drinking from it was a really good bottle of claret, like a 1961 Margot or something like that. I neglected to clean the trophy out, though. I mean, it’s 170 years old, or something, and there was a moth in the bottom of it.
Q: Do you ever play the Tiger Woods video game, and, if so, do you ever disagree with your commentating?
A: I have never played the game, for that reason. Never. I refuse to take that kind of (verbal abuse) from myself.
Q: Cycling has kind of replaced golf for you, right? What drew you to the sport?
A: It’s more than replaced it. I really enjoy cycling. I was cycling to an alcoholic’s anonymous meeting, because I couldn’t sleep, so I’d get up early and cycle to it. One day, I just kept cycling. Now, instead of meeting, I cycle.
Q: Tom Cruise, the whole scientology thing … what do you make of that?
A: You know, it’s whatever floats your boat. That’s fine. But the cure for depression, exercise is a big part of it, but for people with depression, you need to get yourself in a position where you can exercise, and that means medication.
Q: How do you keep coming up with original material?
A: I don’t prepare for an event, because you can’t really prepare for what I do. It’s not about statistics or knowing personal details about the player. What I do is describe what I see real time. That’s just the way my mind works. Sometimes, I’ll be watching the crowd more than I am the players. I get a nice overview of it. I like to get in close, read the putt and then get far enough away to see everything that’s going on. It’s just the angle I see things from.