ESPN: Your New Home for the Masters

Just when you were beginning to get comfortable with the notion that ESPN was only broadcasting one PGA Tour (well, USGA really) event per year in the US Open....THEY'RE BAAAAAAACCCCCKKKK!

Masters tournament chair Billy Payne announced today that the Worldwide Leader in Sports (I use that term loosely considering the current disarray of programming) will be the new home of Thursday and Friday coverage of the Masters.

The very capable, but overworked, Mike Tirico will be leading the ESPN golf crew to Augusta National in replacement of the hybrid CBS-USA team that has been doing the early round coverage since the 1982.

As for the makeup of the rest of the team, I think it would be anyone's guess as to who would be involved. Think about it. While USA has been broadcasting the early rounds, they have essentially used the CBS crew (Nantz inclusive) and been on cable. There were no personnel from competing networks broadcasting the rounds. This year, The Golf Channel has had a very similar arrangement with whatever network takes weekend coverage of their PGA Tour events with slightly less crossover than the CBS-USA relationship for the Masters.

ESPN is completely different though. They want their personalities calling the events that they broadcast. That means that they want people on their own payroll probably. ESPN probably doesn't want CBS guys hijacking their coverage - even if they are way better at broadcasting golf. All that in mind, it becomes incredibly likely that you'll see the following faces at Augusta, in the towers, next April:

• Karl Ravech - A baseball guy who doesn't do too great with golf coverage historically.
• Nick Faldo - He's working the Masters for CBS anyway and did the British Open for ABC this year. I'm sure he'll be in the 18th tower all four days.
• Judy Rankin - One of the best analysts in the business. Without a steady gig, Dottie Pepper has assumed her place in the hierarchy of golf analysts, but Rankin was there first.
• Terry Gannon - Underrated play by play man and does a fantastic job for other ESPN golf telecasts
• Scott Van Pelt - A Golf Channel alum, good anchor, and has a lot of insight
• Andy North - Two time US Open champion and is more than serviceable as an analyst. He may not be in the crew, though, since there are no on course reporters.

There are two guys you are unlikely to see, though. They're going to get the Gary McCord treatment.

• Paul Azinger - The 2008 Ryder Cup captain is probably under some kind of agreement with ESPN. I don't think, though, that Billy Payne would let a firecracker like Zinger have a live mic though.
• Chris Berman - I think this is pretty self-explanatory. Can you imagine him talking about "Masters chair Billy 'Tyler Perry's House of' Payne?" Nope, me neither.