The Met Area’s Golf Radio Pioneers
Ann Liguori at the 2019 PGA Championship.
ELMSFORD, N.Y. (February ?, 2022) -- Long before satellite radio turned golf into a staple on the airwaves, New York voices were its pioneers. People like Bob Bubka, Ann Liguori, Bill Meth and Tom Mariam paved the way to today’s full-blown coverage.
Bubka’s foray into on-course reporting, Liguori’s sports talk commentary and Meth and Mariam’s weekly show helped prove that golf could attract and maintain a radio audience even without the visuals that television provides.
“Obviously, TV’s a little more involved,” Liguori notes. “But I just think radio is more intimate. You have to think as though you’re talking to one person on the air, and in a way that’s perfect.”
Golf on radio dates back to the Golden Age of Sports, before there was such a thing as television. Reporters and writers, including the great ones like Grantland Rice, typically filed 15-minute updates throughout the day from the bigger tournaments. In 1936 the National Biscuit Company, in an agreement with the USGA, sponsored radio coverage from the U.S. Amateur at Garden City Golf Club, and a year later CBS acquired radio broadcasting rights for both the U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur for the next four years. The Gillette Safety Razor Company picked up sponsorship of the tournaments after World War II. Traditional play-by-play was logistically impossible with the action so spread out; most golf on the radio was instructional and local.
Fast forward to the mid ‘80s, when Bubka was at a radio station on Long Island when the USGA announced it would bring the U.S. Open to Shinnecock Hills in 1986, for the first time in ninety years. He contacted the USGA to ask how he could get involved in covering it, and he was referred to Al Wester, the legendary voice of Notre Dame football and the New Orleans Saints. Wester told Bubka that he was putting together a radio crew for big events and asked him if he wanted to be a part of it.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Al, but I’m game,” Bubka answered. “I love radio and I love golf.”
Bubka soon found himself working for Mutual Radio at the 1986 Masters, two months before the Open at Shinnecock Hills. The Pinkerton guards hired by Augusta National to keep order must have thought him an odd sight, standing close to the 18th green with his microphone and tape recorder. But over the course of the week, and through some negotiation, Bubka eventually convinced the guards to allow him to stand next to a player and not get hauled off.
When Jack Nicklaus finished off his historic victory and the Pinkertons surrounded the Golden Bear to escort him off toward the clubhouse, Bubka saw his opportunity and jumped inside the circle. Nicklaus gave him a few minutes for his first interview, even before TV had its chance. Bubka handed off the cassette to a runner and, as he said, “Fifteen minutes later it was broadcast coast to coast on Mutual Radio.”
Bubka’s distinctive baritone voice became a familiar one when he later joined PGA Tour Radio.
Liguori, too, has long reported from the Masters for the CBS Sports Network and WFAN, just one of the many hats she has worn. As the first woman to host a call-in sports show for WFAN, beginning in 1987, she was also one of the first to welcome golf talk from listeners, playing on her love for the sport. Her “Sports Interview with Ann Liguori” series would go on to win Best Radio Show at the annual International Network of Golf (ING) Media Awards. These days, Liguori hosts a golf-heavy show on Long Island’s WLIW every Saturday morning, and still brings the sport to WFAN listeners with “Talking Golf” on Sunday mornings, featuring interviews with some of golf’s most popular figures. After a controversial incident involving Gary Player’s son at the 2021 Masters – Wayne Player held up a sleeve of golf balls behind Lee Elder during the Honorary Starters ceremony – her interview with Gary was picked up across the world. “He was on other shows but no one dared ask him about Wayne,” she says. “But if you’re going to have Gary on after Augusta, you have to ask him about his son’s behavior.” He said Wayne’s actions were wrong and “not the most intelligent thing to do.”
Meth and Mariam began their show in 2003 on WVOX in Westchester County. With a heavy emphasis on local golf, it ran for 14 seasons. Meth, a fixture in media rooms of all Met Area pro sports teams, was covering spring training when he heard a golf talk show on a Tampa radio station and thought it would be a great idea to start one in the New York area. He didn’t have the expertise, however, until he was introduced to Mariam at a Giants game. They hashed things out over lunch at Saxon Woods.
“Like anything, you feel your way through and the first shows we did were different from the last ones,” Mariam says, “but within a short period of times, we developed a lot of regular features on the show. That was an important thing in terms of just creating a format and getting sponsors.”
Local golf writers checked in from majors, which is how the Metro Golf Show broke the story of Tiger Woods’s non-disqualification at the 2013 Masters during an interview with Mark Herrmann of Newsday. Their diamond links segment included interviews with Derek Jeter, David Wright, Yogi Berra, Ralph Kiner, Joe Torre, and Bobby Thomson.
Donald Trump made several appearances, as did Annika Sorenstam and Gary Player. The MGA’s Gene Westmoreland was a regular with a rules segment. For the 250th show, they went after Arnold Palmer.
“Why not go for the top?” Mariam reasoned. “We figured we’d be politely turned down. Instead it was, ‘O.K., let’s do it.’”
At the same time the Metro Golf Show was running, the late Joel Blumberg hosted a taped weekly golf show with guests on WGBB on Long Island. “Joel had a great show, too. One day he asked, ‘Why are you doing this live?’ And my answer was, ‘Yours is schmooze and ours is news.’” Meth said.
As radio golf has caught on, Met Area personalities continue to play a key role, especially on the instructional side with Michael Breed, Debbie Doniger (director of instruction at GlenArbor), and Jeff Warne (director of golf at The Bridge) all contributing to SiriusXM’s content. In addition to hosting “Golfer’s Edge” with New Jersey-based golf fitness trainer Ben Shear, Doniger frequently did pre- and post-round interview at the majors.
“I really enjoyed that side because if I was going to get players who were open about talking freely about information that the listener wouldn’t otherwise be privy to, that’s what I tried to do in my interviews,” she said. “I think some I really did grab some listeners when I would ask, ‘What did you work on on the range with your teacher this morning? I saw you had a horrible warmup. How did you go out on the course and get yourself put together?’ I may know those answers and you might know those answers, but for the average golf fan who’s listening, they don’t know.”
Frank Darby, longtime head golf coach at St. John’s University, and PGA professional Brian Crowell, currently at Trump Golf Links Ferry Point, joined forces for more than 300 weekly shows called “On Course” on PGATour Radio.
“I had had a radio show of my own up in Westchester for about 12 years, but stepped away from that,” Crowell explained. “Frank had gone to the folks at Sirius with the idea of having a show that was very coaching oriented, and they loved the idea, and as he got going he realized it would be a lot better with someone else to talk to. Knowing I had some background in media, he gave me a call and asked if I would co-host with him.”
The show evolved over time away from the coaching aspect and more toward a variety of subjects and guests. The busy Crowell has since left the show, but Darby continues.
“I never thought that it would have materialized. It wasn’t on my things-to-do list,” he said. “But it worked, and Brian did a great job of mentoring me.”
“It’s all about entertainment and avoiding dead air,” Crowell said.
That’s been radio’s success formula for a long time, and thanks in part to several local pioneers, golf has become part of the mix.