Sir Nick Faldo is sport's most improved broadcaster

Telegraph

5 days ago

Given that the man has won six majors, it might not be the most coveted trophy he'll ever squeeze on to what must be one of sport's most groaning mantelpieces, but if they are giving out awards for the most improved sports broadcaster, Sir Nick Faldo would be in with a strong shout of scooping the prize.
The golf legend himself, and those who have been working with him, deserve a lot of credit: where he was once wooden and grumpy, he has now become a co-commentator of good humour, insight and feeling.
His work for Sky Sports at the Open in this renewal was excellent. It is hard to think of a better match-up of ex-player analyst and current player situation than Sir Nick on the relentless front-runner Scottie Scheffler, and he delivered not just on the golfing challenges of such a win but the mental requirements as well.
In the taxonomy of British sporting greats turned broadcasters, I would put Sir Nick in the same category as Stephen Hendry: perceived during his imperial phase as a remorseless, aloof grinder, revealed in his later years to be surprisingly jolly company on the telly and probably not such a bad bloke all things considered.
Perhaps it is not surprising that a personality type that would toil fanatically at one endeavour could focus that work ethic upon mastering another discipline, although that being said, it is not hard to think of some ex-players who remain as lumpen on the mic after 10 years as they did on day one.
For instance – and while it is hardly the crime of the century – Sir Nick used to have an irritating habit of saying 'smidgen' all the time. Someone has clearly put in a smidgen of work advising him to tone that down a smidgen and the result is more than a smidgen of an improvement. You see? It grates. And now he's stopped it. So fair play.
I am confident in speculating that someone of Sir Nick's clout and single-mindedness would not have noticed this sort of tic on his own nor made efforts to correct it unbidden, therefore I can conclude that he has been open-minded enough to accept notes on his broadcast work from a trusted adviser.
There was even a genuinely funny bit about having to go on a diet before the Ryder Cup because he had caused injury to a chair.
Credit must go to the golf bods at Sky, who have created an environment in which Sir Nick can succeed and overall put on a top-notch package for these majors.
Peter Alliss had been synonymous with and indivisible from TV golf for so long – perhaps too long – that Sky were obliged to go for a different sort of approach whether they liked it or not, and this has become more distinctive year on year for a while now.
Sky's coverage might lack the raconteurish, moving-smoothly-through-the-second-bottle charm of an Alliss or a Test Match Special but that has in fact worked in its favour because it has allowed Sky to play to its strengths with innovation and technical insight to tap into the fact that a lot of people watching actually play the game and want to get better at it.
Flights of lyrical fancy might be thinner on the ground than the BBC coverage of yore but that's not necessarily a problem if you like the technocratic, graphical wizardry approach that Sky has made its own.
In fact, the only colourful language to be heard this week came when the microphones kept picking up various potty-mouthed outbursts from players who had hit bad shots, Rory McIlroy at least twice, with the commentators having to apologise each time.
Anyone who has ever attempted to hit a one-and-three-quarter inch ball into a teacup 400 yards away with a small bit of metal on a stick would surely forgive the occasional swear word. Around these parts at least, there was no blue outburst when they welcomed Sir Nick to the microphone each time and, given that he was once at best a 24-handicapper on the telly, this represents progress indeed.