The surprising reason why David Feherty couldn’t win majors

Despite his successful career as a professional on what is now the DP World Tour, David Feherty is perhaps best known for his wit and candor as an on-course reporter and analyst for CBS and NBC, where he worked for more than two decades before recently taking a role as lead analyst for LIV Golf.

Feherty is self-deprecating by nature, making it easy to forget what a stellar player he was before he took up the mic full-time.

The 65-year-old Northern Irishman has five DP World tour wins on his resume, and notched three top-seven finishes in major championships over the course of his career. He teed it up at the Open Championship 12 times between 1979 and 1996, peaking with a T4 at Turnberry in 1994.

As GOLF writer Michael Bamberger’s first guest on the new series “GOLF Originals,” Feherty was introspective in his assessment of his major near-misses. According to Feherty, critical moments and decisions in his life have come down to whether or not he was willing to accept a certain level of responsibility — and when he had his chances at the majors, he simply wasn’t ready.

“There was always a pivotal moment, on the back nine or somewhere on the golf course, where I thought, you know, if I make this, if I did this, I could win this thing,” Feherty said. “And I never did that thing. I never did that thing.

“At that particular point, I didn’t want the responsibility that came with making that putt or hitting that shot, and it’s only looking backwards in my career that I realized that David Feherty could flat-out play golf.”

When it comes to his on-camera career, however, Feherty has welcomed and appreciated the pressure. And the opportunity to take the top job was one of his primary motivating factors in making the leap to LIV.

“I spent 20 years on the ground, I spent eight years in the booth, in satellite towers and all the rest, but the opportunity to sit at 18 and do what a Paul Azinger or a Nick Faldo [does], to have that role — that meant a great deal to me,” Feherty said. “It meant a great deal that someone would think highly enough of me, that I was able to do that. Greg [Norman] called me and said, ‘we want you to be our main guy.’ That meant a lot to me. It really did.”

The move represented a chance for Feherty to do something he’d hadn’t done before — and to scare himself a little.

“I’m nervous,” he said. “I do a stand-up show around the country, you know, like a two-hour, one-man show. “And I’m terrified every time I go on stage, but I’ve got to remind myself that I want the responsibility. I want, I need to be in that place where I know I’m gonna be uncomfortable.

“And that’s the same every time I walk into the studio, at 18,” he continued. “I feel that same kind of hollowness, where I think, today could be the day I f— up, but I’m not going to.”

For more from Feherty, including his biggest regret from his eponymous Golf Channel show, check out the full episode of “GOLF Originals” below.

Golf.com Editor

As a four-year member of Columbia’s inaugural class of female varsity golfers, Jessica can out-birdie everyone on the masthead. She can out-hustle them in the office, too, where she’s primarily responsible for producing both print and online features, and overseeing major special projects, such as GOLF’s inaugural Style Is­sue, which debuted in February 2018. Her origi­nal interview series, “A Round With,” debuted in November of 2015, and appeared in both in the magazine and in video form on GOLF.com.