What drove David Feherty to LIV Golf? Not just the money, he says

It wasn’t just players who left the PGA Tour for LIV Golf. Some broadcasters went, too.

Perhaps the biggest non-player get for the Saudi-backed league was longtime CBS and NBC broadcaster David Feherty.

Feherty made waves when he told The Toledo Blade in August 2022 that the talking points coming from LIV defectors about “growing the game” and playing a “lighter schedule” were “bulls—.”

“Money,” Feherty said then for the reason he left NBC for LIV. “People don’t talk about it. I hear, ‘Well, it’s to grow the game.’ Bulls—. They paid me a lot of money.”

But in the debut episode of GOLF Originals with Michael Bamberger, Feherty paints a more nuanced picture of why he left his home with a PGA Tour broadcast partner.

“Money was one of the main motivators, but it was also the opportunity to be a lead analyst,” Feherty told Bamberger. “That meant a great deal to me.”

Feherty served as an on-course reporter for CBS Sports and later NBC Sports from 1997 until 2022, when he left for LIV.

With LIV, he sits in the main broadcast booth with play-by-play announcer Arlo White and fellow analyst Jerry Foltz.

“I spent 20 years on the ground,” Feherty said. “I spent years in the booth and satellite towers and all the rest. But the opportunity to sit at 18 and do what a Paul Azinger or a Nick Faldo — to have that role, it meant a great deal to me. It meant a great deal that someone would think highly enough of me that I were able to do that.”

Feherty said that he loves the change in the role, but it still makes him nervous. He compared being on the air to the two-hour stand up comedy shows he has done on tour around the country.

“I’m terrified every time I go on stage,” he said. “But I got to remind myself that I want the responsibility. I need to be in that place where I know I’m going to be uncomfortable. And that’s that’s the same every time I walk into the studio at 18.

“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 one regret from his Golf Channel show, watch the full debut episode of GOLF Originals with Michael Bamberger below.

Jack Hirsh

Golf.com Editor

Jack Hirsh is an assistant editor at GOLF. A Pennsylvania native, Jack is a 2020 graduate of Penn State University, earning degrees in broadcast journalism and political science. He was captain of his high school golf team and recently returned to the program to serve as head coach. Jack also still *tries* to remain competitive in local amateurs. Before joining GOLF, Jack spent two years working at a TV station in Bend, Oregon, primarily as a Multimedia Journalist/reporter, but also producing, anchoring and even presenting the weather. He can be reached at jack.hirsh@golf.com.