Gary McCord is a Wild and Crazy Guy

If you like CBS golf announcer Gary McCord – I like him a lot – then you should check out the interview with him in the current issue of Golf magazine. McCord was unceremoniously banned from broadcasting the Masters in 1994 after he said that the greens were so fast the club must have “used bikini wax” on them and that the bumpy terrain looked “like body bags.” The stuffed shirts who run Augusta National were apoplectic and told CBS that McCord was not welcome back. He hasn’t been there since and doesn’t mind.

In the interview, McCord asserts that incident propelled his broadcasting career and led to numerous corporate golf outings, not mention a role in the movie “Tin Cup.” He said he would not go back to the Masters even if the ban were rescinded. McCord apparently still holds a grudge against Tom Watson, who wrote tournament officials a letter after his comments suggesting he be punished.

McCord said the bikini wax comment was premeditated as he searched for a metaphor to describe how slick Augusta’s greens were playing. He rejected “they use Nair on them,” “they use electrolysis on them” and “they pluck them.” He also confesses that he wrote the body bags line in advance as he does other lines he utters during the course of his broadcasts.

And one bit of trivia that helps explain McCord’s wackiness is that he went to high school with the original wild and crazy guy, Steve Martin, who inspired him to develop his own unique personality.


Hitting range balls while wondering whatever happened to Steve Melnyk.