7 notable changes coming to CBS Golf in 2025
CBS Golf lead producer Sellers Shy spends most of his life as a happy intermediary.
Over his left shoulder is golf television, broadly speaking. The announcers, executives, tours and players, each of whom looks to Shy to wrangle the overwhelming challenge of putting golf on television with precision and care and grace.
And over his right shoulder? Well, that’s you — the viewing audience — who assign Shy the responsibility of showing golf television in a way that feels at once highly purposeful and entirely effortless.
Shy and his NBC counterpart Tommy Roy sit at the center of this unholy (and at times oppositional) Venn diagram, two men in middle age expected to operate with the boundless energy of professional marathoners. Yes, they are armed with a small army of fellow TV professionals to keep the trains on time, but no, that is not a cure-all.
The best, and at times only, weapon at their disposal just so happens to be television’s hardest feat: innovation. If the product is improving, or at the very least changing, it is easier for the watchers and the watched to feel as though they are getting what they need. But how do you change a product that has already been through 60 some-odd iterations on a healthy but stagnant budget? That’s the question I posed to Shy during CBS’s season-opening press call earlier this week.
CBS’s broadcast returns to golf again on Friday at the Farmers Insurance Open, Shy’s fourth campaign as lead producer since taking over the role from his embattled predecessor, Lance Barrow. Innovation has been at the center of his producing ethos, leading to experiments that have become golf TV mainstays like the constant leaderboard. But what’s on the docket for 2025? Here are 7 changes you can expect to see throughout the season.
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7 changes to CBS Golf in 2025
1. New (full-time) leadership
The biggest change to CBS telecasts in 2025 actually arrived back in May of ’24, when David Berson succeeded longtime CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus at the helm of the network. Berson, a CBS lifer who came over from ESPN to serve as McManus’ No. 2, enters his first full season of golf coverage at a time of upheaval on the PGA Tour, which lost nearly one-fifth of its viewing audience in 2024. On the morning we spoke, Berson spoke effusively in support of Justin Thomas’ letter to PGA Tour membership calling for, among other things, expanded access for broadcasters.
“We loved what we read,” Berson told GOLF.com. “We’re fans of it. We’ve been pushing for it for a long time. We love that JT is willing to put his neck out there and take a leadership position.”
2. Drone tracer expansion
One big tweak that arrived midway through the 2024 season were “drone tracers,” a visual expansion that provided CBS the opportunity to show shot tracers on moving camera shots. Those tracers were popular with fans, who enjoyed the three-dimensional glimpse at a player’s line, angle and shot. They will be expanded in 2025 both in presence and execution, with a second drone being deployed specifically for tracing and data tacking technology throughout the West Coast Swing.
“The thing that we’re able to now — have moving drones tracing golf balls — we’ll be able to show some of the data that can come out that system,” Shy said. “It’s more than just tracing a ball there. There are leaderboards we can can air out of the drone, there are full page historical information we can lead out of the drone.”
3. Crane cams
Another big addition for the West Coast Swing will be a “crane camera” deployed off to the side of the 14th hole at Pebble Beach, giving viewers an “incoming tracer” on tee balls as they’re arriving on the fairway. The crane will be positioned some 80 feet in the air, giving fans another new scenic angle into Pebble Beach’s iconic topography.
4. Signature Event supremacy
CBS and NBC alternate PGA Tour schedules each season, but the 2025 iteration of CBS’s schedule will feature a heavy influence on the Tour’s Signature Events. In all, CBS will cover six of the eight Signature Events in ’25. NBC, on the other hand, will get all three FedEx Cup Playoff events and two siggies of its own (the Sentry and Arnold Palmer Invitational).
5. A new LPGA expansion
CBS will broadcast four LPGA events in 2025, up from three in 2024. The new CBS event for ’25 will be Michelle Wie West’s Mizuho Americas Open, which will receive a two-hour window on CBS from 1-3 p.m. ET on Sunday, May 11.
6. A few key returns
OK, not exactly changes, but a few noteworthy updates returning to CBS’s coverage in ’25: the walk-and-talk interview; the expansion of TrackMan “high” tracers, which provide a unique vantage point behind the tee shot; the immersive “Falcon 360” camera; and Golftec’s OptiMotion swing analysis technology, which was a popular addition for Trevor Immelman, Frank Nobilo and Ian Baker-Finch in ’24.
7. On-air adjustments
CBS will run back the same on-air staff from ’24, but with a few key updates. Legendary play-by-play announcer Jim Nantz will enter his 40th season of broadcasting golf in ’25, while Trevor Immelman will enter the booth in addition to his duties as the new president of the Official World Golf Ranking, or OWGR.
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