A bit of a bombshell in the golfing world was announced today by CBS Sports – they have picked up Nick Faldo as their lead golf analyst starting in the 2007 season.  Faldo replaces Lanny Wadkins, who declined to take a reduced role at the network and has opted to take on some more commitments to his Champions Tour playing career. 

This means that Faldo will now appear not only on the 21 CBS Sports telecasts of the PGA Tour, but he will also be color analyst for The Golf Channel’s coverage of all four rounds of the first three season events and the opening two rounds of every other PGA Tour event.  He will be broadcasting at three of the four majors, even the British Open on ABC Sports – leaving the US Open to be covered by the much brasher Johnny Miller over at NBC Sports.  So, we can expect Nick Faldo to be on TV for a little over 120 rounds next season.

While that may turn out to be overkill in the long run, let’s focus on how Faldo will be able to impact the CBS Sports telecast.  Lanny Wadkins is gone and that is something that I and many other people have been begging for over the course of months and years.  He chose to not improve as an analyst and his Madden-esque commentary style was just not cutting it on a telecast that already lulled the casual golf fan into sleepy submission.

Faldo brings something fresh and different to the booth – LIFE!  His style brings wit and humor to the mic and that is sorely missing from most golf telecasts.  Don’t get me wrong, though.  Sometimes McCord and Feherty make me laugh.  But, they make me laugh in that “That was completely unfunny” way.  Perhaps as I age, I will find that humor a little bit more, well, humorous.  Faldo is different.  His jokes have that British wit and social reference quality that toe the line between Dennis Miller and Monty Python.  In other words, he brings some level of intelligent humor to the table.  That kind of delivery means that there may actually be some low-key laughs at this year’s Masters.  Finally!

He is the most accomplished golfer of a generation.  Color analysts of years past and present, save for Gene Sarazen, the aforementioned Miller, and a few others, have generally been mediocre golfers with some B-level of accomplishment.  The best part of this is that Faldo commentates with a stream of consciousness that offers insight into how he thinks his way through a golf round and during a tournament.  You often do not get that kind of straight talk from a golfer with the resume that Nick Faldo has.  It is an opportunity for the viewer to get some real comprehension of how a champion golfer must think in pressure-filled situations.  He may not be directly linked to the mind of Tiger Woods (they’re bitter acquaintances, actually), but he’s as close as the golf fan will get from the booth.

Of course, though, one man does not make a telecast.  Although Howard Cosell made Monday Night Football in many ways, it was the product that went on under the voice that made MNF appointment television.  Though Faldo will offer a lot to whichever broadcast he is on at any given time, golf will never be appointment television.  That is, unless the PGA Tour makes the product more interesting by having meaningful invitational tournaments, playing courses that are not boring cookie-cutters, and committing to restoring the challenging nature of the game by regulating technology.

Further, there is something to be said about Faldo appearing on every major American golf broadcast outlet, except for NBC (and, hell, that could change).  For as good as I think he is, there are now really only two color analysts in American golf broadcasting.  Where are the former players that can offer insight and be entertaining in the booth?  Is American golf lacking so much character and intrigue in its personalities that there are only two compelling (though different) analysts?  Based on the courses that the PGA Tour plays, perhaps.

But regardless of all of those factors, Faldo is a good start.  Despite that, there’s still a lot to be done that he cannot fix.

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