Kevin Kisner is serving as lead analyst for NBC’s FedEx Cup Playoff protection.
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The Vegas oddsmakers would have laughed you out of the room in the event you’d informed them again in late January that Kevin Kisner would function NBC’s lead analyst for the FedEx Cup Playoffs.
Not as a result of Kisner was a longshot to get the lead gig. In actual fact, the precise reverse.
Contemporary off a smashing debut in Kapalua, Kisner’s runaway favourite standing got here with just a few straightforward professionals: He was younger sufficient to cling to the final vestiges of his taking part in profession, well-connected sufficient to maintain the published within the good graces of the taking part in class, and gifted sufficient to maintain viewers entertained.
The one query surrounding his candidacy appeared like a throwaway: Would he be prepared to retire from the tens of millions that include taking part in professional golf to take the tens of millions that comes with professional golf broadcasting?
Because the months progressed, although, that query grew thornier. Might or not it’s the longtime Tour professional wasn’t prepared handy over the reins to his taking part in profession? Within the early days, the obvious trace of trepidation got here not from Kisner however from NBC, who selected to not rent a full-time alternative for the lead analyst function within the days and months following Kisner’s debut. However then, just a few months after his debut, Kisner gave an interview to Golf Digest’s The Loop podcast that laid down the regulation.
“I haven’t performed nicely in two years, and I don’t actually need to exit like that, to be trustworthy with you,” Kisner mentioned then. “I really feel like I can nonetheless compete with the blokes if I’m taking part in nicely, which I haven’t performed what I think about nicely but. So it’s sort of a check to myself to see, how laborious can you’re employed to determine it out?”
Certainly, Kisner wasn’t able to retire from professional golf till he’d given his taking part in profession one final school strive, which left NBC in a wierd sort of purgatory. Ought to they pursue a brand new lead analyst, or ought to they wait Kisner out?
The 2 sides stayed in that purgatory by way of final week’s Wyndham Championship, the ultimate PGA Tour occasion of the 2024 common season, when a brand new piece of stories arrived: Kisner would function lead analyst of NBC’s protection by way of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, his highest-profile task up to now.
The part-time promotion provides Kisner one other take a look at how life within the sales space seems to be earlier than an offseason of laborious selections about his PGA Tour future. His three-year PGA Tour winner’s exemption will lapse in December, which makes this 12 months’s FedEx Cup fall essential to his aggressive future. (The FedEx Cup fall fills out the ultimate spots of the highest 125 gamers who obtain full-time taking part in standing on the Tour within the following 12 months.) Kisner may choose to grind for his Tour standing by way of the autumn and see the way it performs out, as he did all through the summer time. He may select to stay round within the professional recreation and decide off his remaining exemptions. Or he may choose to return again to NBC, in spite of everything.
After all, there’s no assure the community shall be ready round to rent him within the lead analyst function. The final a number of months have afforded NBC the liberty to check out a number of different big-name voices for the lead analyst gig, and whereas no tryout has run away with the job, names like Luke Donald, Paul McGinley and Brandel Chamblee have carried out nicely. However NBC’s pleasure to re-hire Kisner for the autumn signifies all we have to know in regards to the community’s enthusiasm for his capacity. After a 12 months crammed with turmoil for the community’s golf protection, a Kisner rent can be a welcome piece of fine information.
As ever, the query stays: Does Kisner really feel the identical?
