Jim "Bones" Mackay enjoying second calling as on-course commentator

Jim “Bones” Mackay won 41 times, including five majors, on the bag for World Golf Hall of Famer Phil Mickelson. Mackay was widely regarded as affable, loyal and above all industrious, so when he and Mickelson announced last June that they were parting ways 25 years into their professional relationship, it didn’t take long for the phone to ring. About 20 minutes, to be exact.

The caller was Tommy Roy, the lead golf producer for NBC Sports. Would Mackay be interested in being an on-course reporter for NBC and the Golf Channel? Well, yes.

Phil’s former wingman started at The Open Championship in July, and was inducted into the Caddie Hall of Fame in September. Mackay and NBC Golf Channel are wrapping up a five-week stretch this week at the Houston Open. The PGA TOUR caught up with Mackay to talk about his career change, his links to former NFL wide receiver Cris Collinsworth and Tiger Woods, and what it was like to caddie for the hottest player in golf, Justin Thomas, at the Sony Open in Hawaii.

PGA TOUR: You had double knee-replacement surgery in 2016. Is this new job easier, physically?

JIM MACKAY: The knees were never an issue. I didn’t really like it when people suggested that had something to do with me not caddying anymore. That was never the case. I went to do the rehab, and did it a little over a year ago, and that went great.

PGA TOUR: But when you got the job, you said you were looking forward to carrying just a one-pound microphone instead of a 50- or 60-pound golf bag.

JIM MACKAY: It’s definitely a lighter load, for sure.

PGA TOUR: You like to play a little golf at home in Scottsdale. Do you get to play more now?

JIM MACKAY: I think it’s almost exactly the same number of weeks working; I think I’m going to work 22 weeks in 2018, and that’s about what I would have worked with Phil. I’m working more in the Florida Swing, and early in the year with the two Hawaii events, which is really nice for me because I take my family and things along those lines.

(Note: Mackay carries a 4.7 handicap out of Whisper Rock Golf Club.)

PGA TOUR: You caddied earlier this year for Justin Thomas. What did you learn from looping for the reigning FedExCup champion?

JIM MACKAY: He’s so good that he can throw a ball down on the grass and say, “This is my 152-yard 9-iron,” and hit his number, and throw another ball on the grass and say, “This is my 156-yard 9-iron,” and hit his number. We had a TrackMan on the range, and not only that, when we got on the golf course and things got going, he had told me how far he hit his clubs, and when you’d punch in the numbers, they checked out. His distance-control was very, very impressive for a man with his kind of speed.

PGA TOUR: Might you put yourself out there as a sub to caddie again if the circumstances were just right?

JIM MACKAY: That’s the more likely scenario. If I were somewhere and I could help out someone who was in a pickle, and I could work it out with my boss, or if it were on an off-week when I’m home, then it’s certainly something I would consider. But it wouldn’t just be my decision.

PGA TOUR: Would going out there as a caddie every so often make you better at your main job on TV?

JIM MACKAY: It certainly helps. Justin was paired with Ollie Schniederjans on Sunday, and I learned a lot about (Schniederjans), a couple things about his game, and that’s hopefully something that I can throw out there when he’s going to be on television, which I think he’s going to be a lot.

PGA TOUR: As a caddie, you were always reading everything we wrote. You were maybe the most well-read guy in that profession. Do you feel like you were destined to join the media, to come over to the dark side, as it were?

JIM MACKAY: (Laughs) I don’t know. It was just cool when Phil and I put out a statement that we were done, that, you know, some people got in touch. The first person to get in touch was Tommy Roy from NBC. I think he’d been thinking of plugging in a caddie at some point. And, certainly, that had been mentioned to me, but I loved caddying and hadn’t given it a whole lot of thought.

PGA TOUR: How long between the time you put out that statement and the time he called?

JIM MACKAY: I believe it was about 20 minutes. I don’t remember exactly but things were moving pretty quickly.

PGA TOUR: That’s about as quickly as they can move.

JIM MACKAY: Yeah. I’ve been friends with Tommy for a long time; we’ve gone to dinners on the road on a number of occasions, and I really like him. And so, it wasn’t like we didn’t know each other well. We did. And, of course, Woody (John Wood, Matt Kuchar’s caddie) and I had done the tournament for him at Sea Island, so we had a good understanding of things.

PGA TOUR: The RSM Classic. Refresh my memory.

JIM MACKAY: I believe it was 2015, and Tommy said that they were just trying to throw a little pizzazz at the tournament in terms of their broadcast, and so they just decided to plug in a couple guys who had never done it before in Woody and I, and we tried to turn all the buttons in the right direction. (Laughs) It was a good time.

PGA TOUR: Wood told me my favorite Bones story, about you rooming together during an earthquake, and you running across the room to make sure Phil’s bag didn’t tip over.

JIM MACKAY: That’s a true story, yep.

PGA TOUR: What’s been the steepest part of the learning curve?

JIM MACKAY: Learning the whole timing of it, when it’s your turn to go, and getting your point across in the few seconds you have to do it. At The Open Championship, which we all know how important that is, it was my first week. It was about getting the feel of it and when I jump in and when I don’t. Things moved pretty quickly, and I’m getting it to slow down for me a bit now.

PGA TOUR: Which sports broadcaster do you most admire?

JIM MACKAY: I grew up in the same part of the world as Cris Collinsworth; he grew up a little bit south of me in Central Florida. I like the way he works because of the genuine enthusiasm he has for what he’s talking about. You can tell he not only knows the game, he loves the game. I got to meet him recently through a work connection. I went to a Thursday night football game in Arizona, and he was there. It was cool.

PGA TOUR: He’s always smiling, so he must love it.

JIM MACKAY: Exactly.

PGA TOUR: You two grew up in the same part of Florida?

JIM MACKAY: I went to a big high school football game in Titusville, Florida, and he was the quarterback for the rival team. I remember being in the stands watching him run around and throw touchdowns. I’m 52, and he’s six years older than me. He was a senior in high school, I think, so I was in sixth or seventh grade. I was just rooting for our local high school in New Smyrna Beach, and both teams were really, really good. It was maybe a state playoff game, and I’d never heard of him before that, but I certainly paid attention to him after that.

PGA TOUR: What does your wife, Jen, think of your new job, given that you’re working the same number of weeks? She’s probably just happy that you’re happy.

JIM MACKAY: She’s great. She loves the fact that I’ve got this new challenge after doing the same thing for whatever that was, 28 years. She’s happy for me that there’s something kind of new to take a shot at.

PGA TOUR: What’s been the biggest surprise?

JIM MACKAY: There’s a lot of pre-work. It’s a little bit like caddying; how well do you know the course? Doing the TOUR Championship at East Lake, a course I know extremely well, was far more natural to me than, say, the Hero World Challenge at Albany, a course I’d never seen before. I have a great amount of respect for these guys that do it. They work really, really hard.

PGA TOUR: And working at the Hero must have been fun, with Tiger coming back.

JIM MACKAY: (Laughs) It was great. I had Tiger twice, and both times I was with him he shot 31 on the front nine, which was super, super fun. On the ninth hole on Sunday, Justin Thomas walked by me and you could tell, from what he said to me, how fired up he was to be out there with Tiger, to be watching Tiger pick the course apart.

PGA TOUR: What did Justin say?

JIM MACKAY: I think he just said, ‘I’m just so fired up right now.’ He’d just hit a 3-wood to 12 feet for eagle, and that wasn’t why he was fired up. It was cool. I mean, I’ve certainly seen it many times myself when you’re on the receiving end of one of Tiger’s runs, if you will. But here was Justin, who grew up watching the guy, witnessing it firsthand. It was a cool moment.

PGA TOUR: Now that you’re in the business, do you read about big media mergers and the technological side of things and so forth? Are you naturally interested in that?

JIM MACKAY: Yeah, I can drive my wife nuts at times. We’ll go out to dinner and get home and I have to get on the Internet to find out what’s going on in the world. Whether it’s golf or other things, I just like to know what’s going on and to be informed. If I’m going to have an opinion on things, I’d like to know as much as possible what I’m talking about.

PGA TOUR: I imagine you’ve gotten some feedback from the caddies and the players?

JIM MACKAY: (Laughs) People have been nice, and they’ve been really helpful, too. There are things I have to be really cognizant of. If I’m speaking on the side of the green, or wherever, can you hear me? The last thing I want to do is to get in the way. I’m learning where to stand and the whole mechanics of things, and people have been great about helping me.

PGA TOUR: You use a clipboard as a sound shield?

JIM MACKAY: I did that at the Hero because there are so few people out there. It’s not a highly attended event, so there’s less white noise. Voices carry farther. That’s one of a thousand things I’ve learned so far about what to do and how to do it better and not be in the way. There’s so much more to this job than I would have known and guessed. I’m learning as quickly as I can.