Last call at NBC for old pals Roger Maltbie and Gary Koch

ORLANDO, Fla. – Roger Maltbie and Gary Koch have done a lot of things together through the years. Born a little more than a year apart, they competed on the PGA TOUR in the same era, combining to win 11 times. They partnered in the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf, with considerable success, winning their division on three occasions.

For 26 years, the two men have served together as significant players in NBC telecasts that bring golf to fans around the world. It was announced recently that NBC would not be renewing their contracts in 2023. Sunday’s final round of the PNC Championship will be their last call as teammates.

“It’s bittersweet, obviously,” Koch, 70, said on Saturday morning as he and Maltbie walked the range at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club, talking to players and doing their homework for the event’s opening round. “If I have to go out, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather go out with than Roger. We’ve been together for a long time.”

Maltbie, 71, was part of two NBC golf telecasts in 1991 (Bob Hope Desert Classic and the Ryder Cup at Kiawah Island) and joined the NBC team full-time the next season. The PNC wraps up his 31st season with the network. He has worked mostly as a roving reporter, walking alongside the leaders, sharing his insights on their strategy and performance. Maltbie knows the game astutely. He was a five-time winner on the PGA TOUR, his biggest triumph being the inaugural Memorial Tournament presented by Workday in 1976.

“I still remember the first time you came and followed my group, and I realized I was in a good position if Roger Maltbie is coming to follow me,” Webb Simpson said in a NBC/Golf Channel tribute that aired following Saturday’s opening round at the PNC.

Maltbie has signed on to do a handful of tournaments for Golf Channel in 2023, including the U.S. Senior Open and KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship. Depending on how the fall schedule sorts out, he may work five or six events.

“I wake up one day and say, ‘Why would I do that?’” Maltbie said. “And the next day I wake up and say, ‘I still really like doing this. It’s fun.’ So I’m going to do a few.”

Koch was offered a similar deal for 2023, but turned down the offer.

Koch was a six-time winner on the PGA TOUR, among his victories the 1984 Bay Hill Classic at Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill Club. After his playing career, he took a broadcasting job at ESPN, working there for six years before joining NBC in 1997. Koch works mostly in the tower calling shots at holes, but also has been an on-course reporter and has spent time in the lead analyst’s chair. His timing in covering the game was pretty fortunate; at ESPN, he was part of the broadcast covering Tiger Woods’ first of 82 PGA TOUR victories, in Las Vegas, in 1996.

“Fortunately, in the fall of ’96 when my contract was up at ESPN, Tommy Roy from NBC called and said we’d like to have you join the team. He said, ‘We’re going to try to build the best team that we possibly can, and we’d like for you to be a part of that.’ Twenty-six years for me.”

Both men have too many great moments to share just a few, but both pointed to the 1999 Ryder Cup, in which the U.S. team came back from a four-point deficit to win on Sunday, as an outstanding highlight of their broadcast careers.

“I was there at the 17th green when Justin Leonard holed the putt (against Jose Maria Olazabal, to eventually seal the comeback),” Maltbie said. “I wasn’t 25 feet from the hole, standing right behind it. That was great. And I would throw in there Tiger’s win at Pebble Beach by 15 shots in 2000 (at the U.S. Open). That was remarkable to watch.”

Koch was walking with the match behind Maltbie that electric afternoon at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, at the 1999 Ryder Cup.

“I was with Payne Stewart and Colin Montgomerie, that was my last match I was with, and did an interview with Payne on the green after he conceded that putt to Colin to end the matches. (With Montgomerie dealing with catcalls and heckling from a partisan Boston crowd, Stewart, in an act of great sportsmanship, conceded a long putt which gave Montgomerie the point.)

“It was one of the last interviews that Payne would do, because he perished in that plane crash not long after that,” Koch said. “And then of course for me, there was the Tiger moment at THE PLAYERS that I happened to be involved with. (Koch is referring to his “Better than most ...” call on a long, snaking Woods’ birdie putt from the back of the green at TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course’s famed island 17th in 2001.)

Said Koch, “Still, to this day, people will come up to me and say, ‘What a great call!’ And I will say, ‘Yeah, but what if Johnny (Miller) hadn’t popped out with ‘How’s that look, Gary?’ Then “better than most” would have never come out.”

Woods was among those at the PNC this week paying tribute to and thanking both broadcasters for their contributions. When Maltbie pulled up in a cart as Woods strode to the fourth tee on Saturday, Woods smiled broadly, gave him a big “Raaaj!!” and the two bumped fists. “How you doing, baby?” Woods asked Maltbie.

Of Koch, Woods said this on NBC: “You understood us players. You understand how hard certain shots were and could not have been more descriptive of shots. … We’re going to miss that side of your commentating, your ability to understand us. You get it. Not too many commentators really, truly get it, but you do.”

Koch said he isn’t sure of what lies ahead for him. His wife, who is an attorney in Tampa, will retire this spring, and the two want to do some traveling. Koch said golf has taken him all over the world, but he has not spent much time in the western part of the U.S., so he’d like to see national landmarks such as the Grand Canyon and Mount Rushmore.

Peter Jacobsen, sitting in the lead analyst chair this week at PNC, said Sunday’s final-round telecast at the PNC will be a tough one. Like Maltbie, Jacobsen will work a trimmed schedule at NBC in 2023. And though he does not know what is ahead for Koch, he believes that viewers may not have heard the last of his voice, and his knowledge.

“Abrupt change is hard,” Jacobsen said on Saturday. “This is in Gary’s blood, and this is what he does, and he does it better than anybody else.”

Both Maltbie and Koch will sign off one final time at NBC today unhappy that their exit will not be on their own terms, but filled witih gratitude for such a long and successful run. They have been lucky enough to have two good careers. And it’s nice that the longtime friends and teammates will go out together. One for the road.

“It’s been a long, wonderful ride,” Maltbie said. “Neither one of want it to end, but that decision was made, and so be it. It’ll be a sad afternoon when it’s all done.”