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On Television — Ken Venturi: Walking Away, Quietly

Golf Digest, June, 2002 by PETER McCLEERY

Ken Venturi has been coming into our living rooms for 35 years. Now his long run as CBS' lead golf analyst--longer than any other in the game's history--is about to end. The emotion is sure to overflow when "Kenny" says good-bye to "Jimmy" Nantz and the viewers Sunday, June 2, at the Kemper Open. The timing of the occasion is loosely tied to the event that earned Venturi his job and his place in golf history: the 1964 U.S. Open at Congressional.

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With that exhausting, emotional victory, Venturi established a bond with viewers. His strength as an analyst has been the passion and conviction he brought to the booth. He said things with such authority and in such absolute terms that you believed him, or wanted to. There was an undeniable comfort factor with partner Pat Summerall and later Nantz, and even when Venturi's analysis became predictable, there was comfort in that. His tortured syntax and all those slangy "lemme tell ya's" were sympathetically overlooked.

Venturi took an old-fashioned view of the job, mainly talking about the players' shots and the options they faced. There were few brilliant insights, but a steady stream of "Kennyisms" that became his calling card, Venturi's verities, if you will.

As the years wore on these sayings were so heavily recycled that Venturi almost became a parody of himself (see "Tin Cup" ), but then, how many different things can you say about a player facing two putts to win? "I've always said, the hardest thing in the world is to two-putt when you have to two-putt" or "I'll guarantee you, this putt won't be going very fast when it gets to the hole." You could be certain of it: death, taxes and Venturi saying something familiar at 18.

When CBS comes back for its summer stretch of tournaments, Lanny Wadkins will be the new man at 18. But Venturi's maxims are sure to echo around him and every CBS tournament for a long time. When a situation cries out for one of his Kennyisms, I know I'll be thinking of him and muttering it to myself. So here's a salute to his lasting contribution to the vernacular, those sayings he stamped so deeply into our consciousness that they will be forever associated with him:

* "Just take your par and walk quietly" (probably his signature saying).

* "Bring it in a little left to right" ("right to left" less frequently, favoring faded approaches).

* "Don't give the hole away."

* "Take the water out of play."

* "You can't win the tournament on Thursday, but you can sure lose it."

* "I like/don't like that choice."

* "I call that the daylight stoke. Take the putter back and as soon as you see daylight, hit it."

* "I don't believe you'll see this one to the right/left of the flag." But if you ever did, it was "a mental error."

* "You'll never know how good that was."

* "He was gonna make no worse than 5, but now he's brought 6 or 7 into the equation."

* "Ho-down!" (to balls running hot past the hole).

* "If he'd a hit it, he'd a made it."

* "You couldn't walk it out there and place it any better than that."

* "It's always amazing to me how this many people can all of a sudden be so quiet."

* "I call that talent."

* "I guarantee the win means a lot more to him than the money."

* "I tip my cap to him."

And we do.

On Television — Ken Venturi: Walking Away, Quietly

Golf Digest, June, 2002 by PETER McCLEERY

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