FOX Sports' Golf-Broadcasting Team Filling Up


FOX Sports has announced the addition of more on-air talent to its golf-broadcasting team, which will make its debut at the 2015 U.S. Open held at Chambers Bay in University Place, Wash.

The network has hired eight-time PGA Tour winner Brad Faxon and former USGA executive director David Fay to serve as analysts alongside host Joe Buck, analyst Greg Norman and reporter/host Holly Sonders.

Faxon will be the lead studio analyst and a hole announcer, while Fay will contribute as a rules analyst. The announcement was made July 31 by John Entz, Executive Vice President, Production & Executive Producer, FOX Sports, and Mark Loomis, Coordinating Golf Producer, FOX Sports.

"Long-known for his smooth putting stroke, Brad's transition to broadcasting has been just as easy," Loomis said. "He still has great relationships with, and knowledge of, today's Tour players, and that insight will prove invaluable to our telecasts. David has been synonymous with the USGA, its championships and history for decades, so adding him to our team was a no-brainer."

Faxon is a 29-year PGA Tour veteran and winner of the 1993 Australian Open and 2005 Buick Championship. He represented the United States on two Ryder Cup teams, was one of the most successful players on the PGA Tour in the 1990s and ranks 50th on the PGA Tour Career Money List. He also led the Tour in putting average in 1996, 1999 and 2000. In 2010, Faxon began working as a commentator for NBC's golf coverage, establishing himself as an entertaining and well-informed analyst.

Fay retired from the USGA in December 2010 after 21 years as its executive director. After his appointment in 1989, Fay quickly became one of the game's foremost leaders during its boom at the turn of the century. Known for his encyclopedic understanding of the Rules of Golf, the former caddie functioned as a rules expert for NBC's U.S. Open broadcasts. Also serving as chairman of the World Golf Foundation in 2008, Fay championed the effort throughout his career to bring the U.S. Open to public courses and established the "For the Good of the Game" grant program.

The USGA and FOX announced a comprehensive multi-media agreement in August 2013 that makes FOX Sports and FOX Sports 1 the principal domestic media partners of the USGA and its U.S. Open, U.S. Women's Open and U.S. Senior Open, as well as the USGA's national amateur championships and other live content, beginning in 2015. The agreement brings premier major championship golf for the first time ever to FOX, which will broadcast the World Series, Daytona 500, Super Bowl LI, and 2018 and 2022 World Cup.