Cara Banks is no stranger to narrating golf’s biggest moments.
If a play-by-play broadcaster is the captain of the golf TV broadcast during the final moments of a tournament, then the interviewer is sort of like first officer. Yes, it’s the play-by-player’s job to land the plane, but it’s the first officer’s job to make sure that it all happens smoothly. To be good in the role of interviewer, you need a play-by-player’s sense of timing and instincts for story selection.
In other words, it’s not that strange that Cara Banks is making the jump this weekend from the role of on-course interviewer, which she has played to great effect at NBC and Golf Channel over the last several seasons, to play-by-play broadcaster, which she will take on at the Chevron Championship this weekend.
On Saturday afternoon, Banks will serve as play-by-player at women’s golf’s first major for the first time, per a report from Golfweek’s Beth Ann Nichols, stepping into the lead chair for NBC’s coverage of the Chevron.
This won’t be Banks’ first journey into the lead chair — she’s served in a play-by-play role for Golf Channel and NBC’s coverage of several LPGA events over the last calendar year, including the Mizuho Championship — but it will certainly be her biggest role yet. Thanks to an agreement with NBC, Chevron is the beneficiary of five-and-a-half hours of broadcast network TV time over the span of the weekend, making this weekend one of women’s golf’s biggest opportunity to reach oodles of casual TV viewers watching their sports primarily on major network television. Banks will be the person to bring those fans all the action from Memorial Park in Houston, Texas, where she will replace longtime NBC play-by-player Terry Gannon, who is off covering the NBA playoffs for the peacock.
So far, the script couldn’t have played out any better for Banks or the LPGA. At the tournament’s halfway point, the biggest star in women’s golf, Nelly Korda, leads by a country mile, firing back-to-back 65s to lead the rest of the field by a mind-boggling seven shots as of the time of this writing. It’s hard to say exactly how Banks might have drawn up her major championship play-by-play debut, but safe to say the biggest star winning one of the sport’s biggest events was on the list.
Interestingly, should Korda run away with things on the weekend, Banks’ job could get a little bit harder. As many in sports TV production are keen to point out, golf is a different beast on account of its vastness. As opposed to most other professional sports, where there is only one ball and only playing field, golf television takes place over 18 fields, with as many as 72 balls in the air at one time (assuming no backups). In other words, golf on TV is an exercise in controlled chaos, and in a strange way, the orchestra seems to play better when many things are happening at once.
It’s only when the scope of a tournament has shrunk and the storylines have dwindled that the work of a golf play-by-player really begins. And when there’s only one storyline for, say, an entire final round? The primary job is even harder: Keep people interested even when the leaderboard is dull.
Thankfully, Banks’ day job at an interviewer has asked her to flex those muscles plenty over the last several years. She has learned to be a ruthlessly efficient advocate for the viewer, and has sharpened her skills as a narrative builder and selector. Now the only big question remaining is if she has the skills to land the plane.
Rest assured, she’s ready for the challenge.