Kevin Kisner had a glimpse behind the curtain of CBS’ Masters coverage — and was left astounded by what he saw.
Kisner was hired as the lead analyst for NBC’s golf coverage at the end of 2024 and this past weekend he was in the booth for SiriusXM at The Masters as CBS handled the TV broadcast.
“They were literally showing s–t that I knew happened 10 minutes ago all day long,” Kisner said on the “ForePlay” podcast, which he co-hosts for Barstool.
There were a slew of complaints from fans about the coverage on Sunday. CBS lost the approach shots on 18 from Rory McIlroy and Cam Young in the final group of the tournament. The network also opted not to cover most of Sam Burns’ double-bogey blowup on the second hole when he was tied for the lead.
But Kisner’s main frustration was the constant delay between live shots and what was shown on the broadcast.
“What are we doing? You have no commercials. Play live shots,” Kisner said. “Our production team at NBC prides themselves at showing every shot that they possibly can live… And when we don’t, we have to say, ‘a moment ago,’ because we are trying to make the whole movie make sense.”
In his NBC role, the outspoken Kisner is on the call for The Players Championship, U.S. Open and British Open.
CBS has generally gotten rave reviews for how they’ve covered their premier golf event, but this year proved to be an exception as McIlroy earned back-to-back green jackets.
Among the most notable delays was the Masters app updating Scottie Scheffler’s birdie on the third hole well before CBS aired the approach and putt.
CBS also did not show Scheffler’s playing partner, Haotong Li, making a 10 on the 13th hole in one of the most disastrous moments of the tournament.
Kisner said he texted CBS analyst and fellow former pro Colt Knost about the situation.
“Do y’all ever show a live shot?” Kisner said, describing the exchange. “I’m better off following the f–king app than your feed. So your entire Masters coverage is a fantasy world, it’s bulls–t. Whatever y’all watch happened seven minutes ago.”
Kisner said that Knost responded that CBS shows the shots in order but Kisner had “no idea what that means.”
“I have no idea what they are doing. They are showing every shot on tape. It’s incredible.” Kisner said. “I don’t even know how the announcers call it… It was unbelievable. I am not trying to kill them, but being on TV for 30 times and seeing what our production team does, I was just blown away.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
