By Paul, Founding Editor, 19 Handicap
Issue 016 | The Understudy
Every time I watch golf on TV, I drift into “this is boring.” Not the golf. The golf’s incredible. It’s everything wrapped around it.
And it’s not just me. When golf’s on at home, my wife puts her headphones in. Football’s the total opposite. She’ll happily have that on in the background, just for the atmosphere and the commentary. Golf commentators do try, to be fair. But they rarely land a joke, or give you any feel for who the players are. It’s all light chuckles and “cheers to that.” The kind of stuff where you feel like you need to be in the club to get it. Oh, the irony.
So when I read a golf tournament had brought in an AI commentator, my first thought wasn’t “is it any good?” It was “is that really what we were missing?”
What happened when an AI commentated the New Mexico Open?
This month the New Mexico Open put an AI commentator on air. It's not a big tour event. It's a state open, streamed on YouTube and social. But it got people talking. The AI's called Duff Foreman. It sat alongside two humans, Ryan Burr and Notah Begay III. A company called Gopher Hole Productions built it, and its job was the numbers. Win probabilities, strokes gained, more stats than anyone could keep in their head. At one point it gave the leader, Blake Tomlinson, an 11% chance of winning. An amateur won it in the end.
Then it talked through how the greens would play. Firm, dry, textbook stuff. Except it had rained the night before. Begay had to jump in, live: “Duff certainly not aware that we did get some rain last night.” Later on Duff missed its cue completely. Dead air. So Burr filled it, telling it to take a break and grab a “granola bar or whatever it is you AI people eat.”
Doesn’t golf already have enough data?
Yes. Loads. And that’s what gets me. Golf already tracks everything. Swing speed, ball flight, spin, the slope of every green, the wind, the weather, how a player’s body moves through the swing. A lot of that’s already AI, working away in the background. And it’s good at it.
I’ve got no problem with that. That’s where it belongs. It makes the graphics better. It helps the players. It helps the coaches. But it was never missing from the broadcast. If anything there’s too much of it. So sticking a voice in the booth whose only job is more numbers? That’s fixing a problem golf didn’t have.
Why does golf commentary feel so boring?
Because it’s too nice. That’s my main thing, and I know not everyone will agree. Golf’s already too analytical. You get hours of it, what feels like the whole day, about how beautiful the course looks and how well-struck that was. It’s a gentleman’s game and you can hear it in the booth. Everyone’s being so nice to everyone that it ends up dull.
And it’s the oldest joke in the sport. Why do golf commentators whisper when they’re sat in a booth nowhere near the players?
So what does golf need instead?
Energy. And it has to be human.
Golf’s in a great spot right now. Loads of new people are coming in, from cultures the game’s never really reached before. People who wouldn’t have picked up a club ten years ago. It could be huge. But the tour, and everything around it, can’t keep up. And when the top of the game doesn’t feel like it’s for you, you go back to the version that does. Simulators, driving ranges, the off-course stuff. Nothing wrong with any of that. I just don’t want it to be the only door left open.
Who does an AI in the booth push away?
This is a bird’s-eye view, and I could be wrong. I can’t put a number on it. But it’s how I see it. Loads of people are watching AI start to take jobs. And a lot of those are working-class jobs. That’s exactly who golf keeps saying it wants to reach. So when golf starts handing the mic to a machine, even at one tournament, that says something. Whether it means to or not. In one go, it turns off the people it most needs to turn on.
What happens when YouTube sends new fans to the real thing?
YouTube’s brought more new people into golf than anything else since I started playing. No filter. Big characters. People being themselves. Sometimes that goes wrong, and I wrote about one of those times in Too Laddy. But mostly it works. Because it feels human.
Then those people get curious. They want to watch the best players at the best tournaments. So they switch on, and it’s a completely different world. Whispering, stats, pretty shots of trees. And now, at one tournament at least, an AI reading out even more stats.
That’s them gone. Right there.
So what would I do about it?
Give people a choice. Trial it on Sky first. You press a button and pick your commentary. The standard one, if that’s what you like. Or an alternative.
The alternative has a couple of strong anchors in the booth. Proper broadcasters who can hold it all together. Then you bring in people from golf’s culture side to sit in and give their opinions as it plays out. Because it’s a long time to talk for. Four days, hours at a time. Nobody keeps that fresh on their own. More voices keeps it moving. And it’s a chance to bring in the people new fans already follow.
Same with the interviews after the round. Have someone in the studio ask the player one question that’s got nothing to do with golf. Something they haven’t been media trained for. That’s the bit people would clip and send to their mates. And it’s the bit where you find out who the players are.
The Understudy
There’ve been two fixes tried this year. In July, the PGA Tour tried a stream with no commentary at all. Just the players, the caddies and the crowd. And I think that was a step in the right direction. You hear what they say to their caddie. You hear them lose it at themselves. It’s the kind of thing I already watch on YouTube, like Charley Hull’s Sweet Spot Golf. Real people being themselves.
Then this month, the New Mexico Open tried an AI. That’s a step the other way. The machine was meant to be the new face in the booth, and the humans ended up covering for it.
Commentary was never short on stats. It’s short on energy. And that energy has to come from people who were there.
So go on then. What would make you keep a tournament on? More numbers, or someone who’d have noticed it rained? Drop a comment.
Paul is the founding editor of Room 19, a golf brand telling the untold stories of the game for people who found it through culture, not the clubhouse. He took up golf at 37. Find Room 19 on Instagram and TikTok.
I started Room 19 because I wanted golf writing that treated the game the way the culture magazines I read treat everything else, properly, not as tips, gear reviews and FOMO shots of golf courses. If you want the next one first, subscribe below.
Previously in Room 19:
Issue 013 | The Wall, on what decides who feels welcome in a clubhouse before anyone's said a word.
Issue 014 | The Icebreaker, on why off-course golf is becoming a faster, more honest way to get to know someone.
Issue 015 | The Heads Up, on why golfers shout fore when it isn't a rule.
Personal Story | Too Laddy, on where golf's laddish energy tips from fun into something that pushes people out.
Quick answers
Who was golf’s first AI commentator? Duff Foreman, an AI commentator built by Gopher Hole Productions. It co-hosted streamed coverage of the New Mexico Open in September 2026 alongside Ryan Burr and Notah Begay III, and the event billed it as a first for pro golf.
What went wrong with the AI commentary? It described the greens as if they were dry when it had rained the night before, and Notah Begay III corrected it live. It also missed a cue, leaving dead air that Ryan Burr filled with a joke.
Did the AI commentator predict the winner? No. It gave the leader, Blake Tomlinson, an 11% chance of winning. The event was won by amateur Jackson Funkhouser.
Did golf try a broadcast with no commentary? Yes. In July 2026 the PGA Tour ran a commentary-free feed at the Rocket Classic on PGA Tour Live, where viewers heard the players, caddies and crowd instead of commentators.
What else are the AI commentator’s makers planning? Its creator has talked about developing it into a virtual caddie or swing instructor, and building the tech into golf simulators.
Why does golf commentary feel boring to new fans? Room 19’s view is that golf commentary leans too polite and too analytical, with plenty of stats and scenery but little humour or character. New fans who found golf through YouTube expect more energy than traditional broadcasts give them.
How could golf commentary be improved? Room 19's suggestion is an optional alternative commentary feed, trialled alongside the standard one, with strong anchor commentators and guest voices from golf culture, plus post-round interviews that include one question from outside golf.
Sources: Duff Foreman at the 2026 New Mexico Open, via Sports Video Group, AZFamily, Forbes, Operation Sports and Australian Golf Digest (creator Gopher Hole Productions, Begay and Burr as on-air partners, streamed from 14 September on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube). The rain correction, the 11% win probability for Blake Tomlinson, Burr’s “granola bar” line and the creator’s plans for a virtual caddie, swing coach and simulators, via GOLF.com, Alan Bastable, 16 September 2026. Amateur Jackson Funkhouser won the event, via KRQE. The PGA Tour’s commentary-free stream at the 2026 Rocket Classic, via Detroit News and Golf.com. Charley Hull Sweet Spot YouTube Channel. The opinion on AI, jobs and working-class audiences is Paul’s own view, not a sourced claim. The opening is Paul’s own first-hand account.