All hail Murray and the peculiar pleasure of golf on the radio
Listening to the Ryder Cup is a thrill – especially if the BBC’s main man is on air, writes Alan Tyers
There are so many good things to look forward to this weekend, even for those not lucky enough to be making the trip over to Hazeltine, but not least among them is the rare delight of golf on the radio.
Sky Sports may have taken golf to bold new frontiers, but for the purists, the prospect of digesting the drama of Hazeltine purely through a radio speaker is peculiarly pleasurable.
Happily, the man with the task of guiding the nation through events across the Atlantic also happens to be one of the best in his field. Radio 5 Live’s John Murray is most familiar for his football work, but he is never happier than when crouched in a foreign field whispering sweet nothings in his Northumbrian burr as a putt drops in. And if it is during golf ’s biennial tussle, so much the better.
“The Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor in 2010 was my all-time favourite event I have worked on,” Murray says. “It had looked like it should be a relatively comfortable European win, and then suddenly things changed.
“It would all come down to Graeme McDowell. The crowds were coming over the ropes and it was really hard to get a good position. We were wedged in among all these spectators around the green, far closer than normal. It was a very important putt, McDowell would be two up with two to play if he made it.
“I was on all fours peering through someone’s legs and I was thinking, ‘If I speak too loud, McDowell is going to hear me’. So I am covering my mouth with a clipboard to try and muffle some of the sound and trying to whisper-commentate as quietly as possible. I ended up using a lot of silences, which is a technique to build tension, but also because I didn’t want to put him off.
“In the end, of course, he sunk it. And that’s the Ryder Cup: that’s exactly the sort of unique challenge it throws up.”
Being so up close and personal with the punters can create other challenges for the radio man. And American golf fans are sometimes best enjoyed at a safe distance.
“They make our commentary available on course in the US to people who have headsets,” says Murray. “So the American fans can listen to what we are saying.
“Last time we were there, a kid ran down to the front of the gallery and over the rope at us. He stuck his fist out. We were thinking, ‘What is going to happen here?’ And then he shouted ‘BBC! You rock out baby!’”
The mixture of passion, the generally good-natured rivalry and the crowds make the Ryder Cup a special assignment for Murray.
“The drama and excitement of it all is just so intense,” he says. “The Ryder Cup is like the last day of a major, but for all the days.”