Golf analyst takes swing at comedy

David Feherty, former golfer and TV golf analyst who keeps them in stitches in the NBC broadcast booth, has been trying his hand at comedy.

His "Live Off Tour" takes him to Little Rock for a show at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Robinson Center Performance Hall.

Feherty, in a distinctive Irish accent that reflects his County Down birthplace, describes his two-hour "set" as sort of halfway between a one-man show and a stand-up act.

And don't worry if you're not a golfer. Feherty says his show should please audiences to, er, a tee.

"It's about half golf, but the stories in the golf [part] are easily comprehensible and easy to appreciate for a nongolfer as well," he says. You won't need a glossary --"It's all fairly simple and I use small words" -- and you won't need to know the difference between a mashie and a niblick, "because I don't."

Feherty's tour has mostly taken him into auditoriums and theaters that seat 1,000-1,500; the 2,200 seats at Robinson, he admits, means he'll have to be on his "A" game.

The show doesn't reflect week-to-week changes on the professional tournament circuit, he says. In fact, "It has very little to do with the golf world, except there's a bunch of Tiger Woods stories -- not current stories, because he hasn't been around."

Well, not until the past few weeks, anyway. Woods has been storming onto the nation's fairways and greens, placing highly in tournaments, even though he hasn't yet won one. Feherty says he's glad to see him back.

"There's a huge buzz around the TV world," he says. "Every time he tees it up now we expect him to win again. That's just the magnitude of the man. He's extraordinary, an amazing presence. If he plays badly, it's still a story. "

A taste of Feherty's sense of humor shows up in his official website biography:

"According to my birth certificate my name is William David Feherty, but that's only because my father was so hammered when he was filling out the forms he swapped the first and middle names my parents had agreed upon. (I believe my destiny to become an alcoholic was sealed right there.)

"I grew up in Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland, dreaming of becoming an opera singer, but realized I could hit a golf ball better than I could hit a high C, so I quit school at the age of 16 to become a professional golfer."

He had what he calls "moderate success on both the European and PGA Tours and helped lead the European team to a second place finish at the 1991 Ryder Cup at Kiawah Island. (Yes, there were only two teams competing, but it sounds better that way, n'est pas?)

"I have also worked as an analyst, commentator, author, raconteur, columnist, bipolar alcoholic and addict. The last two aren't technically 'jobs,' but I was just too successful at them to consider myself an amateur and by declaring them as careers there are certain tax benefits."

Some may wonder why, with the Masters tournament getting underway on Thursday, that a golf analyst will be onstage in Little Rock instead in the CBS booth at Augusta, Ga. Feherty has a simple explanation:

"I'm [currently] working for NBC, so I have that week off," he says.

Style on 04/01/2018