Jim Nantz met with dead air as Nick Faldo rendered speechless by pistachios

CBS has made substantial strides with their golf coverage. With Sellers Shy stepping in for the retired Lance Barrow, and fewer pandemic-related restrictions to work around, CBS golf production in 2022 feels like a completely different sport. More shots, more and better angles, a faster pace, and better integration of technology have all combined to make for much more modern product.

CBS has been exceptional today. Different angles drones, new cameras, blimp, flow, Cat interview, commentary. Remarkable progress.

— Tron Carter (@TronCarterNLU) February 19, 2022

That has been on display so far this weekend at Riviera, where one of the best fields of the year take on one of the best golf courses in the world. Obviously there are still some holdovers, including most of the on-camera talent, though Jim Nantz seems invigorated by the changes so far. Nick Faldo is still in the booth, and while there have been moments where it’s clear he hasn’t quite caught up to the faster pace of proceedings, he did ask Tiger Woods a few insightful questions today as Tiger joined the booth for a large chunk of the evening.

Also props to @NickFaldo006 for asking the question.

— Andy Johnson (@AndyTFE) February 19, 2022

All of that is to say that by and large, watching the PGA Tour on CBS today was a delightful way to spend an afternoon. So it’s in good fun that we can point out these clips from near the end of the broadcast, when Nantz attempted to get Faldo’s thoughts on Collin Morikawa’s strong close, only to be met with dead air as Faldo struggled to speak.

Faldo angrily denying he’d been eating a pretzel is fantastic television. His issues lasted another thirty seconds or so, too, with Nantz presumably also on the cough button from laughter during a lot of this Justin Thomas drive:

Finally, Faldo revealed the true culprit: not pretzels, but pistachios.

Just a fantastic little bit of television. It’s kind of crazy to think about Nantz going from the manic puppy disruptive energy of Tony Romo to the much sleepier vibes of Faldo; that has to be a very different working environment to navigate.

In the end, viewers got a laugh and Sir Nick got his pistachios, so it feels like a win for everyone.