Talking's a good game

Greg Allen meets the former Ryder Cup player and one-time tour tearaway to hear how he evolved into one of the game's best commentators

As Ken Brown recalls his debut as a commentator and analyst, he performs a mock shudder of his shoulders to illustrate the cringe factor he associates with each recollection of the evening in question.

It was early in 1993 when he and former football presenter David Livingstone sat in a Sky Sports studio, each without a notion of what to expect.

"I really wasn't very good," he recalls coldly. "We were both very, very nervous."

The circumstances which led him to be sitting there in the first place were pure serendipity. Sky had just purchased the rights to screen the US Tour and they required an analyst with experience of playing in America, which Brown had in abundance. He had also done some radio work for the BBC, so in the opinion of Sky's producer, John Davies, the recently retired tour veteran looked to be the perfect fit alongside the urbane Livingstone.

Brown instantly recognised the gift-horse, so those wretched few minutes of nervous anticipation before that first transmission were a kind of rite of passage between one phase of his working life and the next.

"I'd only quit the game six months earlier and I hadn't given much thought to what I was going to do," he remembers.

But he must have had an inkling about his new career path, given the reputation for honest and sometimes blunt assessment he had earned as a player. And then there was at least one celebrated occasion on which he had shown a remarkable aptitude for the commentator's role, one which actually drew gasps from an enthralled audience.

The incident occurred in September 1986 on the final day of the European Open at Sunningdale. Brown had tied with recently crowned British Open winner Greg Norman after four rounds and was involved in a play-off. A very large gallery had encircled the green and had watched the dashing, slashing Australian rescue a four from heavy rough after a terribly wayward drive. Brown was now the object of their attention as he faced up to a six-footer to halve the hole and extend the duel.

It was the kind of career-changing putt that many tour players encounter at least once in their lives. Holing it would keep alive the prospect of a substantially easier life, because victory would carry with it the very tangible reward of a five-year exemption in Europe.

For Brown, that was of near equal importance to winning the title. For the previous two years he had been juggling his schedule to play in both the US and Europe - a task that had led him to criss-cross the Atlantic 44 times in one 16-month period through 1984 and 1985.

Still, he recalls feeling calm. It was, he felt, a straightforward putt.

There was tension in the moment alright but, somewhat irritatingly, he sensed that it was being generated by the totally absorbed gallery who fell utterly silent as he stood over the ball.

And so, without drawing back the blade to strike the ball, he moved away, looked up and casually remarked to no one in particular: "My, hasn't it gone quiet here."

Norman looked incredulous and there was some nervous laughter among the spectators. Brown had certainly broken the tension, but in the process he had also broken something else and as he addressed the ball a second time, he struck it on line but left it short.

It would prove to be Brown's last serious chance of winning in Europe and, with his hopes of a playing exemption gone, he would never again finish in the top 50 of the European Order of Merit. He was only 29.

Instead, he doubled his efforts on the US Tour, to which he had turned at the end of 1983 after becoming the first European player to win a playing card there through the qualifying school.

His victory in the 1987 Southern Open was his only success in America and came the week after he had played his part in the historic Ryder Cup win at Muirfield Village in his final team appearance.

However, that fortnight would prove to be a short-lived career peak, and by 1989 his game had fallen into what proved to be a terminal decline.

In all, he played in five Ryder Cups, but it was an event which rarely brought out the best in him. He did play a crucial role in the anchor match of the afternoon Saturday foursomes in 1985 in which he and Bernhard Langer helped Europe take a 9-7 lead into the singles after a 3 and 2 victory over Lanny Wadkins and Ray Floyd.

He could also claim victory in his 1979 singles match over the then reigning Masters champion Fuzzy Zoeller in a performance that was virtually ignored as Europe were heavily defeated, while Brown and Mark James were severely reprimanded and heavily fined after missing team meetings and expressing some ambivalence about wearing the official team jackets.

"Me and Mark were accused of not having any team spirit, which couldn't have been further from the truth," he recalls.

But his sullen demeanour during the week did him no favours, and after he and James lost their opening fourball to Zoeller and Lee Trevino, an ever more withdrawn Brown was paired with Des Smyth in a humiliating first day afternoon foursomes defeat by Hale Irwin and Tom Kite which ended on the 12th green.

"I have to admit my attitude wasn't great. I wasn't at my best, let's put it that way."

Irwin commented afterwards that Brown played like he didn't care.

More than 20 years later he is a changed man - well liked and respected among both players and media. In speaking about the past, he chooses his words carefully, but frankly concedes that he was naïve and even stupid early in his career.

"But it had all happened very quickly for me. In 1975, I was an 18-year-old assistant club professional, earning £10 a week at Verulam in St Albans, where Sam Ryder was once a member, and then two years later I'm a Ryder Cup player.

"I really had no knowledge of the ways of the world, and I always said what was in my head - which is not always a good thing.

"I'd be asked what I thought of a golf course and I might answer that it was rubbish. And that's the way I just muddled along until my mid-twenties. But I had trod on a lot of glass before I learned that people (media) asking questions were just after a story. And then I realised that if you give them a story you can get it to work for you, so, I did eventually learn the system. But I was always my own man."

Learning the system would eventually help to earn him that seat in a Sky Sports studio and a chance to begin a new career just months after quitting the only job he knew. As he grew into his new role and became a confident, perceptive analyst, he began to help pioneer methods of golf coverage with the satellite broadcaster, especially as an on-course commentator.

Among those to take notice of Brown's informed and assured manner on camera was the BBC, who made him an offer he accepted in 2000.

"I think with Sky, we did some really innovative stuff and we were pushing the boundaries on golf commentary. We were branching off and doing things like focusing on possible landing areas and then assessing what the player would have to face. I still always try to take the view of what I would do in a given situation, and when we do stuff around the greens that means rolling balls along ridges and contours to get a clear picture of the breaks and speed. But there's still so much more that can be done."

Given the breadth and independence of his role on Sky, it baffled many as to why he accepted the BBC's offer. The terrestrial broadcaster had only a small, albeit select, amount of events in its portfolio by comparison to its rival.

"They approached me and made a good offer. My children were getting a bit older and the timing offered me the chance to strike the right balance in my life. With Sky I could end up working almost every day of every week, and I still can if I want as I'm also involved with the Golf Channel in America. So it's worked out to be a good decision for me."

At 46 years of age, he has no plans to set about rejuvenating his game or gearing up for the Seniors Tour.

"To be honest I'm more likely to go fishing than play golf if I've an afternoon off," he says casually, before adding: "I've no ambitions at the moment, but you never know."

If he does decide to dabble on the over-50's circuit in 2007, he will surely look to play in the Irish Seniors Open given his relationship with this country and the fact that when the Irish Open takes place in a fortnight, it will be exactly 25 years to the week since his first European Tour victory in the 1978 version, also at Portmarnock.

Back then he crushed the hopes of a home winner by using his renowned short game skills to get up and down from a near impossible position on the 18th to defeat his playing partner, John O'Leary, and Seve Ballesteros by a stroke.

"The galleries and the atmosphere that day were just extraordinary," he remembers.

The Irish Open also served as bookends to his career as he made his tour debut at Woodbrook in 1975, while Mount Juliet in 1993 was his sign-off before retirement.

"Only really the older people I meet now remember that I could play. These days the majority of people recognise me for being on TV, but that's okay because I'll always remember that first day in the studio and how much I wanted to do well. I was almost choking, but it was a learning curve and though I was poor at it starting off I think I've learned from my mistakes."