It has been a pretty busy week for NBC/Golf Channel analyst MARK ROLFING, who spent a couple days in Kohler, Wis., at Whistling Straits, where the '20 Ryder Cup will be played, for the event's one-year-out press conference. He then jetted off to Las Vegas on Wednesday morning to prepare for his duties at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open at TPC Summerlin taking place this weekend, where he figures to be an omnipresent contributor across the net's coverage of the PGA Tour event. The veteran analyst concedes it is sometimes tough to leave the confines of his home in Maui -- which suits his love for the outdoors -- but being around the game he loves more than makes up for it. Rolfing took some time ahead of the Las Vegas field teeing off to give THE DAILY a preview of the weekend's programming and how he'll kick back once all the work is said and done before he's off to Houston on Monday.
JUST GETTING STARTED: I'll do some prep work before we're on the air from 1:00-5:00pm PT. I'll have specific holes that are assigned to me where I’ll be the host and call the action and do the analysis for those. It'll depend a little on if there's an on-course commentator with that group, but basically my Friday will be trying to assess what happened on Thursday and see if I can get as much information as possible about what people are actually going to be seeing on Friday afternoon. I'll know what the pairings are and I'll be able to go out there and hopefully be able to talk to some of the players who viewers will see on the air and talk to a couple of the guys who played well on Thursday. I look at it as doing a little bit of reconnaissance for a couple of hours on Friday morning. Friday night is probably going to be an off night for me. It's been a pretty packed week so far and it'll all be a little bit of a blur the first 36 hours in Las Vegas, so I'll take some time for myself that night.
Rolfing regularly does live hits on Golf Channel shows like "Morning Dive and "Golf Central"NBC
IN FULL SWING: Things change on Saturday because now you've got leaders and stories developing from the first two rounds. There will be a scenario probably where I go out there and do some pre-tournament interviews. I do a lot of news for Golf Channel, so I would think on Saturday morning I would appear on a pregame show or perhaps "Golf Central" and do a hit from the course. I will go to the driving range and be talking to the guys in Orlando about something that I have seen or just a general feeling about the tournament. Then we're on the air for three hours, maybe four, on Saturday.
GANG'S BACK TOGETHER: We'll do a team dinner on Saturday night, so the announcers, producers and above-the-line production crew members will get together for a meal for some good old-fashioned camaraderie. This is not a group that is together all the time -- DAVID DUVAL is an analyst this weekend and I'm coming in and working this tournament, which is one that I typically wouldn't be working this time of year. The fall schedule has really changed -- these tournaments have become more important with the FedEx Cup now and the fields are much stronger than in the past, so that's why I'm in Las Vegas this weekend.
ALL IN A DAY'S WORK: I'd imagine I would make an appearance on "Morning Drive" Sunday as opposed to "Golf Central" or the pregame shows, so it may be an early one for me. Typically, they'll want me to come up with some type of prediction or talk about what I see happening with the leaderboard. Then I'll get on air and finish up the broadcast for the tournament, which will be around 4:00pm. Once I’m relieved of my responsibilities, I’ll meet up with my wife DEBI and son B.J. to catch a showing of "O" by Cirque du Soleil at the Bellagio to cap off the weekend on Sunday night because can you really say you visited Las Vegas without going to a show? At the crack of dawn on Monday, I’ll head to Houston for the week for coverage of the Houston Open, which is important to me being a cancer survivor and an ambassador for MD Anderson, which has a big presence there.
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