Projo Sports Blog

By Pete Dougherty
Albany Times Union

ROCHESTER, N.Y. - Three simple words, never intended to be heard by the masses, could have derailed a broadcaster's career. Instead, they seemed to enhance a reputation.

Dottie Pepper, a Wilton, N.Y., native in the fourth year of her post-LPGA career, caught the attention of players and golf viewers everywhere last fall when she called the U.S. team "chokin' freakin' dogs" during The Golf Channel's telecast of the Solheim Cup. She thought she was talking to her TV colleagues, but a technical gaffe made it fodder for everyone.

That included the members of the U.S. team, who used it as motivation in their victory over Europe. For Pepper, whose reputation during a 17-year playing career was as a golfer who didn't hide her emotions, it may be been a defining moment - in a positive sense.

"It's a little bit of how Dottie is, and a lot about why people like her now and the job she's doing," said Judy Rankin, a former player and now an ABC/ESPN commentator. "She's pretty straight forward, she's pretty honest. It is not her nature to sugarcoat things. A lot of times in the media or in television you expect them to do that and not rock the boat."

Tommy Roy, NBC's golf producer, wasn't working the telecast, but he was an interested observer, since Pepper - a six-time Solheim Cup player - also works for his network.

"She was disappointed that they weren't playing better," Roy said. "Unfortunately that went out over the airwaves. She was taken to task for it, and it wasn't her fault. Anybody that would be ripping her for that would be doing so unfairly."

Pepper said she got tremendous support from her bosses, in particular former Golf Channel vice president Don McGuire, "who handled the whole situation beautifully."

"It was a technical issue, first and foremost," she said last month while working on NBC's telecast of the Senior PGA Championship at Oak Hill. "We were 7-1/2 seconds into a break. A guy fell asleep at the wheel in Orlando, and I said something that was emotionally wound up.

"I said what I said, and I stand by it, although I shouldn't have said what I did. I'm not going to run and say, `That's not what I meant to say.' I would say that about myself, and I said it when the situation and the event was turning."

Consider it a lesson in a profession Pepper has picked up more quickly than most.

It was Rankin, a trailblazer among women who have broadcast PGA Tour events, who first saw broadcast potential in Pepper, a two-time major winner on the LPGA tour. Rankin convinced producers to allow Pepper, who was still playing, to work the 1999 U.S. Women's Amateur.

"Not to my surprise," Rankin said, "she pretty much got it and was pretty good at it right from the start."

When injuries finally triumphed after the 2004 season and forced Pepper to end a career that included 17 LPGA tournament titles, broadcasting beckoned.

"Judy's given me gobs of really great advice," Pepper said, "but chiefly `to say as much as you can in as few words possible.' Nobody's watching golf to listen to us talk."

Those who do listen, though, can learn a few things.

"The thing that impresses me is how well she is respected on all different tours," NBC's Roy said. "There's not many LPGA players who could go out and honestly critique PGA Tour players' swings and strategy and all that, and still have the respect out there that she can get. That's a real tribute to her and why she's successful."

It is why NBC signed her through the end of its PGA Tour contract, which expires in 2012.
"For the next five years, I'm very content just doing this," Pepper said. "Then we'll see where it goes. I don't want to be out here so long that I get stale and I start not enjoying it."

Pepper, 42, said she still has tendinitis in the shoulder that underwent surgery several years ago, and her neck gives her problems from time to time, "but I can play a couple of days a week and be very happy with it and still get it around OK."

There is a women's legends tour, for players over age 45, that is gaining momentum, but don't expect to see Pepper go that route.

"I really like what I'm doing," she said. "There's not enough time to do that, with 30-some-odd weeks (on the road). I like playing my games with the guys out here. We often go play here after we finish, or if we have a late telecast time I'll go play in the morning. I enjoy the heck out of it. In fact, I enjoy playing more than I ever did."

She still makes her home in Jupiter, Fla., but Pepper does get back to upstate New York when she can.

"Only my mom and dad aren't there anymore," she said. "My grandmother's still there, aunts, uncles, cousins. ... Everybody keeps in touch, and I really appreciate that. It's not very often that I go to an event without someone saying, `I'm from Saratoga' or `I'm from Schenectady' or Albany or wherever. It's kind of neat."

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