ESPN golf analyst Andy North has enjoyed a successful broadcasting career, but he knows it’s taken a lot of work to get where he wanted to be.
North will be part of ESPN’s broadcast crew covering The Champions Cup team event this weekend, and he reflected on the early days of his second career.
North joined ESPN in 1992 as an on-course reporter. His big break came when the network asked him to fill in for Gary Koch, who was injured at the time.
“It went reasonably well, and they asked me to join (ESPN) the next year,” North told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
But things weren’t exactly smooth sailing right out of the gate for North, who said he basically went into the job blind.
“You don’t have any clue what you’re doing when you start out,” he said. “You learn by mistakes, and you get your butt chewed every day for a couple of years.
“You’re just trying to figure it out, but I’ve had some great people to work with and have had a ton of fun and it’s been 30-plus years,” North added.
Andy North continued that it was the support he got from everyone around him in the media space that helped him elevate his broadcasting skills. It helped that the two-time U.S. Open champion was also in his element.
“You’re around a bunch of guys you spent your whole life with,” he said. “You got a lot of great friends out here, and you can say it’s work and you work at it, but it’s not the worst thing you could do.”
