Get Up!Golf

“For those of us who love the game, there’s nothing like this.”

ESPN Get Up! host Mike Greenberg is living a dream covering the Masters in Augusta for the first time

From Augusta National (L-R): Mike Greenberg, golf analysts Andy North and Curtis Strange

AUGUSTA, Ga. – ESPN Get Up! host Mike Greenberg, a fervent golf fan, is making his debut this week as part of ESPN’s coverage of the Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. Greenberg will be hosting SportsCenter segments from the event all weekend as well as some interviews for Get Up! Greenberg spoke with Front Row:

How long have you been looking forward to this?
I opened this morning by saying ‘These are words I have waited my entire life to say – I’m Mike Greenberg, and welcome to Augusta National Golf Club and ESPN’s coverage of the 83rd Masters.’ This to me is my favorite sporting event of the year. I consider it the biggest sporting event of the year.

To have the opportunity at this stage of my career and my life to have a little role in the coverage of it is extraordinary – it’s something I never would have imagined would have happened when I was young and starting in this business. No matter what you’ve done in your life, you have to every once in a while step back and say, ‘My goodness, look at me right now,’ and I have been feeling that way from the minute we landed here yesterday.

Did you actually get to play here in 2016?
I was privileged to be invited by one of the members as a guest with a group of people and so I did get to play. I would describe that as honestly having been like a religious experience. For those of us who love the game, there’s nothing like this.

I would say both the experience of being here and now being here for the Masters, is one of those things – this happens a lot with movies, someone will build something up, like this movie is so great, so great, so great, that when you see it, it’s almost impossible to live up to that expectation. This is the one thing that exceeds the expectation – Augusta National, whatever it is you think of it, it’s even better than that.

You’re doing a lot of SportsCenter from the Masters: Is that like a throwback for you?

Yes, and I’m delighted. SportsCenter is the Rolls Royce of sports broadcasting. It always has been. The first thing that I ever wanted to be when I decided I wanted to be a sportscaster was a SportsCenter anchor, and I anchored SportsCenter regularly for 13 years and love it. So to be a part of it is great and the fact that SportsCenter has this connection to this extraordinary event is wonderful for us and for the brand.

EDITOR’S NOTE: According to a year-old tweet from Stacy Greenberg’s Twitter feed, this is how her husband Mike Greenberg was reacting to the 2018 Masters, hundreds of miles away from Augusta:

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