HAVEN, WI – U.S. Ryder Cup Captain Corey Pavin stood his ground against sports broadcaster Jim Gray of Golf Channel yesterday in a heated, confrontational exchange in the PGA Championship media center.
Responding to Gray and Golf Channel’s claims that Pavin had decided to offer Tiger Woods a Captain’s pick should Woods fail to secure an automatic berth on the team as one of the top eight American players, Pavin – during his media center interview at the season’s last major – denied Gray’s report and alleged he was misquoted.
Immediately thereafter, Gray angrily confronted Pavin in the media center, (and in front of a house full of journalists), snarling threats such as, “You’re going down,” and calling Pavin a liar to his face. Pavin sternly stood his ground and, after a moment’s respite, the argument flared up a second time, also involving Pavin’s wife Lisa, who recorded portions of the argument on her cell phone.
All evening yesterday, the crawl at the bottom of the Golf Channel screen reported that “Golf Channel’s Jim Grey reports…” that Corey Pavin told Grey that Tiger Woods would receive a Captain’s pick.
In response, at 9 a.m. Pavin posted on Twitter – “For the record, @Golf Channel and Jim Gray has [sic] misquoted me re: picking Tiger. I never said such a thing and will not say a thing until 09/07.”
At his media center interview, Pavin reprised his denial of Grey’s report. “Let’s straighten this out right now. I had a conversation with Jim Grey outside the locker room where we register. His interpretation of what I said in incorrect. There is nobody who is promised any picks right now, it would be disrespectful to everybody who was trying to make the team….there was a misinterpretation of what I said and that is an incorrect quote.” Grey then instigated the altercation, which overshadowed some of the day’s news at the tournament.
According to sportswriter Ryan Ballengee of popular golf website Waggle Room, “The latest right now is that I talked with Lisa Pavin. She has a full audio recording of the incident, but she won’t release it unless Jim Grey continues to act as he has toward Corey, meaning if he continues to berate Pavin as a liar in public.”
Ballengee continued by adding, “I think what grey did in the media center is unprofessional. This could have been handled with a private conversation. Grey probably didn’t do anything maliciously wrong with what he reported, but perhaps it was misconstrued or taken out of context. I think Grey believes what he reported, but he wanted to rush the issue in advance of Pavin’s press conference today.”
Grey did start to walk away from the argument, but a comment from Pavin drew him back into a second argument. There was also physical contact between the two as they argued over Lisa Pavin’s entering the argument to defend her husband and record the imbroglio.
“Grey’s just stirring the pot looking for a controversy,” said one venerable journalist, a lifer in sports media tents and press boxes, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “He’s a pushy, hyper-aggressive interviewer whose career has been defined by his unsavory flare-ups. The problem isn’t that he asks hard questions, it’s the way in which he does it and his timing. Look at the Pete Rose thing. Moreover, all this ‘Our network’s reporter reports this scoop’ has got to stop. Leave that to basketball and football, golf is supposed to be above that and almost everyone in this media tent respects that ethos. Let the bloggers act like kids, we are supposed to be professionals.”
For further reporting of the incident from first hand accounts, read the accounts of Hank Gola of the Daily News, Geoff Babineau of Golfweek, and Mike Walker of Golf.com.
***Update** Jim Grey and Golf Channel had this to say in response to the to-do:
“I did not misquote Corey Pavin. I stand 100 percent behind my story. He challenged my credibility and I felt that that a private conversation with Corey was needed. At no time during that conversation was anybody threatened. It is time to move on now and talk about the PGA Championship.”
That being said, I have to ask what part of having it out in the middle of the media center constitutes a private conversation.
[…] need to rest up for a tee time/money game tomorrow so Jay Flemma has more details here. Also another very good post is at my pal Ryan’s Waggle […]