The University of Tennessee's fight song, "Rocky Top," might be the cell phone ringtone Jim Gallagher Jr. hears any time a new TV gig opens up. But home, sweet home for the lifelong golfer always has been on the course.
"It feels good to be back out here," Gallagher said Wednesday after finishing a pro-am ahead of the 3M Championship, for which he earned a sponsor exemption. "My status is very limited out here, which is unfortunate because everybody wants to play."
Even if that might not always be possible at this point in his career, Gallagher, 53, is at least doing the next best thing.
He's getting more and more Golf Channel opportunities these days after a few years as an analyst for USA and CNBC when those networks carried golf. Gallagher spent all last week doing studio work on Golf Channel's "Golf Central," completing three live shows daily in Orlando.
"Long hours but it was great fun," he said. "Everybody down there was nice. I wasn't perfect; I know when I made mistakes. My training was pretty much, 'Here's a mic, go talk' and I think I did OK at it."
Life in front of a camera is nothing new to Gallagher, who has spent time on the course and in towers while calling live golf. But studio work, he said, can be like standing over a sidewinding putt to win a tournament.
"It's not as easy as people think," he said. "You have [a producer] talking in your ear [while] you're telling a story.
"I know about the PGA Tour and the Champions Tour and the LPGA Tour. But you're covering all of them for 'Golf Central,' not just the one event you're out for. It gets tricky."
