Mike Tirico's hilarious eyewitness account of Bryson DeChambeau penalty

Mike Tirico, no stranger to witnessing sports history, recently found himself accidentally on the verge of making it. Despite his extensive resume covering Super Bowls, the Olympics, NBA Finals, and The Masters, the lead NBC Sports broadcaster experienced a unique situation at last month's Open Championship.

As previously reported, Tirico was among a select few eyewitnesses to the penalty that significantly impacted the tournament: Bryson DeChambeau's two-shot penalty after R&A rules officials determined he had improved his lie off the side of the 5th hole at Royal Birkdale. Tirico was serving as a "spotter" for NBC's broadcast, a role he took on to better understand the behind-the-scenes operations of a major championship. "Honestly I just wanted to learn the job," he told GOLF last month. "If you learn how things work behind the scenes, hopefully it makes you better."

In his capacity as a spotter, Tirico's responsibility was to track each ball in his assigned group, walking to their approximate locations to relay information back to the broadcast talent and production truck. Typically, a spotter's job is straightforward: to be the eyes on the ground, keeping tabs on all balls in play. However, as Tirico revealed on this week's episode of Barstool's Foreplay podcast, few realized just how close the star broadcaster came to potentially complicating his week—and DeChambeau's—while navigating the tall fescue.

"So I’m in the group on Friday when Bryson hits it far-right in the 5th, and we head over because we think we’re going to have to be part of the ball search here," Tirico recalled. "So I’m walking over, and I’m like, ‘well, I’m here now, so let me just go get a number for Bones like how far right of the hazard Bryson missed the shot. So I kinda go walk it off quick, like hey, he’s 15 yards right of the hazard — that’s how far right he missed. So I head back and I’m on 18 and I’m like ‘what’s going on? Bryson hasn’t signed his scorecard? What’s the issue?'"

Soon, word spread to Tirico that the R&A was scrutinizing the action on No. 5, where DeChambeau had been moving through the fescue before his recovery shot. This was news to Tirico for several reasons, most notably because he had spent time in that same patch of fescue and hadn't spotted a golf ball. "We didn’t know while we were out there anything that had happened or what went on, but now you start seeing Zapruder films, you see every angle of it," Tirico said. "There’s one angle of it that shows me walking close to it. And I’m like ‘oh dear god, please tell me I didn’t get anywhere close to the ball. I didn’t want to be trampling any fescue anywhere.'"

After a few moments of intense worry, Tirico was relieved to see that his pacing had stopped near where the ball was eventually found, but not close enough to have influenced the shot. "Now I take this turn back after I pace it off," Tirico said with a laugh. "I’m like, ‘oh thank god, I wasn’t close. I was never close.'"

While it was a minor detail, for someone accustomed to viewing golf from the detached perspective of the broadcast booth, it was more than enough excitement for his debut inside the ropes. The incident served as a humorous reminder of the intricacies of golf rules and the potential for unexpected drama, even for seasoned broadcasters. Tirico's firsthand account adds a unique, lighthearted perspective to a significant moment in professional golf.