Once a Phenom on the Course, Morgan Pressel Is Now a Rising Star Behind a Mic

The 35-year-old is the lead analyst for NBC/Golf Channel at this week’s Grant Thornton mixed event, which John Hawkins writes is a sign of her growth in a second career.

Morgan Pressel was a major champion at age 18 and a full-time broadcaster by her early 30s, an early bloomer turned phenom who rocketed through the golf universe like a young woman in a hurry. Things don’t always work out the way they’re supposed to, however, and when Pressel quit the LPGA Tour in 2021 while the real world wrestled with a deadly pandemic, that rocket had long since screeched to a halt.

Reality didn’t bite. There was no crash landing. “A lot of people changed jobs during COVID,” she says from her Florida home on an October afternoon. “I guess I was one of them.”

She guessed right, leaping into a second career as a television analyst when the first one became more trouble than it was worth. In her three seasons calling LPGA events for NBC/Golf Channel, Pressel has improved to a level beyond what anyone who watched the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open might have thought possible—another swift climb in the right direction in a business that doesn’t come with a GPS to tell you how to get there.

Morgan Pressel will be in the lead analyst's chair this weekend in Naples, Fla :: Jasen Vinlove/USA TODAY Sports

NBC has seen enough good stuff to give Pressel the lead chair alongside Terry Gannon at this week’s Grant Thornton Invitational, a mixed-team affair making its debut on the LPGA schedule. “A little bit of everything,” she says of the reasons for her progression as a commentator. “I hate to watch myself on TV as much as I hated to watch my golf swing. I’ve worked with people on a weekly basis. [Longtime CBS/NBC sportscaster] Andrea Joyce has been very helpful. And just reps. I didn’t even know the most basic TV lingo, the shorthand things a producer would say to me.

“Like anything, I wanted to get better. How do I keep challenging myself? How do I improve? I always remember the things I did wrong instead of what I might have done right.”

There was plenty to remember after Lexi Thompson’s back-nine meltdown cost her the national championship—a long-awaited second major title—2½ years ago at Olympic. At the time, Pressel was far too raw to serve as the primary voice at such an important tournament, a four-hour telecast on a major network. As Thompson’s ongoing collapse became the only thing that mattered during the final half of that NBC window, the rookie analyst didn’t fare any better than the struggling golfer.

To say Pressel became an apologist for Thompson would amount to subjective interpretation, but on memorable occasions before a sizable audience, subjectivity and perception are one and the same. In what was just her fourth appearance as a lead analyst, Pressel projected herself as someone with an emotional attachment and never came close to assessing how and why Thompson could make such a mess. There was no insight or relevance to her commentary, which basically turned the final scene of that 2021 U.S. Women’s Open into a pity party.

A well-respected veteran of the industry says Pressel was “too chummy” with the women she had long competed against—her final LPGA start had occurred just three months earlier. “Am I more comfortable with it now? Yes, [but] it still breaks my heart,” Pressel says. “It’s not easy to be critical of people you know very well.”

It’s also part of the job. From that poor performance came a grasp of what it takes to handle any competitive consequence, otherwise known as preparation, and at the same tournament five months ago, Pressel, 35, sounded like a completely different commentator. Her background on the nuances of playing Pebble Beach was deep and fertile. She consistently applied that information to pass valuable judgment on the quality of play throughout the final round.

Pressel called the action with the polish and level-headed sensibilities of a seasoned sportscaster, leaving what is inherently a very fickle viewership with very little to gripe about. When she provided a wealth of detail on the 2004 car accident that almost killed Jiyai Shin, who finished third at Pebble Beach, Pressel affirmed her arrival as someone worth hearing.

It didn’t happen overnight, but makeovers rarely do. As an ultra-decorated amateur who qualified for the 2001 U.S. Women’s Open at age 12, then won the ’07 Kraft Nabisco Championship in her second season as a pro, Pressel started fast but finished slow. A victory in Hawai‘i the following year would be her last—her only top-10 finish on the LPGA money list was a ninth in ’07. Like so many high-profile junior golfers destined to reach greatness, Pressel fell short of expectations.

“Would I have loved to have won more? Yes,” she admits. “Do I have any regrets? No.”

Unlike so many of those underachievers, she didn’t hang on to mediocrity forever. As any aspiring announcer might tell you, there’s something to be said about that.