Q&A: CBS' Dottie Pepper on Making History, Tracking Seve and Winning Types

Thirty-five years after driving up Magnolia Lane as an amateur, the on-course reporter has the perfect view of what makes a Masters champion.

As a young girl growing up in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., Dottie Pepper never imagined that someday she’d be annually walking the grounds at the Masters Tournament in far-off Augusta, Georgia. 

Pepper had a stellar LPGA career, with two majors among her 17 wins and a reputation as a fiery Solheim Cup competitor. She started in broadcasting in 2005 and began covering the Masters for assorted networks in 2009. In 2015, she joined CBS to replace David Feherty, who moved to NBC, and has made her mark as a sharp reporter and analyst who doesn’t waste a lot of words. She self-published a book, “Letters to a Future Champion: My Time with Mr. Pulver,” a loving memoir about her golf mentor that is available at DottiePepper.net.

Pepper will once again be part of the CBS crew broadcasting next week’s Masters. She took time out to look ahead — and back — at the Masters …

Morning Read: You made Masters history in 2020 as the first television walking reporter on the grounds during the tournament. Do you remember how that came about?

Pepper: Sure, I remember. I can tell you the date because I saved the phone call in my voicemails. It was Oct. 2, 2020, at 11:50 a.m. when Lance Barrow (CBS lead golf producer) called and asked if I’d be up for being the first TV reporter on the ground at Augusta. I said, "You bet I would." I immediately scheduled more sessions with my pilates instructor. It was two-a-days until November because Augusta National is the hardest walking golf course out there.

MR: What do you remember about the only Masters played in November?

Pepper: I remember the first day was interrupted by weather. I think my original assignment was to cover Dustin Johnson on Thursday, but because of the rain delay everything got pushed back. So I ended up being with Tiger Woods’ group. So after calling the putts at the 13th hole, I cut across to the 14th fairway and Tiger saw me and stopped dead in his tracks. I’ve got all this gear on, including a monitor. Tiger said, “Wait, what are you doing in the fairway here?” I just said, “It’s so 2020, isn’t it?” We just started laughing. A lot of things that never happened before happened in 2020.

MR: Do you remember watching the Masters at your house growing up? Was it a big deal?

Pepper: I once purposefully took a Thursday and Friday night babysitting job during Masters week so I could stay up and watch the late Masters highlights show. Curfew was normally early in my house.

MR: How about the Masters on the weekend?

Pepper: It was appointment television. I couldn’t wait until it came on at four o’clock. I never saw the first five or six holes at Augusta National until I went there myself as a college senior.

MR: Was there a Masters finish that stood out for you?

Pepper: Yes, when Seve Ballesteros won on Monday in 1983. I convinced my mother to let me come home early from school to watch. It was definitely a girl crush. I mean, just look at the guy. He had a swashbuckler and sort of a disrupter attitude that was very appealing. He was absolutely the Arnold Palmer of the European tour.

I actually drove in a van to watch him on the last practice day before the 1984 U.S. Open at Winged Foot. A club professional friend put his PGA badge in my hand and said, "Take that badge and go as far as you can at Winged Foot and watch Seve practice." So I did. I watched him hit balls for half an hour. Then a big thunderstorm rolled in and chased me out.

When I was a pro in 1995 and living in Florida, I cashed in all my Delta miles and Marriott points so I could go to Oak Hill to watch him play his last Ryder Cup. I walked around in the mud that Sunday and watched him give Tom Lehman a match when he didn’t have one arm in the game. Seve still managed to get it up and down from everywhere.

"I’d take Jon Rahm. He has so much creativity around the greens, he drives the golf ball too well, he’s been ranked No. 1 in the world. I think him winning a Masters is inevitable."

MR: Do you remember the first time you visited Augusta National?

Pepper: It was 1987, I was a senior at Furman University and I broke 70 for the first time in competitive golf the Sunday before the Masters and our team won our own tournament going away. I got a call Saturday night during Masters week from a friend who asked me if I wanted two tickets to the Masters the next day.

I maybe had $20 in my pocket, I didn’t even know how I was going to pay for parking. I took my Curtis Cup badge and my U.S. Open low amateur badge thinking maybe they would help me get in somewhere. I drove up to Augusta National’s main entrance on Washington Road in my Honda Accord and showed the guard both of my badges and he sent me all the way through to player parking. That would never happen today.

MR: So you had one day at the Masters. What did you do?

Pepper: I got there so early, the play hadn’t even begun. So I started by walking the par-3 course. Then I walked the big golf course. After that, I jumped in and followed some groups. The first player I ran across was Jack Nicklaus. He hit it long and right on No. 8 and he sent a chip shot down there for a tap-in birdie. I watched Larry Mize miss the first green hole-high right with the flag on the back right deck. He got that up and down, an incredible shot nobody talks about. Where’s that horrible purple-and-lavender shirt he put the green jacket over?

MR: Nobody thinks about how they might look in green. Now you wear whatever clothes your sponsor has scripted for you.

Pepper: The cool thing was that Brad Faxon, a Furman alum, was on the PGA Tour and he was with Aureus, the clothing company. He got those Mize shirts for the whole team.

MR: What else did you see? You must’ve watched Seve, right?

Pepper: I did. I was with a college teammate. We followed Seve on the closing holes. We went down the 10th hole with him for the playoff. Everybody remembers Larry’s chip-in, nobody remembers Seve was in that playoff because he three-putted the first extra hole. 

I was so bummed that he was out that we continued down No. 11 and worked our way into the first row of the stands at No. 12, thinking this whole thing was going to come right to us. Then Mize chipped in for birdie at the 11th to beat Greg Norman. We had a clear view of it, we saw him jump and everything. But we were going to have such a good view of the 12th tee.

After that, we drove back to Greenville, S.C. I was so fired up from winning that tournament and going to Augusta that I was sleepless the next two nights.

MR: Is there one Masters that you remember the most?

Pepper: I won’t ever forget where I was when Jack Nicklaus won in 1986. I was in a van coming back from Chapel Hill with our men’s golf team. I’d gone up there to see a friend and rode back with the men’s team, which had played an invitational there. We had this four-by-four screen that was a black-and-white television plugged into the van’s cigarette lighter and we were all huddled around it. I was the only one pulling for Seve, the rest of the team was pulling for Jack. We’d lose the transmission when we got out of range of one of the TV markets, and somebody would get the antenna working to find another signal. That was a good time.

MR: Let’s talk 2022 Masters. A lot of different players have won this season. There isn’t a clear Masters favorite. Who should be favored?

Pepper: Based on current form, I would say Sam Burns. He should be in the conversation for sure. He’s still a Masters rookie and if he won, that’s something that hasn’t been done since Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979.

MR: All right, I’m having a Masters fantasy draft and you get the first pick. Who do you take?

Pepper: Oh, I’d take Jon Rahm. He has so much creativity around the greens, he drives the golf ball too well, he’s been ranked No. 1 in the world. I think him winning a Masters is inevitable.

MR: The CBS broadcast compound has its own Masters entrance. Have you ever driven in on Magnolia Lane?

Pepper: I did that first time was when I showed my Curtis Cup badge and they waved me all the way to player parking. The next time was when I went there in December to stay on property and play. But since then, no. A funny story is that up until four or five years ago, Verne Lundquist of CBS had never driven up Magnolia Lane.

MR: Not in all his years there? How did it finally get arranged?

Pepper: Verne just said, ‘This is something I’d really like to do.’ So somebody got a golf cart and made it happen. A lot of people assume because you’ve been there so many times and worked so many tournaments that you would automatically do that. And the answer is no.

MR: Is there a certain type of player with a certain set of skills who is more likely to win a Masters?

Pepper: It's whoever can take the blinders off. A player like Bryson DeChambeau, who comes in with a pre-laid plan, is somebody who's going to struggle. The winner is going to be someone who can roll with it and play different shots and see things from a big perspective. As the green speeds change, and the weather affects what's happening, the player who adapts does well.

Sergio Garcia and Vijay Singh weren’t great putters but Sergio was phenomenal around the greens and Vijay could chip the eyeballs out of it. People who play best have a lot of creativity and can work all the angles. So if you’re trying to hit into a slope that goes right to left, can you bring it in from left to right and get it to stop? Because those shelves on the greens to aim at are so tiny.

MR: It sounds like you’re describing Jordan Spieth or Bubba Watson, who are past champions, or Cameron Smith, who was Masters runner-up in 2020 and just won the Players.

Pepper: Cameron Smith shot four rounds in the 60s and didn't win. He’s the perfect example of a guy who drives it far enough and well enough and can paint the corners with his putter.

MR: Are you prepared to walk with Tiger’s group next week?

Pepper: If he’s playing, yes. Muirfield Village and Augusta National are the two most difficult walks on tour for players but I’m not going to say I’d be shocked if Tiger shows up. Roger Maltbie told me when I first started doing this, "Never say never around Tiger."