INTERVIEW
Tim Barter:
the true pro of golf broadcasting
The PGA Member and Sky Sports Golf presenter has brought us countless interviews from the Ryder Cup over the years – including when Ian Poulter got his nickname as The Postman in 2010 at Celtic Manor
Tim Barter has been part of the Sky Sports Golf fabric for the past 33 years. He was part of their first-ever European Tour broadcast and, in the early days, found a way to combine eight weeks away with his club pro job at Botley Park, in Southampton. When the Sky job grew in scale, Barter went full-time with the broadcaster and, throughout the past three decades, he has educated and informed audiences, making us laugh and even cry occasionally. He and Ewan Murray have provided the backbone of Sky Sports’ golf coverage. His love for the game is unstinting and he is a welcome and friendly face to all the players whether interviewing them during or after a round. As a coach, he has worked with the likes of Seve Ballesteros, Darren Clarke and Andrew Coltart among many others. But the main constant has been Richard Bland, with whom Barter has enjoyed a 21-year partnership, which peaked at The Belfry in 2021 when the Englishman recorded his maiden win on his 478th tour start at the British Masters. The post-round interview, conducted by his coach, was one of the highlights of the golfing year.
Where do your skills lie as a coach?
I feel I’m at my best coaching club players. I like to keep things simple, easy to understand. I never wanted to coach tour players, and I had no ambition to do so. There are some coaches who focus on that elite level – to me they’re like Harley Street specialists whose knowledge allows them to fine-tune the best in the game.
I started as an assistant at The Downshire GC in Berkshire aged 16. At 19, I won my tour card and planned to ease Seve and co aside but quickly realised I didn’t have the talent to do so. Being ambitious, I turned my attention to becoming a top-class club pro. I worked for a great professional called Roger Mace whose speciality was merchandising, and he ran a very successful shop. He was a merchandising lecturer for The PGA so I was brilliantly taught in that respect. I had been lucky enough to work under a guy who taught me how to repair clubs to a high standard, I played well enough to be competitive as a club pro but needed to strengthen my coaching, which I considered a weakness.
Whose brains would you pick while you were learning your trade?
I wrote to a lot of the best coaches in the world and asked them whether I could come and watch them work. I’d read books and watched videos but I needed to actually go and see how the best coaches actually did it. To a man, they allowed me to do it. A couple of them charged me, most of them didn’t. I went to America and watched David Leadbetter, Chuck Cook, Hank Haney, and in the UK the likes of John Jacobs, John Sterling and Ian Connelly. I just sat and watched them teach and formulated my own style of teaching. I now felt ready and got my first club pro job at Hartley Wintney in 1983. I quickly got a reputation as a good teacher, which I didn’t really expect to get to be honest. I then got into the county and national set-ups and it had all just developed out of nothing really.
“Unfortunately, when players get emotional so do I – I cry a lot”
What do you think made you stand out?
I think my ability to communicate is probably my best asset, people seem to understand the way I put things, and I worked hard at trying to find lots of different ways to put the message across. Everyone learns differently – some by listening and having things explained, others from feelings and images. So that is where I put a lot of my energy, and that appears to have been a key because that is how I got into TV, they wanted a coaching mind as part of the Sky team.
In your career interviewing, which wins have stayed with you?
When Justin Rose won the US Open at Merion in 2013, that was big. I’ve known Justin since he was seven or eight, when he was at North Hants, and I coached him a little bit when he was part of the Hampshire juniors. I knew his dad, Ken, well – he was a brilliant guy who did a great job on him. When Justin won the Order of Merit at Valderrama I was there to interview him, so that was special.
The US Open was a funny one. Generally, when a player wins a Major, there is a very strict protocol that has to be followed over who gets to talk to them first. Phil Mickelson was coming up the last, and Justin was in a sort of holding position in the scorer's area, and my producer said to try and get hold of Justin because it looked like he was going to win his first Major. I was looking through the window and one of the officials came out and said, “no, no, no, don’t even think about it”, as the American host broadcaster was always given the first interview. At which point, Justin came outside and said, “Barty did you want me?”, and told the official that it was fine as we’d been mates for 100 years. So that was terrific, we had a lovely interview and we talked about the gesture of looking up to the sky and saying, ‘hey dad we did it’. I get emotional now thinking about it. Unfortunately, when players get emotional so do I – I cry a lot.
You and Jose Maria Olazabal have also shared some special moments?
I had two massive blubs at the 2012 Ryder Cup with Jose Maria. I had developed a close relationship with him over the years and particularly in the run-up to that Ryder Cup. The Miracle at Medinah comeback was completely and utterly ridiculous and being close to him and knowing what it meant to him made me emotional too. I knew through the grapevine that they were going to wear images of Seve on their shirts on the Sunday and that when I asked him before the singles about Seve, which I had to do journalistically, I knew that he would lose it. So I saved that for the end and he just burst into tears, just couldn’t speak. That then set me off and I burst into tears, and I literally could not stop myself crying. Then when Europe won, I asked how it felt to lead his team to victory in such dramatic fashion. He just looked at the skies and says: "This one is for him!" His hat went over his face and he's in floods of tears. I'm incredibly privileged to be in that position. I’m the first guy who gets to talk to the winning captain, and I find that almost unbelievable every time I do it.
How I treat the first lesson
When I first tried golf, like many, I treated shots that took off as successes and ones that went along the ground as failures. As a result, everybody instinctively leans back and hits up on the ball because it works in every other sport. As a young assistant pro teaching someone new to the game, I would take them on the range with a 7-iron, tee the ball up and try and educate them to a point when they get the ball consistently into the air. Battling instinct can make this difficult. I now take them on the putting green to start with and teach them good habits in terms of aim, alignment and grip. So we start from two or three feet, then we get a little further away and hopefully they hole a few and enjoy some initial success, I then take them off the green and put a club with some loft in their hands but use a putting stroke stance and action. Of course, the loft causes the ball to take off. And they think, 'I didn’t do anything, I just hit it'. I’m unconsciously getting them to realise it’s not their job to get it airborne. The key factor I focus on is helping them to enjoy their first encounter with the game. I think my first go was frustrating as the more I tried to make the ball take off the more it went along the ground.
What do you remember about coaching Seve?
The first time that I coached Seve was at a corporate day. Ewan suggested to Seve that I look at his swing as he was struggling with his game. Seve quite liked what I said, we ended up doing a little bit of work together and he played a bit better, which was nice. Then at the Spanish Open in Madrid in 1995, Seve was asking Ken Brown about his swing. Ken would acknowledge his expertise is more in the short game and he spotted me and, again, suggested that I got involved. In short, Seve had unfortunately misdiagnosed what he was doing wrong. His destructive shot was a pull hook, which is often caused by an out-to-in swing path, with a closed face to that path, and Seve assumed it was and was working on swinging more to the right. But there are occasions where an extremely closed face can cause the ball to start left even when the swing path is to the right – and this was the case here.
I explained this to him but he needed proof so I placed a massive headcover just outside the ball, blocking an out-to-in swing path. He flushed the first shot dead straight and said “You’re a very clever man. You have cured me but you are completely wrong in your analysis, you have put the headcover down to prove I’m not swinging to the left, but seeing it there stops me swinging left and the ball goes straight."
I explained the shot was a one off and asked him to hit some more and, before long, he hit one of the pull hooks, starting 40 yards left with hook and the headcover was still sitting there. And I repeated that it was a double closed clubface and that he wasn't swinging to the left as he would have hit the headcover.
“Maybe I came over the headcover?” I politely pointed out that he’d picked the ball cleanly off the tee and, had he come at a steep enough angle to come over the headcover, he would have squashed the tee into the ground.
Then we started to work on fixing it. He actually won the tournament, I’m not saying he hit everything dead straight but he played a little bit better than he would have done, and it was a dream come true to coach my hero. And it turned out to be his last win as a professional.
“Butch Harmon teaches in a way that I try to teach. He has this incredible knowledge but he just keeps it very simple”
You were on the other end of the microphone when Ian PouIter delivered his famous 'I will deliver a point' line at the 2010 Ryder Cup ahead of the singles?
I was asked to go to the range to grab a couple of players. I knew that Poulter would be up for it because he always was, he was great to work with from that point of view. I didn’t want to take too much of his time. Having asked for his thoughts on a couple of things, I asked about playing Matt Kuchar, who had been in great form of late. And he just calmly said: "I will deliver a point." I was listening but also forming the next question in my mind, and started to ask it, and then I said: “What?! You are guaranteeing that you are going to deliver a point?” And he replied: “I will deliver a point, I will win this match."
I was told that Tiger was watching in the team room, and he got on a buggy and raced to the range to tell Kuchar what Poulter had just said. Poulter went out and won quite comfortably, and that's where The Postman nickname came from. A lot of players might think like that but you are never going to say it. It reminded me a bit of Seve, Seve might have said it to me off camera but never on it. Those are the moments where you really pinch yourself.
What should we be paying attention to when we watch the tour pros at events?
I had one guy who wanted to join a very famous club and he was having a playing audition. He told me that I had 10 days to make him at least look like a 10-handicap player because that's what he told them that he was. He was actually nearer 20. I chose to spend 10 days working on his short game as I knew we could make an instant impact on his scoring and give him a chance. On the day, his pitching, chipping and putting were sharp, he shot 12 over, his best ever round, and they let him in.
So I would say if you are going to watch a tournament, pay particular attention to their short games. Go and watch them on the practice greens, take a mental note of how they set up to different shots and copy it, you can’t build a good house on poor foundations. During the round itself, picture how you would play that shot and see whether you would play it the same way, you’ll see whenever possible they get the ball on the ground quickly. You may not have the athleticism to copy their golf swing but you can become as proficient as they are from 100 yards in. Also, go to the range and see how they go about warming up, the process they use and how many shots they hit with each club, how smoothly they swing their irons and how they vary their target rather than necessarily aiming at the same target all the way through.
The day that a Mr Smith booked in for a lesson
Andrew Coltart was the first tour pro to ask me to be their coach and I said, ‘thanks, but no thanks’. I didn’t feel qualified. I knew I would get too invested and worry too much about him missing cuts and I was busy with TV and coaching at home. He kept asking, and I kept saying no. Then I had a lesson booked at my club in Southampton with a Mr Smith, and I got to the range and there was Andrew standing in front of me. He said it was the only way he could get me to coach him and that the least that I could do after him driving all the way down was to have a look at him. He was in a bit of a pickle at the time. We tweaked a couple of things and he finished fourth and second in the next two events that he played. Then his manager, Chubby Chandler, rang up and said, ‘he's not taking no for an answer now’. One of his goals was to become a Ryder Cup player and six months into our work he became one at Brookline in 1999.
If you were having a lesson tomorrow, who would it be with?
Butch Harmon – all day long. He is a great friend, which is lovely, but he is a wonderful, wonderful coach. He just teaches in a way that I try to teach. He has this incredible knowledge but he just keeps it very simple. Sometimes I listen to people talking about his coaching, and they say it is too simplistic – how can you be too simplistic? I have watched the evolution of people’s swings under him and it is just a gentle improvement. It ends up looking, quite often, reasonably different but it is a gentle process and done in the right way to keep them playable while he works with them. He would be the guy that suits me personally. If you are a player who likes intricate detail, then Pete Cowen is hard to beat. Pete has an incredible knowledge, and he's taught me a lot about the swing.