Meet The Man Behind The Broadcasts Of The ‘Kick Six’ And Tiger’s Masters Miracle

“In your life have you seen anything like that?!”

That line takes golf fans back to an unforgettable image, as Tiger Woods’ ball hung on the lip of the hole before dropping in for an improbable and nearly impossible birdie chip on the 16th hole at Augusta National on Sunday of the 2005 Masters. Woods would go on to win his fourth green jacket in a playoff against Chris DiMarco, birdieing the first playoff hole, but the winning putt on 18 isn’t the memory that is forever etched into the golf fans’ collective mind.

The end result of sporting events go down in record books to be preserved for posterity, but for those watching, it’s the moments, sometimes a final play but other times something that happens well before the final whistle, buzzer, or putt drops. In the age of televised sports, millions watching around the world are able to share those collective memories.

The announcer’s call can become legendary — Verne Lundquist has many of those such calls — but the unheralded people behind creating those moments and telling that particular part of the story are the directors, producers, and men and women in the production trucks and behind cameras.

At CBS Sports, Steve Milton has been the lead director for every Golf on CBS broadcast, including the Masters and PGA Championship, since 1997, as well as the lead director for the SEC on CBS since 2003. In that time, he’s had the chance to tell those stories through the many camera lenses shooting the events, offering the view and series of angles that millions will see and remember those iconic moments by.

Lundquist has been on most every major golf and college football broadcast Steve Milton has directed, and the legendary announcer holds Milton in high esteem for his ability to tell a story visually, allowing Lundquist as an announcer to let the moment shine and the images speak for themselves.

“If I know that Steve is in the truck, I know that I can shut up, as we all should more than we do, and let the director let the sound play, let the guy create a story visually,” Lundquist said. “Nobody comes to mind, but there are certain director of whom you would never say, ‘Boy he’s gonna be brilliant at this.’ They’re technicians instead of storytellers. Steve is one of the ultimate storytellers.”

Among Lundquist’s favorite moments directed by Milton is the 2004 Masters, a year before the famed Tiger chip, when Phil Mickelson took home his green Jacket. Lundquist recalls the decision of Milton to go with an unorthodox camera position for Mickelson’s triumphant putt, which became another iconic image in golf history.

“[In 2004] Steve was the director and he moved the camera on 18,” Lundquist recalls. “Because he moved the camera… it’s one of the great pictures. He moved the camera and kept it low and Jim [Nantz] said, ‘Is it his time?’ The crowd on the far side, the patrons, he said, ‘It’s like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir rising for the benediction.’ There must have been, I don’t know, a couple of thousand people? Steve just, the way he framed the shot and called it is one of my favorite memories of what he does so well.”

On college football broadcasts, Milton has headed up massive moments from LSU-Alabama slugfests to wild Cocktail Party Florida-Georgia games in Jacksonville, but the Iron Bowl between Auburn and Alabama has, without a doubt, produced the most incredible moments for the SEC on CBS in recent years. There was Cam Newton’s absurd 24-point comeback against the No. 11 Tide back in 2010, where Newton cemented his status as the Heisman Trophy winner and one of the best college football players of all-time.

And then there’s the Kick Six. The single most iconic and improbable play in the past decade of college football, as Auburn’s Chris Davis returned a missed Alabama field goal 109 yards as time expired for a touchdown to give No. 4 Auburn the 34-28 win over No. 1 Alabama.

By now, every college football fan can recite by memory the way the Kick Six happened. Alabama running back T.J. Yeldon got knocked out of bounds with one second to play. That second was returned to the clock after a lengthy review and Nick Saban elected to send freshman kicker Adam Griffith out for a 57-yard field goal attempt, with the protection unit in to avoid a block. Chris Davis lurked in the back of the end zone and, after an Auburn timeout, fielded the missed kick and took it up the left sideline for the score.

Lundquist’s call was simple as Davis darted the other way with the ball. “Davis goes left. Davis gets a block! Davis gets another block! Chris Davis! No flags! Touchdown, Auburn! An answered prayer!”

And then, pandemonium in Jordan-Hare Stadium. For more than a minute, Lundquist and Gary Danielson fell silent as crowd noise blared through the speakers, and in the truck, Milton and his crew went to work, trying to capture every possible emotion from both sides.

“What I feel was maybe the finest director’s job I’ve ever been a part of, ever witnessed, was the Chris Davis missed field goal return for 109 yards and the touchdown with no time left,” Lundquist said. “When he went into the end zone and I called the touchdown, Gary and I didn’t say a word to each other. There were no layout, no signs, nothing that we said. We just instinctively knew that let’s let Steve Milton earn an Emmy here. He should have won, by the way. For one minute and twenty seconds, we didn’t say a word and Steve made 20 camera cuts. I know that because I’ve seen it so many times that I’ve counted.”

Lundquist continues.

“He told a story visually that was as well-told as anything I’ve ever been a part of. If you go back and watch the way he conducted the orchestra, and that’s what it was, I can’t imagine what it was like in the truck as he was issuing commands and the guys were following. They’re a unit so they know what Steve wants in a certain situation, but he’s the guy who had to call the shots and he made 20 camera cuts in a minute and twenty one before the producer, Craig, said to me, “All right, let’s roll the replays.” All I said then, and we had not talked for 80 seconds, 81, and I just said, ‘You might want to see that again.'”

For Milton, he got the green light from producer Craig Silver to “milk it” and run through the variety of emotions on display in the stadium.

The stunned Auburn player on the sideline, overcome with happiness and disbelief at what just happened. Nick Saban matter of factly strolling to midfield like at the end of every game. A.J. McCarron darting off the field immediately and hugging his mother and girlfriend near the tunnel. Auburn fans cascading onto the field in celebration and the Alabama fans unable to comprehend what just happened, looking this way and that in disbelief.

“I walked into a candy store,” Milton said. “I mean there was not one bad shot out there. … You juxtapose, you’ve got winners, losers, winners, and then I started seeing these sensational shots in the stand. And this game means everything to these folks and some of the faces, the happy faces and the shocked faces. I think it took a lot of time after the ending for everyone in the stands to process it. Once Verne said no flags I knew it was a reality, but people in the stands were ‘Whoa, whoa, we’re on a kick off or a field goal for a touchdown? This game can’t be over.’ I mean that’s what we saw in the stands. In both a shocked happy fan and shocked Alabama fan, so I got to rely on my crew. There’s no directing there. There’s just shot taking. One after another and I can’t imagine how many shots were in there, but we did run out.”

The aftermath of the Kick Six In Jordan-Hare was the ultimate example of a broadcast letting the moment speak for itself. Milton offered 20 cuts of a dozen subjects to paint the picture of excitement, disbelief, and despair that those in the stadium were feeling and doing so from every viewpoint imaginable.

All the while, the only thing viewers heard through their TVs was the deafening cheers cascading around the stadium.

While Milton loves those moments, when a big game with serious implications on the conference or national title race produces something thrilling, one of his favorite broadcasts to do each year rarely has an effect on the college football world beyond the two schools involved.

The Army-Navy game is the final CBS broadcast of the year and it’s unlike any game they will do all year in the SEC. The week leading up to the game, the production team spends time in both Annapolis and West Point, where they get the chance to tell the stories of young men who, for the most part, aren’t looking ahead to a football future, but instead will be headed to war when their college career ends.

The passion of everyone in the stadium, from the cadets and midshipmen in the stands and on the field gives the game a certain importance that, while it rarely has an effect on a national title or playoff picture, is not found in a college football game anywhere else.

“Going to Annapolis and West Point, I think that’s what stirred me the most early on. … I think what makes me, what takes my breath about the game, about doing the game is the atmosphere is second to none in the sense of it’s uniqueness,” Milton said. “That they are great kids. Everyone of these kids are great kids and they’re all in this game. Sometimes they’re freezing, they’ve got sleeves on and their brothers in arms are on the field battling up and they’re not the best players on the planet, not the best players in college but I don’t know if there are players that give more in a football game than these two people do and to me that’s everything.

It’s not just the scent itself that stands out during Army-Navy for Milton; it’s the spectators who attend and honor the tradition.

“There’s not ever going to be an empty seat,” Milton said. “There’s generals, there’s Secretaries of State. Sometimes there’s presidents. It’s a top three or four event for me, for sure.”

As Tiger Woods’ chip began losing pace and came to a near stop as it reached the lip of the hole, a decision had to be made in the truck. Hold tight on the ball, waiting to see if gravity would exert its will and that magical extra rotation would come, or cut back to Woods’ pained reaction as he watched his miraculous chip hang on the edge.

Milton called for a cut to Woods, but technical director Norm Patterson, who has since passed away, let the shot linger, as the ball dropped in the hole, creating the image that is seared in golf fans’ memories and became the best Nike golf commercial the brand could have ever asked for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRCjJi_uDp8

12 years later, during the final round of the PGA Championship, eventual champion Justin Thomas had his own Tiger moment on the 10th hole as his birdie putt hung on the lip.

For Milton, the experiences of the past, including Woods’ chip-in on 16 at Augusta in 2005, help in those moments. So, in that moment, rather than cut to Thomas lurking around the hole hoping for the ball to drop, the camera simply zoomed in tight on the ball hanging on the lip, giving the viewer the full understanding of how long it was sitting there, before it finally tumbled into the cup.

Milton just wrapped his 21st season as the lead director on CBS’s golf coverage and will soon begin his 15th as the director on the SEC on CBS. Lundquist’s retirement from the weekly college football grind means a new voice in the booth for CBS, as Brad Nessler takes over the play-by-play role alongside Gary Danielson.

While Nessler will bring a new voice to the 3:30 p.m. ET time slot on Saturdays, the images fans see will still be coming via the direction of Milton, as he looks to tell more stories that will become the images of memories.