{"id":7672,"date":"2018-09-07T15:31:31","date_gmt":"2018-09-07T19:31:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2018\/09\/07\/burton-shadows-cbs-golf-analyst-dottie-pepper\/"},"modified":"2022-11-06T20:11:21","modified_gmt":"2022-11-07T01:11:21","slug":"burton-shadows-cbs-golf-analyst-dottie-pepper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/burton-shadows-cbs-golf-analyst-dottie-pepper\/","title":{"rendered":"A summer peppered with experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

For years, members of the Furman women\u2019s golf team have dreamed of walking in the footsteps of former LPGA star and current television golf analyst Dottie Pepper \u201987. But nobody has done it quite so literally as Marra Burton \u201920<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Burton spent the summer shadowing Pepper as she worked on the CBS broadcast crew, and job duties that started with driving a cart evolved into following Pepper step for step inside the ropes at Bellerive Country Club in Town and Country, Missouri, during the most dramatic tournament of the 2018 golf season: The PGA Championship<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tiger Woods, once the most dominant male player in the sport\u2019s history, was trying to chase down Brooks Koepka for his first major win in almost a decade, and that resurgence increased ratings 69 percent compared to the year before while drawing a gallery of thousands. Pepper was assigned to follow him all weekend, which meant Burton was right there the whole time, too, just off camera holding the monitor and other equipment as Pepper did live commentary.<\/p>\n

\"Furman

Burton, left, poses with Pepper during a break in the PGA Championship. A communications studies major, she shadowed Pepper for four PGA tournaments over the summer.<\/p><\/div>\n

That crackling energy isn\u2019t something she\u2019ll soon forget.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was unbelievable, being yards, feet, inches away from Tiger Woods,\u201d Burton said. \u201cIt was crazy to just feel his emotion on the course, because it was infectious to the entire crowd \u2026 It felt like the crowd was cheering for me, and they weren\u2019t. I was so excited about the whole thing I forgot to eat on Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite shooting 64 on Sunday, the best final round at a major in his career, Woods ultimately came up two shots short thanks to Koepka\u2019s record 72-hole score. Burton called that the highlight of a summer that saw her also work The Memorial in Columbus, Ohio, the FedEx St. Jude Classic in Memphis, Tennessee, and A Military Tribute in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, but the cumulative experience has solidified her career aspirations.<\/p>\n

\u201cTV is what I want to do,\u201d Burton, a communications studies major<\/a>, said. \u201cEver since I was 8 years old my dream was to be the anchor on The Today Show.\u201d<\/p>\n

Golf is perhaps the most complicated sport to televise, and Pepper gave Burton the opportunity to be exposed to as many aspects of the production as possible. One that stands out was being allowed into a broadcast trailer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like conducting an orchestra,\u201d Burton said. \u201cThe biggest thing that was shocking to me about the whole thing is I didn\u2019t realize how many people were involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had a transformer blow on Friday, and she was right there in the middle of all of trying to get that truck online for the weekend,\u201d Pepper said. \u201cThat\u2019s experience you can never buy \u2026 She was full of questions. Her ears were wide open, eyes were wide open, and I hope she got a lot out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A member of the Furman Athletics Hall of Fame<\/a>, Dottie Pepper is one of the most decorated athletes in school history. A three-time All-American, she led the Paladins to three top-four finishes at the NCAA Championships, highlighted by a runner-up showing her senior year in 1987 and a second-place individual performance as a sophomore in 1985.<\/p>\n

Pepper went on to win 17 tournaments on the LPGA Tour<\/a> from 1988-2004, including two majors, and after retiring as a player she became one of the most sought-after television golf analysts, working for The Golf Channel, NBC, ESPN and now CBS.<\/p>\n

Burton got up the courage to ask if she could be an intern of sorts when Pepper, in town to serve as the emcee<\/a> for the 2017 Athletics Hall of Fame Banquet, had breakfast with the women\u2019s golf team. Pepper was impressed with how Burton presented herself in an e-mail query, and while many Furman players have sought her advice on the course Burton was the first to seek Pepper\u2019s television expertise.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Television) was my Plan B pretty much the whole time, but we didn\u2019t have a communications major at Furman so you sort of had to plug in the things that would help you cobble that together,\u201d Pepper, who majored in health and physical education with a minor in business, said. \u201cI put her in situations where she had to interact with people who were at a level that she would like to get to and beyond and put her in social and work situations where she excelled. She was terrific.\u201d<\/p>\n

So terrific CBS ended up paying Burton for all four tournaments, and she\u2019s been offered the chance to pick up where she left off next summer.<\/p>\n

But first, Burton, a native of Louisville, Kentucky, will turn her attention to helping Furman reach its third straight NCAA Championship. Asked which Dottie Pepper inspires her more \u2013 the player or the analyst \u2013 she couldn\u2019t say.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is a huge inspiration to me in my golf game and in my studies,\u201d Burton said. \u201cShe was a legend in golf, and now she\u2019s a legend with broadcast as well. I have so much respect for her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Furman<\/a> opens its season Sept. 9 at the Cougar Classic in Charleston.<\/p>\n

\"Furman

Burton stands in front of the scoreboard at the 2018 PGA Championship.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For years, members of the Furman women\u2019s golf team have dreamed of walking in the footsteps of former LPGA star and current television golf analyst Dottie Pepper \u201987. But nobody […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,3,20,51,21,61,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-alumni","category-business-and-accounting","category-communication-studies","category-health-sciences","category-the-furman-advantage","category-top-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7672\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}