Paul Azinger joins PGA TOUR Champions broadcast for 2025 season

KA’UPULEHU-KONA, Hawaii, and PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Ahead of the 2025 PGA TOUR Champions season-opening Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai, the Tour announced Monday that Paul Azinger will be joining the Champions Tour broadcast for the 2025 season. Azinger will be replacing Lanny Wadkins, who served as lead analyst for PGA TOUR Champions since 2011. Wadkins will join Azinger in the booth on-site at Hualalai Resorts, as Azinger makes his debut and Wadkins signs off.

“Joining the PGA TOUR Champions broadcast is going to be a lot of fun,” said Azinger. “These guys are the best senior players in the world – legends of the sport who are still competing at a high level. It’s exciting to get the chance to cover the guys I have been around for so many years.”

A 12-time winner on the PGA TOUR – including the 1993 PGA Championship – Azinger worked as the lead analyst for ESPN and ABC Sports’ golf coverage from 2005-2015, a role he then assumed at FOX Sports before moving to NBC.

“When Lanny Wadkins told us he was retiring and we began looking at who might join our broadcast, Paul Azinger’s name was always at the top of our list,” said Miller Brady, president of PGA TOUR Champions. “Paul’s resume as a player speaks for itself and he’s one of the most recognized voices in our sport. He has called the biggest events in golf and knows the players on our Tour well – he’ll be a fantastic addition and we’re thrilled to have him join PGA TOUR Champions. I’d also like to thank Lanny Wadkins for everything he has done to support his Tour during his time as both a player and in the broadcast booth. He has served as the voice of the Champions Tour for many years and we’re incredibly grateful for his contributions.”

Azinger will be part of a broadcast group that includes hosts Bob Papa and John Swantek, analyst and on-course reporter John Cook, analyst Peter Jacobsen and on-course reporters Billy Ray Brown and John Maginnes.

PGA TOUR Champions events are televised in the United States on Golf Channel, the exclusive cable-television partner of Champions Tour. The 2025 PGA TOUR Champions season begins with this week’s Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai, with all three rounds airing on Golf Channel (Thursday-Saturday, 7-10 p.m. ET).

In addition to Azinger joining the broadcast, the 2025 season will see PGA TOUR Champions telecast produced in the newly unveiled PGA TOUR Studios, a state-of-the-art production studio that will redefine and energize how the TOUR creates and delivers content to golf fans across the globe. PGA TOUR Studios houses all PGA TOUR media operations, including live production of PGA TOUR Champions, Korn Ferry Tour, more than 5,000 hours of PGA TOUR LIVE on ESPN+, as well as the TOUR’s expansive roster of more than 50 original, social and digital media platforms. PGA TOUR Studios is also home to the largest library of golf content in the world, featuring more than 170,000 videos totaling 223,000 hours of content, with the earliest being a film transfer from 1920.

The three-level PGA TOUR Studios sits adjacent to the 187,000-square-foot PGA TOUR headquarters, which opened in 2021. The completion of the campus helped the TOUR achieve LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) BD+C Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council due to its sustainable design and operation with specific approaches to energy conservation, water use reduction and enhanced indoor air quality.

The previous PGA TOUR Entertainment facility in St. Augustine was the home for TOUR productions since November 1997, and with the growth in popularity of professional golf came the increasing need for more technical resources to deliver a better overall experience. Current production calls for more on-course TV cameras, on-course microphones and additional graphics systems, which led to the TOUR outgrowing the capabilities of the previous building, located 22 miles from the TOUR’s current campus. PGA TOUR Studios is built to support the growing production demands and will allow for greater collaboration and efficiency between the creative groups and business operations across the TOUR.

PGA TOUR Studios was designed through a collaboration between Foster + Partners, which also designed PGA TOUR headquarters, and architect of record HLW International. The general contractor was Gilbane Building Company, which utilized Procore software as a construction management solution, with RocaPoint Partners serving as owner’s representative. Systems integration of PGA TOUR Studios was provided by NEP Group. The PGA TOUR wishes to thank St. Johns County for their many years of interest and support. The overall annual economic impact of the PGA TOUR exceeds $1 billion in northeast Florida according to third-party research firm RKG, with the estimated benefit of PGA TOUR Studios expected to net an additional $112 million in total impact.