Pepper’s pardon is appreciated by
the former player—and deserved
Doing live television is a tightrope walk over unemployment without a safety net. Personalities are constantly one poorly chosen sentence away from a career-ending blunder. Words once
uttered hang heavy in the air and cannot be unspoken. And
thanks to You Tube and other social media, they exist
forever, a haunting reminder of the day it all went wrong.
Unlike writers, who can edit, polish and refine their ideas,
on-air TV talent offers up a first draft of their thoughts, an
improvised script with no second act.
Dottie Pepper of NBC and Golf Channel is one of the best
in the business, a smart, honest, insightful woman who
dispenses opinion in well-measured doses balanced between
the critical and the complimentary. And although
her characterization of Americans Sherri Steinhauer and Laura Diaz as “choking freaking dogs”
made when a producer left a microphone open
during a break at the 2007 Solheim Cup in Sweden
enhanced Pepper’s reputation for brutal honesty, it
seemingly ended her chances to ever captain the
U.S. side in the biennial competition against Europe.
But on the Wednesday before the U.S. Women’s
Open at a sweltering Blackwolf Run in Kohler,
Wis., Meg Mallon, who will captain the U.S. team
at Colorado GC next year, gave Pepper a pardon.
By naming Pepper one of her assistant captains
for 2013, Mallon opened the door for Dottie to be
a captain for the Americans down the road. This
was a wise move and overdue. For five years,
Pepper has been shunned by many LPGA players
still furious for her remarks as Steinhauer and
Diaz lost the 16th and 18th holes to halve their
alternate-shot match against Maria Hjorth and
Gwladys Nocera.
“It was Dottie in her passion and her passion
for the game and her passion for the Solheim
Cup,” Mallon said about those remarks in
Halmstad. “I know it wasn’t out of ill will by any
part. That’s where I feel Dottie needed to stop
carrying this burden around and that she needs
to be part of this event, and these players need to
get to know the Dottie I know. She arguably was the face
of the Solheim Cup in the ’90s.” Indeed, it was Dottie’s
face the Europeans put on a punching bag at one memorable Solheim Cup in 1998.
An emotional Pepper, whose voice broke several times,
showed a side of herself not often seen. One of the fiercest
competitors ever to play the LPGA—and not one to show
weakness—Pepper was contrite, apologetic and appeared
genuinely sorry for her remarks and grateful for a chance
to get back in the Solheim Cup family. A likely blueprint is
that Juli Inkster will be the U.S. captain in 2015 with
Pepper taking her turn in 2017.
“I don’t know if there’s a broadcaster in sports that hasn’t
said something that they don’t regret saying, whether it was
intended for the air,” Pepper said. “There is not a day really
that goes by that I don’t regret that it happened. I screwed
up. The guy on the switch screwed up, we all screwed up.”
Scott Halleran/getty imageS
An emotional Pepper said not a day went by when she didn’t regret her on-air gaffe during the 2007 Solheim Cup.
The third Solheim Cup was played at The
Greenbrier in 1994 after Europe pulled off a
stunning upset in 1992. European captain Mickey
Walker remembers the look on Pepper’s face early
that week. “She was so determined,” Walker said.
‘There was no way she was going to let them lose.”
Pepper, in fact, was a remarkable 13-5-2 in
Solheim Cup play. Now, after five years of exile, she is back
in the Solheim Cup fold. Pepper paid the price; it was well
past time for everyone to move on. Golf is better with
Dottie Pepper in it. n
