FEATURE
By Tom Cunneff
Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer was on the par-5 second at Pebble Beach Golf Links in November 2015 when his cell phone rang.
“How soon can you get to Paris?” Bill Shine, the head of Fox News, wanted to know.
A coordinated series of terrorist attacks resulting in more than 130 deaths and 400 injured left the city, the country, and the world in a state of shock. Before Hemmer made the turn, the network’s travel department had him booked on two redeyes. Although he was able to finish playing Pebble for the first time, he missed getting to play it again the next day along with Cypress Point the day after that.
“I’ve had more than a few rounds ruined by breaking news,” says Hemmer, the cohost of America’s Newsroom weekdays 9 a.m. – 11 a.m. ET. “As much as I love golf, work comes first.”
The possibility of cutting a round short once again hangs in the crisp, fall air as we play Quaker Ridge, the A.W. Tillinghast gem right next door to Winged Foot in Westchester County, N.Y. Israel had approved a ceasefire in Gaza that morning, but by the start of the back nine, reports start filtering in that the deal might be unraveling, and Hemmer was rightly distracted. They turned out to be false, and we continued with our round.
As a student of golf architecture and a 10 handicap with a good athletic move, Hemmer, 61, appreciates seeing “Tilly’s Treasure” for the first time, pointing out various features that catch his eye. He seems to have a great attitude, too, about the game and the ability to enjoy himself no matter what the scorecard says.
“It’s the best walk, and there’s great value in walking and competing through some of the most beautiful pieces of nature,” he says. “For those who haven’t made it a hobby, I feel they’re missing out.”
The game has become his refuge since he started playing in 2014. If work, weather, or other commitments keep him off the course, he feels it mentally.
“Whether I’m playing well or not, golf has become a wonderful companion,” he says. “I prefer the former, but I don’t always get the former. If I don’t get out, I notice it. I think it affects my mood. I find that I need it, and it helps me clear the brain. It helps me recharge and come back (to work) stronger.”
Raised in Cincinnati, Hemmer first became interested in broadcasting when he and a friend started a radio show in high school. While earning a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, he started working as a sports reporter and anchor at a couple of local stations in Cincinnati in the mid-1980s. At his first network job at CNN in Atlanta from 1995 to 2005, he covered just about every major news event, including 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He joined Fox News in August 2005, and the next thing he knew, he was in New Orleans covering Hurricane Katrina. He’s been to the Middle East more times than he can remember and was the network’s lead reporter and anchor on the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 and the Boston Marathon bombing the next year.
“My father sold mattresses, and I saw him leave the house at 8 o’clock every morning and come back at 6 o’clock in the evening,” Hemmer recalls. “I said to him, ‘Pops, I’ve got to find something more interesting to keep me interested.’ I found that if you can find a job that challenges your mind, makes you think, you will never lose interest in that job. And if my dad did it for 35, 40 years, I’m going to have to do something for 35 or 40 years. I feel very fortunate to have found (a profession) where I’m never bored.”
Stories he’s covered that are still top of mind are 9/11, of course, and the Haiti earthquake in 2010.
“They have a challenge for everything in their life and then got hit with this natural disaster,” he says of the 7.0 magnitude tremor that took more than 200,000 lives and left more than 1 million homeless. “If you’re able to cover these big stories and to do it many times on the scene, you try to keep your head away from your heart. And if you can do that, you can think through the story and not allow the emotions of the story to affect your thoughts, your reporting – but it can be difficult.
“Sandy Hook had the same effect on me,” he adds. “I just was in Gaza a couple months ago, and that reminded me of so many other trips that I’ve made to that region, covering so many wars.”
Those include visits in 2002 to report on the second intifada and in 2006 for Israel-Hezbollah war.
When Hemmer is not on the road, he likes to play at his home club, Meadow Brook in Jericho, N.Y., at least once a week. He joined the Long Island club in 2018 after playing it more than a few times with Steve Lessing and Lessing’s brother Jack, the president of Summit Golf Brands, which includes MGA clothing partner B. Draddy. One day, Steve Lessing jokingly said to him, “You know, it’s only free for so long.”
Hemmer took the humorous hint and joined.
“It’s a place of joy, and I find myself longing for it more and more every year because you become part of the community and develop friendships,” he says. “The golf pros, Matt Dobyns and Bill Van Orman, are awesome, and the practice facility is first-class. Then, of course, there’s the fantastic, challenging golf course. I’m lucky that they waved me in, and I’ve never taken it for granted.”
He also has a winter membership at the Bridgehampton, the historic nine-holer near his home in Sag Harbor, N.Y., that he joined in 2015. He started playing the year before after a couple of friends invited him to play at Shinnecock Hills in Southampton, N.Y., on summer day. Between the invitation at noon on a Sunday and the Wednesday morning tee time, he estimates he hit about 8,000 balls to get ready. The first hole couldn’t have gone better, the other 17 not so much.
“It could not have been worse – utter humiliation, not understanding how to get from here to there 80 yards away,” he says. “I was driving home, and my buddies were calling me, ‘How was Shinny?’ One of them said, ‘You need to go to the Leadbetter Academy and understand what you’re doing wrong. … Crystal Springs (the resort in New Jersey) just opened one.’ I was there by Saturday, and I met Sean Hogan from Dublin, Ireland, and he got me started along a new and sometimes wonderful route.”
Hemmer’s had many great golf memories since that dreadful first day – perhaps none better than following Tiger Woods inside the ropes during the third round of the 2019 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, which Fox Sports was broadcasting.
“It was a great privilege,” he says. “I remember just about everything he did during that round and even got to chat with his caddie, Joe LaCava, in the scoring tent.”
Of course, any time he gets to complete a round, even one he’s just watching, is a good day.