Q&A - Carson Daly
Before Carson Daly became a household name, he was in Southern California dreaming of winning golf tournaments. After dropping out of college and toying with the idea of turning professional, Daly took an internship with a radio station and found himself more at ease behind the microphone than executing the must-make putt. Quickly rising through the ranks of radio up and down the California coast allowed Daly to relocate to New York City for the bright lights of television.
It was at MTV that Daly became the star he is today. His first television show, Total Request Live, entrenched Daly in the pop culture scene and opened seemingly any door he wanted in the industry. NBC’s “Last Call with Carson Daly” is currently in its fifth season and has helped broaden the Los Angeles native’s reach. A syndicated radio show and an expanding record label leave the 32-year-old with time for only one round of golf a month. The onetime scratch golfer cherishes any opportunity to play or give back to the game, and twenty years from now envisions an opportunity to compete on the professional level.
-Hilary Howard
How did you get your start in golf?
My father passed away when I was young. My mother remarried and my step dad was a huge golf enthusiast and worked for the PGA of America and the golf shop at Riviera Country Club. There was a lot of motivation to get going in the game of golf. I was a good basketball player and I played baseball so golf wasn’t an easy sell when I was 12. When I was 14, I got bitten by the golf bug. I started playing every day and then played four years in high school.
You had a partial golf scholarship to Loyola Marymount – were you recruited by other schools?
No. I recruited myself to a lot of schools which means I wasn’t smart enough to get into those establishments. I begged them to let me come and play golf for them but they said no. I really wanted to go to UCLA and I played a lot with that team in L.A., and a little bit with the USC team. I looked at a few schools back east to play golf but my father had gone to Loyola Marymount, my sister went to LMU and the golf coach at LMU was a roommate of my dad’s in college. It was too close to home to not take advantage of the opportunity to stay in Southern California and play golf.
After dropping out of LMU after a year, how seriously did you think about Q school?
That was probably when I thought the most seriously about it because I dropped out and moved to Palm Springs and played on The College of the Desert golf team. They were better than LMU and most division I schools. That environment was better for me and my game, and for thinking about going to Q School and at the time playing some Golden State Tour events. It never really got that far. I didn’t really have the funding for Q School and my game was not really at that point because I had just started interning at a radio station. My career was going in a different direction but I tried to qualify for the U.S. Open at age 18 and blew up in the 36-hole qualifier. I think that was the sign that I wasn’t good.
Do you have any regrets with not sticking with golf?
No. But I have been eyeing the Champions Tour. Golf is always going to be there and I also get to live vicariously through my friends like Jason Gore, Pat Perez or certainly Tiger. I get to play the AT&T and the Bob Hope and other events, so I get my fix on what it might have been like to play inside the ropes.
What was Tiger like as a junior golfer?
He was so mean to all the other kids ... I’m kidding. He was great. He was on That’s Incredible when he was like seven. That’s the main question everybody asks…did you know Tiger would be this good? And the answer is yes. I mean his work ethic was incredible. We were all kids just trying to get off the golf course and go to the beach or something. Tiger would just pound balls for hours and hours and hours. The guy was amazing at a young age.
What’s the best golf tip you’ve ever received?
Quit.
Who is the best celebrity golfer you’ve played with?
I played a few holes with some that were really good like a Jack Wagner or a John Elway. Dan Marino was really good. I played with Kenny G a couple times and he hit the ball great. Charles Barkley has the worst swing I’ve ever seen, bar none. I mean it’s atrocious.
Is it true you caddied for O.J. Simpson?
Yes that’s true, all through high school. That’s how I made my summer money was caddieing for him, Marcus Allen and their friends at Riviera over a span of three years.
Talk about your relationship with Jason Gore and the experience of being at the final round at Pinehurst.
It was awesome. I feel bad that he thinks I’m his black cat that I brought him bad luck by showing up and him shooting 81. But you know, I love the guy. I can’t say enough good things about him. I had a house full of people and I just left everybody and jumped on a plane, showed up at midnight. My mom’s from the North Carolina area and Peter Jacobsen’s a good buddy so I called him and he got me the passes I needed to surprise Jason. And just to be there at 7:00 in the morning and surprise him on the range was great. The mere thought that my friend might win the U.S. Open, not to mention to celebrate the fact that he had done so well - there’s no way I couldn’t have been there. There’s no way I was going to watch him win the U.S. Open on television.
How did the Carson Daly Invitational come about?
I was just trying to support the golf team at LMU. The golf coach there is a good friend of mine who helped me with my game when I was young and that was just my way of wanting to sponsor something and give back. They named it after me which wasn’t part of the plan. I don’t think that tournament would have happened without some help or funding and I was glad to be the one to do it.
What role does golf play in your life?
Golf has been just a great metaphor for how I really try to conduct myself as a man. The rules and etiquette of the game and the way I was brought up really taught me a lot about respect. I love to play it as a sport, but more importantly are the lessons I learned through golf that I apply to my everyday life.
What was the pressure like playing before a big crowd at the AT&T?
As soon as the week at Pebble is done, you realize you can never prepare for it. I mean you can’t hit enough balls, you can’t play enough rounds with friends. There’s nothing you can do to prepare for playing in front of those crowds and playing inside of the ropes, especially on the peninsula. It’s wonderful, it’s terrifying and it’s nerve-wracking. It’s a rare opportunity to get to do that and it really shows you who has got some nerve and who doesn’t. I’m not one of them. I shank it off the first tee at Pebble or any of the courses. At Nos. 1 and 10, people applaud and then it gets really quiet and you’re over the ball and you’re going, “Please don’t shank this one,” and then of course I always do.
How does that compare to the pressure of the big interview?
You know it’s funny, because they are two distinctly different things for me. I must be really dumb. In front of the camera I don’t really make the connection that behind that lens is however many millions of people watching. To me, I’m just sitting in front of somebody and asking questions and that doesn’t make me nervous at all. When I give speeches, I don’t get stage fright it’s what I do for a living. But when they announce you and there are a 1,000 people there, 500 people there, I am terrified. I don’t know what that says about me.
How did you like living and working in San Francisco and San Jose?
It was just great. My sister still lives there with her family and I have very close friends in the Bay Area. My time working in San Jose at KOME was amazing. One of my best friends from San Francisco is flying down today as a mater of fact. He’s a radio deejay up there in the city. We met during my time up there and I keep very close connections to all those guys and they’re some of my best friends now. I love Northern California, I love it.
How were you discovered by MTV as an intern?
After KOME in San Jose I moved to KROQ in Los Angeles, a big rock station. MTV had their beach house they have a different beach house every summer. The house was in Hawaii, it was on the Jersey shore, whatever. And it happened to be in Palos Verdes the year I was working at KROQ and they asked me to come down just for the summer to do a little part-time gig and that led to moving back to New York and doing it full time.
Did you ever expect TRL to be as successful as it was?
No, never. No, No, No. When I started, no one was outside, there was no audience inside. It was just me and the camera guys. The name of the show was Total Request Live which was the culmination of two shows I had hosted prior a show called Total Request which was where anybody could request anything, and a show called MTV Live which was kind of a morning news sort of thing. This was a hybrid of both. I jokingly referred to it as TRL by abbreviating it in an almost mocking way. I thought it was Greek or something like that. Before you knew it there was one kid from Jersey who came over and then there was a kid from Connecticut who came down and then kids from the Midwest. All of the sudden we had young people from all over the world coming to New York. It became a big destination spot in the afternoon.
TV Guide has called you "the Pied Piper of Generation Y.” How does that feel?
I don’t know what that means. I’ve been called a lot of things so I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. The one that makes the most sense to me, especially after hearing that comment, is me being an unelected official of a generation. People would always ask me, “What do the kids think about this?” I was a spokesman for a generation and I never asked for that. I’m not a huge pop music fan but millions and millions of kids are. At the end of the day I had the job of playing music that was it, and I was happy to have it.
How was downloading changed the business?
That is difficult to answer in short. It’s been the demise of the business model of the music business. People have lost jobs, people have lost record contracts. It’s probably been great for music enthusiasts and music fans but it has been treacherous to the business. Good for the fan, bad for the business.
What’s the biggest challenge for you being on late night television?
Staying on late night television keeping my job and finding what my voice is in late night. Thank God I’m on when America is asleep. I get a chance to try and get better every time I do a show. And it’s nice to be able to talk to not just musicians but actors, directors, authors and politicians, and also try to find a voice in comedy. It’s been a lot of fun especially when you’re working with very minimal funds. We don’t have the big budget of other late night shows, so we often have to improvise.
What is a typical work day for you?
I’m up at about 6:30 a.m. and I do a radio show for a couple hours every morning; a syndicated show that keeps me busy from about 8:00 to 10:00. I leave from about 10:00 to 12:00 for personal time, just to work out or return e-mails and phone calls. After that I am in the office either preparing to shoot or shooting, rehearsing or taking meetings, whatever it might be from noon to 10:00 at night. Then I go dancing.
Did you enjoy the experience of hosting a New Year’s Eve special live from New York?
It was nice to do it live. To be in the middle of Times Square on New Year’s Eve was really exhilarating and the process of producing the show for the network and trying to build a future for NBC and what they do every year during New Year’s Eve was exciting and fun.
Who has been your best interview?
Guys like Chris Rock are just great because they’re so funny and they’re great at what they do. Those guys are easy to interview because they are so entertaining and the crowd really gets into it. Guys like Adam Sandler, Chris Rock or Jim Carrey. Those guys are awesome, you don’t have to do anything.
Your most difficult interview?
Michael Jackson. The interview itself wasn’t hard but the process was because he’s such a huge star and he has a lot of people around him. I ended up asking the questions they wanted me to ask and that’s kind of a difficult environment to work in.
You are involved in so many aspects of the industry – what are your future goals?
Play a little more golf if possible and get settled here in Southern California. I’ve been away from my family for the last eight years living back east. Now I’m home so my immediate goal is to reconnect with my family and spend time here and then hopefully continue to grow my late night show.