Hybrids are easier to hit. I think Mike's purist option is excellent, but it is the Hogan blade of American television production. The 20 degree hybrid would still have Jack N, but would introduce him and the subject via a different approach. Off the top of my head, imagine this opening voice-over as the images of Newport (etc) fill the screen (for about a minute, until Jack is introduced on camera):
We celebrate our sports stars in America - the men and women who have mastered the games we love.
In golf, the names of past greats resonate with us still: Hogan, Palmer, Nicklaus, Woods, and our first great champion, Bobby Jones.
But in golf, the fields of play, the battlefields upon which these great champions first made their names, are as unique as the golfers themselves.
The great golf courses of America each have their own character - their own look and set of challenges, each manifesting their own particular sense of place: the sea-side, the desert, the lowlands, Long Island, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Nebraska.
It is this that makes golf different than other sports. Boston Gardens, after all, is the home of the Celtics and rich in basketball history -- but the court there is exactly the same size, exactly the same dimension, as any other court in the land.
It is not so with golf courses. And for those who an interested in the art and craft of these golf courses, another set of names are also revered:
Charles Blair Macdonald, the father of American golf course architecture;
Alistir Mackenzie, who along with Bobby Jones designed Augusta National;
Donald Ross, who over 30 years of tinkering perfected his beloved Pinehurst No 2;
and later, men like Robert Trent Jones, the US Open "Doctor";
Pete Dye, who re-fashioned 300 acres of Florida swampland into the wildly dramatic TPC at Sawgrass, with its iconic island green;
and Jack Nicklaus: who won 18 major championship, his last at the 1986 Masters at Augusta, and then turned himself into one of the most successful and prolific golf course architects of all time.
[Talking head: Jack, on the beginning of gca in America. JN is an old pro at tv interviews, and if you tell him beforehand what you'd like to discuss he'll come prepared to talk your ear off. And so from there/him, you can pick up where Mike started, i.e.
-Newport CC as a great historic club - the first US Open and an anecdote about CB Macdonald.
-Transition to NGLA to Oakmont and this years US Open.
-Then to the Olympics and Gil's work in Rio.
-Leads to more discussions on modern masterpieces and Nicklaus, C&C, Doak - Sand Hills, Bandon etc.
- Conclusion about variety in modern design.
- Wrap up, with repeat/version of the off the top voice over]
Peter