[TV] Clint Eastwood Launches New Golf Network Back9

Posted by Joseph Lee on 02.09.2012

Bringing fun to the game of golf...

Clint Eastwood is helping to launch a new golf network called Back9Network. He has been named creative board chairman and founding shareholder.

Eastwood plays golf frequently and owns the Tehama Golf Club in Carmel, California. He is also an investor in Pebble Beach.

He will meet with the people in charge of Back9 once per quarter to look at programming and casting choices for the network. The network is looking to launch this spring and is currently in talks with distributors.

Chief executive James Bosworth said: "He'll be a big picture sounding board. It was natural to seek his advice. There's no better guy to go to for a golf media company." Bosworth met Eastwood in the mid-90s and the two are still friends. They regularly golf together. Eastwood was originally asked for advice on the project two years ago.

Eastwood has already looked at the network's pilots, storyboards and casting choices. He even had an interview with the network's show You're So Money, hosted by LPGA star and runway model Anna Rawson.

The network will also have a daily studio show called The Scorecard, a reality show called Extreme Golf in which celebrities play on the wildest golf holes (like the top of a building), Lucky Me, starring Jackie Flynn as he travels to extravagant golf courses, and Hole Lotta Love, a dating series in which couples play with three dates and eliminate one at each hole.

Bosworth told the crowd at the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando last month: "For a very, very long time, golf has been about a bunch of stuffed shirts trying to keep people out. The Back9 network is about inclusion… and we're going to bring a hell of a lot of fun to the game of golf."