Nearly 10 years ago now, Cara Banks switched on the Golf Channel in her hotel room at the PGA Championship and watched Kelly Tilghman host “Live From” onsite at Oak Hill Country Club. Banks, who was there working for Sky Sport’s Golfing World, immediately knew that’s what she wanted to do.
“It is a bit pinch-me,” said Banks of how that dream became reality.
Banks, 37, heads over to Scotland on Saturday evening to prep for the 150th British Open Championship at St. Andrews, three nights after husband Ollie’s departure. She’ll stay through the week working as host for Golf Channel’s “Live From” shows as well as play-by-play of streaming coverage from the Old Course.
Ollie, managing director at CM Management, will head from the Scottish Open to the British and then home for a few days before flying to meet client Kipp Popert at the U.S. Adaptive Open at Pinehurst.
They’ll then meet back home in Connecticut, pack up their two young children and return to the U.K. to visit family. What sounds slightly chaotic actually makes a lot of sense given that the children tend to do better at home in their routines with a nanny, while mom and dad work the long hours of a major championship.
“Everyone warns you that having two is like 100,” said Banks, who gave birth to daughter Tiggy in November. Son Jesse turned 3 in June.
“One is one and two is 100. … I was joking with my friend, why didn’t you shout this from the rooftops? This is mental!”
Obviously, neither of the Banks, both British, would change a thing. There are no typical days in the Banks home, with both traveling and Cara heading into the studio at varying hours when not working from the kitchen table. They’re currently in the midst of a remodel of their Fairfield home, turning the garage into a second office.
“What I say to everyone,” said Banks while in the midst of a 12-day trip in Augusta, Georgia, last April, “is that I think working makes me a better mom.”
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Cara Banks’ (formerly Robinson) career inspiration began with Davina McCall, a British presenter who rose to fame as the host of the television series “Big Brother.”
“I loved how it felt like she was talking to you,” said Banks, who studied politics at Newcastle University but took her first job as a runner on a Saturday night chat show making cups of tea.
Banks realized early on, however, that sport suited her more than entertainment and the 6-foot-1 netballer, having been brought up in a…
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