Former KXLY weekend sports anchor Todd Lewis has been a veteran of sorts working at The Golf Channel, working there since January 2008. He is an on-site reporter and host, talking about the top storylines from the PGA Tour, plus he serves as an interviewer during the NBC-owned channel's PGA Tour tournament coverage.

ON AUG. 3, Lewis was an emcee at The Showcase at the Coeur d'Alene Resort Golf Course, which was a nine-hole exhibition benefitting the Community Cancer Fund, in which PGA golfers teamed up with sports celebrities. Lewis worked at KXLY in 1996-98, has been in broadcasting since 19991 and the event raised $1.83 million to help fight cancer in the Inland Northwest. Currently living with his wife Melanie in Orlando, Fla., he is from North Carolina.

"Any time an event can raise seven figures, that's phenomenal," Lewis said. "That shows tremendous passion by the staff and there's people getting involved with their contributions."

Lewis had the Showcase's audience engaged from the get-go, saying things like, "It's OK to clap" after someone like Spokane native Alex Prugh or a sports celebrity like former NHL goalie Grant Fuhr sank a nice putt from more than 10 feet away. He cracked a couple of corny jokes, one of which involved former placekicker Ryan Longwell of the Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings. His joke after Longwell hit a fairly long drive? "He hit it long and well." Plus he interviewed golfers like Clarkston, Wash., native Joel Dahmen of the Web.com Tour, asking him about his year. Andres Gonzales and Jason Gore rounded out the pro golfers, while former Seattle SuperSonics forward Detlef Schrempf and former St. Louis Cardinals quarterback Neil Lomax rounded out the celebrities.

SHORTLY AFTER the event was over, after golfers took their cracks at The Floating Green on the 14th hole, Lewis spent a few minutes talking about the event and his career. He briefly reminisced about his couple of years working in Spokane.

"My second job in television was at KXLY back in the mid-'90s," Lewis said. "To work here, was kind of corner-turning for me. I hadn't really been to the West Coast. As someone who's from North Carolina and I came here and I enjoyed the people and the beauty and more importantly for me professionally, I learned a lot from (former KXLY broadcasters and current sports talk radio hosts) Rick Lukens and Dennis Patchin. They taught me a lot. And really, any kind of success I have, I owe a lot of it to them."

As someone who knows quite a bit about the qualities of golf courses around the world, Lewis had nothing but great things to say about the Resort's golf course.

"First off, very rarely do I see golf courses that are this well-maintained in such a phenomenal shape as this golf course," Lewis said. "And that (the Floating Green) is iconic, it's really cool. Andres Gonzales, as soon as he turned the corner (near a building), he saw it and said 'This is sick.'"

Lewis reports on all four major championships on the PGA Tour and has quite a few memories during his eight-year run thus far at The Golf Channel. One of them involved Tiger Woods, who in December of 2009 was alleged to have relationships with at least seven mistresses, while still married to then-wife Elin Nordegren, who divorced him on August 23, 2010.

You know your golf career's going a wee bit sidetracked when your name's all over TMZ.com.

"Watching Tiger Woods at his greatest, seeing him fall like this, all the stuff that surrounds him, his injuries, the scandal, I went through all of that. I guess the highlight was I was at his last major championship win, which was (the U.S. Open) in Torrey Pines in 2008 and him making that putt on the 72nd hole, watching that and I was standing with Rocco Mediate, who was leading in the clubhouse and Rocco looked at me and said, 'I knew he was going to make that putt' and it was unbelievable. I think it was a 20-footer (it was 15 feet to force a playoff). Making friendships with a lot of people on the PGA Tour, that's something that off the golf course was really cool. Because these guys are really good guys. A majority of them are, there are a few bad apples, but they're really good guys."

Lewis had to jet to Atlanta to cover yet another big golf story. Rory McIlroy, who on Monday said he's good to go to defend his PGA Championship title,

As someone who is always there, yes you will, Todd Lewis. Yes you will.

Bruce Bourquin is a sports writer at The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2013, via e-mail at bbourquin@cdapress.com or via Twitter @bourq25